The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, dedicated to human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, its main building opened on the National Mall near L'Enfant Plaza in 1976.
- Venue
- National Air and Space Museum
- Address
- 655 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, DC 20560
- Town
- Washington, D.C., US
The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, dedicated to human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, its main building opened on the National Mall near L'Enfant Plaza in 1976. In 2023, the museum welcomed 3.1 million visitors, making it the fourth-most visited museum in the United States and eleventh-most in the world. The museum is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics. Almost all of its spacecraft and aircraft on display are original primary or backup craft (rather than facsimiles). Its collection includes the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, the Friendship 7 capsule which was flown by John Glenn, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the model of the starship Enterprise used in the science fiction television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and the Wright brothers' Wright Flyer airplane near the entrance. The museum operates a 760,000-square-foot (71,000 m2) annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, at Dulles International Airport. It includes the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, which houses the museum's restoration and archival activities. Other preservation and restoration efforts take place at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland. The museum's National Mall building is undergoing a $360-million renovation that started in 2018. As of August 2024, 13 of the museum's galleries were open to the public, with the other 10 expected to reopen by 2026. The Air and Space Museum was originally called the National Air Museum when formed on August 12, 1946, by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. Some pieces in the National Air and Space Museum collection date back to the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia after which the Chinese Imperial Commission