The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall has always provided an awe-inspiring visit. Now, as the museum prepares to open brand new galleries this fall (and by 2025, a whopping 23 new galleries total) as part of an enormous overhaul, one artifact in particular promises to excite the hearts of any Star Wars fan. They’ll have the chance to look up and see an actual X-wing fighter from the set of ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,’ on long-term loan from Lucasfilm. This helps tell the story of science fiction and how imagination drives innovation, says chief curator Jeremy Kinney.
One of the things that sets this aerospace museum apart is the sheer size of the artifacts, says Kinney. These include the nose of a 747 airliner, the first monoplane to do the loop-the-loop in North America and three complete 1930s airliners hanging from the ceiling. Those airliners were taken down, renovated, and brought back by the collections team, going on flatbed trucks through the streets.
Kinney adds that there has been an urge to move away from black and white photographs with colorful murals on the walls. ‘You think, it’s old stuff, it’s black and white, but you’ll see the color and excitement of the time.’ The murals will feature blue skies, green fields and life-sized painted people watching the dazzling aviation show above.
One attention-capturing artifact to go on display when the new exhibition Early Flight opens is the Lilienthal glider, essentially the world’s first hang glider. Kinney says that Otto Lilienthal of Germany would fly it by shifting his weight right to left, and in 1896 another person flew it and crashed it. The glider has been rebuilt so it can go on display, by using careful conservation methods. Three months after that crash, Lilienthal was flying another of his gliders in Germany and, Kinney says, must have shifted his weight incorrectly. He died at the age of 48 with his last words being, ‘Sacrifices must be made.’ But his death was not in vain. ‘The Wright Brothers read about his death and were inspired,’ says Kinney. Thus, we have Lilienthal to thanks for the Wright Brothers’s innovations.
Other things to look forward to include ‘stories we haven’t heard before,’ he says, such as about Bessie Coleman, the first Black and first Native American woman pilot.
The nearly 50-year old museum building will be completely replaced, just like we replace our bodies every seven years: the bones and I-beams will be there, but everything else replaced, including exterior, interior, HVAC, floors, bathrooms and electricity. Even the Tennessee pink marble exterior will be replaced with Colonial Rose granite which is more durable.