How I spent my Spring vacation.

A while back, I asked for recommendations on "things for a space-cadet
to see in Washington DC". I got lots of responses, and followed up on
lots of good advice.

On (off-topic) bit of advice I received: visit the National Zoo. The zoo
was fun. Lions and Tigers and Pandas, oh my. (Any Bob&Ray fans remember
the bit about the Komodo Dragon?) Cue Pat: lots of small, adorably cute,
personality-filled monkeys! Lots of up-hill walking, so wear comfortable
shoes. I'm not sure what to make out of the fact that the M&M vending
machine accepts credit cards.

Unsurprisingly, there are lots of different cuisines available in such a
world-city. For the first time in my life, I had Bulgarian food. Salty,
but otherwise quite good.

All Smithsonian museums are open only 10:30am to 6:00pm. We showed up at
the Air & Space museum early and discovered the wonderful Hershorn
garden across the street. A must-see for any sculpture or garden fan.

When visiting the National Air & Space museum, you used to just walk
through the doors and the first impression was to be in awe of all the
goodies all around you. These days, the first impression is one of those
silly "security checks" that are all too common these days. While
standing in line, I watched and figured out several ways to smuggle
nasty devices through the checkpoint.

Second impression: the Wright Flyer is gone! For years it had been in
the main gallery, surround by other, nearly as significant, artifacts.
The Flyer has been moved to gallery all to itself. The new display does
a much better job of putting the Flyer into context. I was surprised to
learn that Wright Bicycles are even rarer than Wright airplanes. The
Flyer looked wonderful. It appears to have been recently recovered. You
could get much closer to the Flyer than in the past. You can almost (but
not quite) touch it.

Who knew that Skylab was about as tall as the V-2?

An interesting exhibit that was overlooked by just about everyone was a
scale model of the solar system. Everyone knows that the textbook
diagrams of the solar system are not to scale, but the degree of
distortion is often underestimated. There are posts on the sidewalk in
front of the museum, one for sun and each planet, spaced appropriately.
Each post has a scale model of its planet. Jupiter wasn't much bigger
than a fingernail. The posts continued onto the next block. The few kids
who groked it came away with impression that "space is big, and almost
empty".

We saw Fighter Pilot in IMAX. A typical IMAX film: a *lot* of fun, very
visual, and a paper-thin plot. If you've ever wanted to be a pilot, this
is must-see. I was disappointed but unsurprised to find the IMAX theater
had a new name. Some company bought the naming rights and has its name
plastered all over.

There is just so much good stuff at the NASM that it is easy to miss
significant artifacts. Despite having a scrap of original fabric from
the first round-the-world airplane in my den, I nearly missed the big
brown Douglas World Cruiser.

The X-1 is remarkably photogenic. It is hung with care against a nicely
textured stone wall. Lots of viewpoints with great perspective. On the
other hand, ASTP cannot be photographed. You can get Apollo or Soyuz,
but not both - every viewpoint is obstructed. There are a couple of good
viewpoints for the X-15 and its companion lifting body. Good viewpoints
for the Ranger and Surveyor, but not the nearby LM. The plastic-encased
manned space ships are just unphotographable.

Udar-Hazey seems to be designed by a guy who never visited NASM. It's an
"experts museum" - if you know what you are looking at, there are great
treasures. If you don't, then it's just a yellow and brown airplane (the
Dash-80, precursor to just about all modern jetliners), or a big floppy
thing (the Langley Aerodrome). I believe Henry had a similar reaction to
this museum. More so than most museums, the best thing to do is to take
the guided tour. Take it twice, since different docents tell different
stories.

The space wing of Udar-Hazey is built around Shuttle Enterprise. I saw
lots of kids running around it, pretending to be astronauts. Some of the
RCC's are missing from the leading edge of the wings. I doubt even one
of the kids recognized that even today this spacecraft is still
occasionally put to good use. (I also didn't hear any of the docents
explain the missing RCC's were removed and destroyed as part of the
investigation into the loss of Columbia.)

