National Air and Space Museum Re-Opened!

Big news in the D.C. museum world, the National Air and Space Museum has finally reopened! Well, about half of it has. As a NASM fan, I was frantically refreshing the ticket page to get tickets for as close to the opening as possible. Free timed entry passes are required, but thus far do not seem to be too difficult to acquire, I am sure with the holidays fast approaching this will change.

The National Air and Space Museum, specifically the downtown location, first opened in 1976. However, the museum was first designated as the National Air Museum back in 1946! The museum is consistently one of the most visited museums in the world, and it is not hard to see why. With internationally recognized objects like the Apollo 11 capsule, The Spirit of St. Louis, and the Bell X-1 to name a few, everyone can find something that interests them here.

However, with such a popular museum, it is definitely a challenge to update exhibitions. Before the museum closed for the massive renovation that is currently ongoing, there were a handful of galleries that had remained mostly untouched since the museum first opened in the 1970s. But, that has all changed now. As the museum slowly reopens, every single gallery will have been completely changed or at least revamped.

Line waiting to enter the museum at 10am on a Saturday.

As the renovation is ongoing, you currently enter through the Independence Ave. entrance. Eight new galleries have opened, and on my visit, I managed six of them before falling into museum fatigue. (But I will definitely be returning!) When you first enter, you are greeted with a wonderful new security system, which has become the norm in the Smithsonian, where you can walk through much faster than in previous visits. The entryway is much more open and inviting than before. Don’t miss the original Starship Enterprise model on your right as you enter! The other major change with the Independence Ave. entrance is that the escalators, which used to be for Staff only, are now open down into a brand new Mars cafe! We also learned it is a second back entry to the enormous gift shop.

The newly reopened galleries are wonderful! The new spaces provide a lovely mixture of new and old. The Wright Brothers gallery and America By Air gallery, in ways, still feel like the old galleries but with some refreshing changes. The Wright Brothers have been moved to the first level with all new displays. The Wright flyer is still front and center, with visitors able to walk almost all the way around the plane. America by Air has similarly had some exhibition panel refreshes and some new interactive added. Additionally, this gallery feels way more spacious than the earlier iteration.

The two new space galleries far exceeded my expectations. Destination Moon utilizes a second-floor landing to expand its footprint. The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules, which used to be in the Milestones of Flight gallery, are now in gorgeous, clean, display cases in the gallery. For the first time in my memory, Alan Shepard’s space suit is on display with Freedom 7, and Neil Armstrong’s suit is displayed next to the Apollo 11 capsule! The gallery is displayed in a loose chronology allowing visitors to see the development of space flight. Some elements from the old Moon gallery have been preserved but in much more dynamic ways.

The three other galleries I visited, Exploring the Planets, Nation of Speed, and One world Connected were interesting and well-designed. However, I have one major concern for all three. Many of these new galleries rely fairly heavily on digital interactives. For now, they are great and very interesting, but I fear that when the museum is back to its pre-pandemic capacity, these displays will not hold up. But, only time will tell.

I’m a huge, National Air and Space Museum fan, and will admit to having been hesitant about the idea of a complete museum refresh. However, what I have seen so far gives me great hope about what else is to come.

And as a bonus, you can check out the X-Wing fighter from Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker!