Museum of Science and Industry

The Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA in Jackson Park, in the Hyde Park neighborhood adjacent to Lake Michigan. It is housed in the former Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Initially endowed by Sears, Roebuck and Company president and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, it first opened in 1933 during the Century of Progress Exposition. It is also the largest science museum in the western hemisphere.

Among its diverse and expansive exhibits, the Museum features a working coal mine, a German submarine (U-505) captured during World War II, a 3,500-square-foot (330 m2) model railroad, the first diesel-powered streamlined stainless-steel passenger train (Pioneer Zephyr), and a NASA spacecraft used on the Apollo 8 mission.

The Museum has over 2,000 exhibits, displayed in 75 major halls. The Museum has several major permanent exhibits. The Coal Mine re-creates a working deep shaft bituminous coal mine inside the Museum's Central Pavilion using original equipment from Old Ben #17 circa 1933. Since 1954, the Museum has had the U-505 Submarine, one of just two German submarines captured during World War II, and the only captured one now on display in the Western Hemisphere. In 2004, the Museum opened a pit in the front lawn in front of the East Pavilion that would later become the subterranean McCormick Tribune Foundation Exhibition Hall, brought the U-505 out from behind the East Pavilion, and lowered the U-505 inside, opening The New U-505 Experience on June 5, 2005. Take Flight recreates a San Francisco to Chicago flight using a real Boeing 727 jet plane donated by United Airlines. Silent film star and stock market investor Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle is on display, as is The Great Train Story, a 3,500-square-foot (330 m2) model railroad that explains the story of transportation from Seattle to Chicago. The Transportation Zone includes exhibits on air and land transportation, including the 999 Empire State Express steam locomotive, the first vehicle ever to exceed 100 mph. The Transportation Zone also features two World War II warplanes donated by the British government, a Ju 87 R-2/Trop. Stuka divebomber — one of only two intact Stukas left in the world — and a Supermarine Spitfire. The first diesel-powered streamlined stainless-steel train, the Pioneer Zephyr, is on permanent display in the Great Hall, renamed the Entry Hall in 2008, and a free tour goes through it every 10–20 minutes. Several U.S. Navy warship models are on display. There is a flight simulator for the new F-35 Lightning II.

Text source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Science_and_Industry_(Chicago)
Photo source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MSIChicago.JPG

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