Milestones of Flight
The Museum's grand entry hall, Milestones of Flight showcases a truly awesome collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft that represent epic achievements in aviation and space flight. The place of honor at the center of the gallery is reserved for the 1903 Wright Flyer, which is temporarily on exhibit in its own gallery upstairs.
Some of the other aviation achievements celebrated here: Charles Lindbergh's solo trip across the Atlantic in his Spirit of St. Louis; the first American jet aircraft, the Bell XP-59A Airacomet; the Bell X-1 in which "Chuck" Yeager first broke the mythical "sound barrier"; and the fastest aircraft ever flown, the North American X-15.
Some space triumphs represented here: the Mercury capsule Friendship 7 flown by John Glenn; the Apollo 11 command module Columbia from the first lunar landing mission; Mariner, Pioneer, and Viking planetary explorers; and the first privately developed, piloted vehicle to reach space, SpaceShipOne. You can even touch a Moon rock here.
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Exhibitions and events
Freer & Whistler: Points of Contact
Permanent exhibitionThe juxtaposition of Asian and American art at the Freer Gallery is due largely to the influence of the expatriate American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), who played an important role in...
The Arts of China
Permanent exhibitionThe Arts of China features a variety of objects from the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery’s permanent collection. Much of the exhibition is dedicated to a comprehensive group of ancient Chinese jades and...
ColorForms
Permanent exhibition"ColorForms" presents works from the Hirshhorn's collection, dating from the 1960s to the present, that explore the ways in which color has been an essential tool for artists, regardless of medium....
NASA | ART: 50 Years of Exploration
Permanent exhibitionFor almost half a century, artists participating in the NASA art program have been documenting the extraordinary adventure of spaceflight in ways that no camera could match. They have enjoyed...
Activities from this museum
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