WASHINGTON DC – Space: the final frontier

Sunday – This is our hotel –  I thought it was about time I showed you what it looked like.  This is of course the front, our room is on the back.

Today we are visiting another museum – the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.  There are two of these, one in Washington DC and the other at Dulles Airport Virginia.

The one in Washington DC is just around the corner from our hotel and is this mornings target.  To get a good start to the day it is our Maccas brekky of champions and then it is only a short walk to discover the history of flight.

There is a special exhibition – Da Vinci’s Codex on the Flight of Birds.  Isn’t it amazing to think that over 500 years ago Leonardo Da Vinci was studying flight!  It will be truly interesting to see his original drawings and thoughts on the matter of human mechanical flight.  He produced more than 35,000 words and 500 sketches dealing with flying machines, the nature of air and bird flight.

The book is on loan from the Biblioteca Reale in Turin Italy and there is definitely no photos allowed (there is a dirty big sign saying ‘NO PHOTOS PLEASE’ and also a dirty big guard standing by the case).  The Codex is written in Da Vinci’s  famous ‘mirror’ script, written backward and reading from right to left.  The photo above right shows something of what Da Vinci was thinking – strapping wings to a person and soaring high into sky!

The Da Vinci exhibition is just a few feet away from the exhibition that marked the centennial, in 2003, of the Wright Brothers invention of the airplane.  The Wright brothers inaugurated the aerial age with the world’s first successful flights of a powered heavier-than-air flying machine.

The Wright Flyer (on the left) was the product of a sophisticated four-year program of research and development conducted by Wilbur and Orville Wright beginning in 1899.  After building and testing three full-sized gliders, the Wrights’ first powered airplane flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on 17th December 1903 making a 12-second flight, traveling 36 m with Orville piloting. The best flight of the day, with Wilbur at the controls, covered 255.6 m in 59 seconds.

Isn’t it incredible to think that in less than 100 years we progressed from this to 747’s – jet fighters and space travel!  Speaking of which we walk out of the early flight exhibit and enter the realm of space.

This is the Command Module of Skylab 4.  The module was used to ferry the crew of three astronauts to the orbital workshop.  The crew lived in the workshop for 84 days and performed numerous experiments and demonstrated that humans can live and work in space for long periods of time.  There is a walk-through display of the workshop and let me tell you that in that cramped environment they can have it.

The F-1 engine was developed to provide propulsion for the Saturn 5 rocket used during the Apollo lunar landing missions. Developed during the early 1960s, the Saturn 5 rocket was the largest rocket in the world and the F-1 was the most powerful rocket engine.

There were five of these engines at the base of the first stage and developed 3,450,000 kg of thrust at lift off, and burned 2,021,000 litres of liquid propellants in the 2 1/2 minutes before first stage burnout. By then the big rocket had reached 9,660 kmh and an altitude of 61km.

From here we inspect the vehicles used for lunar exploration. There are several examples of unmanned lunar spacecraft hanging from the ceiling and these preceded the manned mission (remember the ‘one small step’ etc). These robotic explorers transmitted images of the Moon, inspected its surface, and searched for Apollo landing sites.  All three models pictured here were used for ground tests only.  Clementine (below left) and Surveyor (below right)

Clementine was a moon-mapping spacecraft that was used to orbit the Moon for two months and map its surface helping to answer many questions about the moon.   Surveyor’s  project was to develop basic techniques for soft-landing on the Moon, to survey Apollo landing sites and to obtain photographs and other scientific information.

The Lunar Orbiter’s mission was to photograph the Moon to aid in the selection of landing sites for Apollo astronauts.  Five of these orbiters were launched in 1966 and 1967 – they photographed about 95% of the Moon’s surface.

Dominating the space is a real lunar module, the second of 12 built for the Apollo programme.   The orbital test flight of the first lunar module proved so successful that a second test flight was deemed unnecessary. The lunar module displayed here was used instead for ground testing.

It has two stages – the descent (lower ) stage was equipped with a rocket motor to slow the rate of descent to the lunar surface.  It contained exploration equipment and remained on the Moon when the crew left.

The ascent (upper) stage contained the crew quarters and a rocket motor to return the crew to the orbiting command module.  After the crew entered the command module to return home the lunar module was released and sent crashing back to the moon.