There were a small handful of pre-WWII aircraft. The oldest aircraft was
the Langley Flyer. The Smithsonian owns both the Wright Flyer and
Langley's contraption, yet is completely silent about the old conflict-
of-interest between Langley's role as both aviator and Smithsonian
secretary and the resulting neglect the Wright Flyer for many years.

There was a nice collection of space camera. Hidden in a corner was the
old Airstream house trailer that isolated the early moon walkers from
the earth's biosphere. Who know it was equipped with an American
Standard toilet? I saw something I didn't know existed: a flight-ready
but unflown Mercury capsule.

When you first enter the museum, the viewpoint is carefully designed to
place you nose to nose to nose with an SR-71 and the Shuttle. That's
about the only concession to design layout in the place. I understand
that even with the Smithsonian's budget, there are going to be limits to
what you can do with so many big objects. Shuttle, SR-71, Dash-80, a
beautiful Boeing 307, Concord, various MIGs and their competitors, etc.
etc. in finite space is going to be crowded, but it need not be chaotic.
Planes are just hung from the ceiling in weird orientations. (Yes, I
know that these are supposed to be in acrobatic or dogfight attitudes,
but the actual look is a confused visual mess.)

This is a tough museum for a photographer. There are good viewpoints for
abstract-shape images of the Blackbird, but you can't get a good picture
of the entire plane. (The nature of the Blackbird makes it a
recalcitrant subject - it's just smooth, featureless black on black,
sitting on black tires. But this museum makes it worse.) Most planes
have no good viewpoints. The lighting is harsh. Little daylight. Lots of
harsh spotlights. It's impossible to find a viewpoint free of spotlights
and most cameras would end up underexposing images because of these
hotspots.

We saw many of the other sites of the city. The Vietnam wall was and
remains an extraordinary piece of art. Nearly everyone who stared at the
wall broke down into tears. No other war memorial did that, not the WWII
memorial, not the Korean memorial. Could it the most successful art
every created? (Measured by the ability of art to touch the soul.)

I touched the Mars rock in the National History Museum. We could have
spent a couple more days in that place. The Mammals exhibit was great.
Everybody love dinosaurs! Lots and lots of meteorites with good signage
explaining the cosmology of these rocks.

A fun trip! (Well, I stayed mostly on topic…)
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

The loss of the American system of checks and balances
is more of a security danger than any terrorist risk.
-- Bruce Schneier

On 2005-05-07, Kevin Willoughby wrote:

There is just so much good stuff at the NASM that it is easy to miss
significant artifacts. Despite having a scrap of original fabric from
the first round-the-world airplane in my den, I nearly missed the big
brown Douglas World Cruiser.

I'm still miffed I missed the Me-262 last time...

other hand, ASTP cannot be photographed. You can get Apollo or Soyuz,
but not both - every viewpoint is obstructed. There are a couple of good
viewpoints for the X-15 and its companion lifting body. Good viewpoints
for the Ranger and Surveyor, but not the nearby LM. The plastic-encased
manned space ships are just unphotographable.

I think you can get a decent viewpoint for the LM from one of the
overhead "balconies", if it's where it used to be. The really good one,
though, is the test article in Chicago - you're right up by the foot,
and get a real impression of the size.

There were a small handful of pre-WWII aircraft. The oldest aircraft was
the Langley Flyer. The Smithsonian owns both the Wright Flyer and
Langley's contraption, yet is completely silent about the old conflict-
of-interest between Langley's role as both aviator and Smithsonian
secretary and the resulting neglect the Wright Flyer for many years.

Oh, I don't know about "neglect", she got cared for very well in
London... ;-)

--
-Andrew Gray

Kevin Willoughby wrote:


On (off-topic) bit of advice I received: visit the National Zoo. The zoo
was fun. Lions and Tigers and Pandas, oh my. (Any Bob&Ray fans remember
the bit about the Komodo Dragon?) Cue Pat: lots of small, adorably cute,
personality-filled monkeys! Lots of up-hill walking, so wear comfortable
shoes. I'm not sure what to make out of the fact that the M&M vending
machine accepts credit cards.


