National Air and Space Museum

National Air and Space Museum (NASM)

Ad Astra sculpture at the museum entrance on the National Mall
Location within Washington, D.C. Show map of Central Washington, D.C. National Air and Space Museum (the United States) Show map of the United States
Former name	National Air Museum
Established	1946; 78 years ago (1946) (as the National Air Museum)
Location	Washington, D.C.
Coordinates	38°53′18″N 77°01′12″W / 38.88833°N 77.02000°W / 38.88833; -77.02000
Type	Aviation museum
Visitors	3.1 million visitors (2023)[1]
Director	Chris Browne
Curator	Peter Jakab
Public transit access	Washington Metro at L'Enfant Plaza
Website	https://airandspace.si.edu

The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the 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 eleventh in the List of most-visited museums in the world, and the fourth in the list of most-visited museums in the United States.

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 Bell X-1 which broke the sound barrier, 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 main building on the National Mall is undergoing a seven-year, $360M renovation that started in 2018, during which some of its spaces and galleries are closed.^[2]