Lunar littering so to speak – and no that is not aluminium foil from the kitchen cupboards making the craft look pretty – it is special foil first developed by NASA in 1964 for the US space program.  the material is usually gold or silver in colour and reflects up to 97% of radiated heat.   I will not go into the exact details of what it takes to make it as I do not understand them myself!  If you are interested you can look it up here.

Apollo 11 – remember Neil Armstrong’s immortal words as he descended the ladder and set foot on the moon?  ‘That’s one small step for man – one giant leap for mankind’ – well, that was way back in 1969.  It also gave way to another famous saying “The Eagle has landed”.  I would love to do that – but unfortunately this eagle will just have to settle for it being one of the uncompleted events on my bucket list!

Moving on – there is just so much to see – trying to take it all in is impossible for the time we have – Time and Navigation – Transoceanic flights – so I will just highlight a few import things and what could be more important I ask than Snoopy and the Red Baron.  Everyone’s favourite beagle and famous World War I flying ace in his Sopwith Camel going after the Red Baron.

I am not ashamed to say that I still have the record – yes vinyl – of Snoopy’s Christmas.  But enough trivia and digressing – there is a small theatre set up and today’s feature is Knight’s of the Sky starring Douglas Fairbanks Jnr.  Unfortunately there is no popcorn but we thoroughly enjoy the snippet of the movie.

Amelia Earhart –  was an American aviation pioneer and author.  She was the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.  She set many other records,  wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences.  During an attempt to make a flight of the globe in 1937 she disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island.  The fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day. 

You will not be surprised when I tell you that there are hundreds of aircraft here. Have I said that before?  Either suspended from the ceiling or on the floor it is truly a wonderous place.

Time to take a break and we investigate the Einstein Planetarium to see ‘Journey to the Stars’.  This is an unbelievable theatre – we are seated and the screen is all around us.  Whoopi Goldberg as Narrator takes us on our journey spanning billions of years, beginning on Earth and extending beyond our galaxy and into the future before returning home.
SCIENCE LESSON : More than 13 billion years ago there was only an invisible substance called dark matter, along with hydrogen and helium gas. The stars that formed quickly exploded in supernovas, blasting out new elements, the raw materials for building new stars and planets.

Unfortunately for us all there is also a child that is exploding into its own supernova – they are asked to leave.  Do not some people realise that this type of production is not a suitable place for such tiny ankle biters? Obviously not.

OK – time for lunch and yep there is the biggest Golden Arches that I have ever seen – and it is the only place to eat so we grab our seats and proceed in turn to the trough.  Back with an added sustenance there are more aircraft that are famous in the clouds of time.

This is the famous Spirit of St Louis – made famous by Charles Lindbergh. Flying solo in May 1927, it was the first non stop flight from New York to Paris and Lindbergh won $25,000.  A lot of money in those days – most probably wouldn’t even get you a first class seat today.

The next two exhibitions on offer are – Explore the Universe, that poses the questions ‘what is it? how old is it” how big is it? how did it begin?’  This is a display on the Solar System, Planets and the Hubble Telescope.  You just don’t realise how big our universe is and what is being done to explore and find ‘new worlds’.

The second one is Moving into Space.  This exhibition has a film of the final launch of Discovery on 24th February 2011 from the Kennedy Space Centre and it is mesmerizing.

This six minute film tells us the story from the beginning of the launch – the preparation – and then the actual take off.  As all the Apollo missions are now complete and I will not actually get to see a shuttle launch – bugger – these are photos taken while watching the film.  It is hard to fathom the incredible power that must have occurred just to get this thing off the ground.

We are nearly at the end of our own discoveries but there is one more piece to see – a piece of moon rock.  Doesn’t look like a rock – more a sliver of a piece of rock.

One good thing about it is that you can actually touch it.  Now I am not too sure why this is such a draw card and what I am supposed to feel – but I suppose it has something to do with being able to touch something from a million or so miles away.

Time now to do some shopping so downstairs to the main tourist area and what is on display?  The Starship Enterprise!

These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Who could ever forget these words and the crew Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhuru, Sulu and Chekov?

Also down here is Yoda – Jedi Knight.  Plenty of things to purchase but we stick to the usual – magnets and t-shirts.

Our time here is now done so it is time to head back to the hotel for the well looked forward to Nanna Nap.  I have split this day into two posts – day and night as tonight we have a session of photography and there will be lots of walking and photography to do.

Highlight of the DAY : Da Vinci’s actual handwriting!