My favorite part was the Gigantic Personality-Filled Gorilla sitting in
it's Plexiglas walled enclosure watching TV while eating ants from the
anthill they had placed next to it's television set one at a time with
it's moistened fingertip. If we replace the ants with potato chips.... :-)

Unsurprisingly, there are lots of different cuisines available in such a
world-city. For the first time in my life, I had Bulgarian food. Salty,
but otherwise quite good.


The Bear and Bull has a great Terrapin Soup with Sherry and Oysters
Rockefeller.

These days, the first impression is one of those
silly "security checks" that are all too common these days. While
standing in line, I watched and figured out several ways to smuggle
nasty devices through the checkpoint.


They were doing that same check back when I was there in the early 1980's.
That was the only place that did that, by the way.
The consumption of beans and pickled eggs around an hour or two before
getting to the NASM will allow one to smuggle a powerful rectal bomb
into the place with ease. :-)

Pat

Andrew Gray wrote:

On 2005-05-07, Kevin Willoughby wrote:



There is just so much good stuff at the NASM that it is easy to miss
significant artifacts. Despite having a scrap of original fabric from
the first round-the-world airplane in my den, I nearly missed the big
brown Douglas World Cruiser.



I'm still miffed I missed the Me-262 last time...



Think that's bad? I missed Hans Von Ohain's talk about building his
turbojet that was held at the NASM while I was in the city.

Pat

Andrew Gray wrote:

Oh, I don't know about "neglect", she got cared for very well in
London... ;-)

Is handing it back the reason why the Science Museum now has the
only Apollo CM outside the US? grin

--
Semper in faecibus sumus, sole profunditas quae variat.

On 2005-05-09, Mary Pegg wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:

Oh, I don't know about "neglect", she got cared for very well in
London... ;-)

Is handing it back the reason why the Science Museum now has the
only Apollo CM outside the US? grin

Sadly, we gave it back in '48, so I doubt it was a quid pro quo. But I
certainly don't doubt it *helped*, when the matter came up...

It's weirdly displayed, just now, in the Hall Of Random Technical Junk.
(It probably has a proper name, but pah). Sitting next to a Cray I, in
all its furniture-like glory...

--
-Andrew Gray
(who has now seen Apollos 8, 10, & 11)

"Andrew Gray" wrote in message
. ..
On 2005-05-09, Mary Pegg wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:

Oh, I don't know about "neglect", she got cared for very well in
London... ;-)

Is handing it back the reason why the Science Museum now has the
only Apollo CM outside the US? grin

Sadly, we gave it back in '48, so I doubt it was a quid pro quo. But I
certainly don't doubt it *helped*, when the matter came up...

Back in 48? Impressive.


It's weirdly displayed, just now, in the Hall Of Random Technical Junk.
(It probably has a proper name, but pah). Sitting next to a Cray I, in
all its furniture-like glory...

Funny enough, I think I've seen it theer.



--
-Andrew Gray
(who has now seen Apollos 8, 10, & 11)

"Kevin Willoughby" wrote in message
...
On the
other hand, ASTP cannot be photographed. You can get Apollo or Soyuz,
but not both - every viewpoint is obstructed.

I have a photo of both, taken from 25 years ago. If I can find it, it will
be on my website.

An interesting exhibit that was overlooked by just about everyone was a
scale model of the solar system. Everyone knows that the textbook
diagrams of the solar system are not to scale, but the degree of
distortion is often underestimated. There are posts on the sidewalk in
front of the museum, one for sun and each planet, spaced appropriately.
Each post has a scale model of its planet. Jupiter wasn't much bigger
than a fingernail. The posts continued onto the next block. The few kids
who groked it came away with impression that "space is big, and almost
empty".
There is a similar display in down-town Ithaca New York as a memorial to
Carl Sagan.