Air and Space Museum

Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1

After chatting all morning  with lobbyists, Tim and I decided to spend our last afternoon in D.C. at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. Unfortunately the museum is currently under renovation, so the exhibits seemed rather haphazard—Neil Armstrong's space suit, for instance, was part of the Wright brothers display (huh?). Nevertheless, it's always exciting to be around rockets and historic airplanes.

 

Spirit of St. Louis flying over the Apollo Lunar Module

 

Skylab B, which was never launched into space

 

 Tail-end of Apollo command module

docking with USSR Soyuz 

 

Neil Armstrong's moon-landing space suit

 

And historic airplanes, too—Lockheed 5B Vega, Amelia

Earhart's favorite 

Most exciting, however, was seeing the actual 11-foot-long model of the starship Enterprise used in the opening credits of the original Star Trek series. Painstakingly restored, the model, which used to unceremoniously hang in the museum's gift shop, now has its own display, lighting up three times a day at 11AM, 1PM, and 3PM. We were, of course, there!

 

 Refurbished Enterprise

 

View from the rear

 

Unadorned backside, which was never filmed

All lit up!

Happy Trekkie!