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Imagine standing
on the National Mall in Washington, DC, the historic expanse
from the Potomac River to the U.S. Capitol Building, and home
to the Smithsonian Museums, the Washington Monument, and memorials
to Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, and to the sacrifices
of veterans of wars past. Visible to the east is the dome of
the Capitol Building, crowned by the Statue of Freedom. She
faces due east to greet sunrise on America each morning. To
the west, in the direction of the pacific coast some 2,500 miles
away, the Washington Monument rises above the tree line to a
height of 555 feet. One cannot imagine a place—a space—more
connected to the fabric of the nation.
Behind you is the three-story glass walled entrance to the National
Air and Space Museum, the most visited museum on the planet.
It is a place where we celebrate human dreams of flight in air
and space—dreams of countless generations. Dreams that
are embodied by starkly simple questions: What would it be like
to fly like the birds? What would it be like to leave Earth
and go to the Moon, and to those points of light in the evening
sky?
The machines on display in the Museum have much to say about
their creators and pilots, and stand as testaments to how ingenuity
and hard work can push the envelope of human experience. The
Wright Flyer and Apollo 11’s Columbia are two of these
machines. If you stand beside them, and know even a little bit
about what they are, a profound silence overcomes the bustle
of the Museum and you can almost hear them speak. |
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On December 17, 1903, it was
a bitterly cold, windy morning on Kill Devil Hill, about four
miles from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. At 10:35 am Orville Wright
was aboard the Flyer as it moved down a track with Wilber running
along side, steadying the wing. And in that moment, these two
brothers changed us all. A human became airborne in a heavier
than air craft under its own power, and in a sustained and controlled
flight. For the first time in human history we were flying like
the birds (figure
a). |
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At 9:32 am EDT,
July 16, 1969 Apollo 11 rose from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center
in Florida. At the top of the 36-story rocket was the Command
Module Columbia with Neil Armstrong, Edwin ‘Buzz’
Aldrin, and Michael Collins inside. After a 3-day flight, Apollo
11 took up station in orbit around the Moon on July 19. On July
20 Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the surface in the lunar
module Eagle, touching down in the Sea of Tranquility at 4:17
pm EDT. At 10:56 pm EDT, Armstrong put the first human foot
print on another world, and back on Earth 600 million of us
watched it live on television (figure
b). |
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All those that
built and flew these machines on display at the Museum have
something in common—they were children once that dared
to dream. And these are also the dreams of a current generation
that will surely aspire to take the human race where we’ve
never been, if we teach them well and nurture their curiosity.
The National Air and Space Museum, with its presence on the
National Mall, documents a Voyage of individuals, of
a nation, and of a race of explorers. It is a Voyage
that defines the nature of the human condition, and links each
generation to the next (figure
c). |
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