The partitions separating patrons from ongoing construction have moved once again inside the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. as five new exhibit galleries opened to the public on Monday, July 28.
This includes:
- Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations
- Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall
- Futures in Space
- World War 1 Aviation
- Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight
Note: Free timed entry tickets are still required for the museum in Washington D.C. as of this publication and are available on the National Air and Space Museum website.
Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations Gallery
Futures in Space
Sian Proctor, who traveled on the Inspiration4 all-civilian space flight and whose SpaceX suit is part of the Futures in Space exhibit, was part of Monday’s grand opening program to commemorate the new galleries.
Want more information about Futures in Space? Adam Savage (from Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters TV series) recorded a segment for his online channel, Tested, showcasing the gallery.
His R2-D2 reproduction is also in the gallery. (A real droid from Lucasfilm that was featured in Return of the Jedi is located on the third floor in the National Museum of American History.)
Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall
Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight
World War 1 Aviation
There is something really cool in this gallery if you played early iterations of Microsoft Flight Simulator (up until 2002) — the Sopwith Camel.
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Monday’s opening also coincided with the formal reopening of the Lockheed Martin IMAX theater.
Other Air & Space highlights:
The museum is home to the 1903 Wright Brothers flyer.
On the second floor is the Destination Moon exhibit. This was a new gallery introduced when the museum reopened to patrons in fall 2022. It features Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit for the moon walk and the Columbia module the Apollo 11 astronauts used to return to Earth. Prior to calling the Air & Space Museum home, the Smithsonian used pieces in this gallery as part of a traveling exhibit with the same name at different museums across the United States.
Just around the corner is another gallery, the Nation of Speed exhibit. It features among many automobiles, or really anything and everything that has an engine, one of Richard Petty’s cars. Petty is famous for having 200 NASCAR Cup Series victories.
The focus doesn’t end with just planes or cars, as one display case features hydroplane racing buttons and another case holds one of Evel Knievel’s motorcycles.
7 remaining exhibits scheduled for 2026 opening
Work remains in progress to open seven more exhibit galleries on the east side of the building. These include:
- Textron How Things Fly
- At Home in Space
- U.S. National Science Foundation Discovering Our Universe
- RTX Living in the Space Age
- Jay I. Kislak World War 2 in the Air
- Flight and the Arts Center
- Modern Military Aviation
The tentative date is July 1, 2026, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the opening of the National Air & Space Museum, as seen on this cornerstone.
About the photos:
This photographer was a little surprised to find the museum more dim than he remembered from previous visits in the past three years. It may have something to do with preventing the building from heating up with the giant windows on the National Mall side as it was particularly hot and humid outside on opening day, or more importantly, the preservation of materials and artifacts inside the displays.
However, it’s something other photographers should be aware of because you’re probably going to have to increase your ISO, use slower shutter speeds and have your aperture wide open. In some of the galleries, the images were made at 1/20th or 1/30th of a second, f/4 and 1600-4000 ISO. This doesn’t include an extra stop or two added in post-processing for a few of the images.
For the most part it’s typical museum lighting except the rooms and pieces are large so the light sources are further away than say an exhibit over in the National Museum of American History.
