February 21, 2007
National Air and Space Museum Sad, Lonely
... the museum could use some freshening up, according to some visitors.
Allen Witt, an engineer from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said many of the displays seemed to stop after the mid-1980s.
Still, he said, "I don't think this museum will ever lose its relevance. It will get more historic through time." (Emphasis added)
You don't say? It will become even more historic as history continues to unfold? Amazing!
Now, you'd be hard pressed to find a bigger collection of sci-fi loving space geeks in the metro area than at a DCist staff meeting, so we're not kidding when we say we're deeply concerned about this turn of events. The idea of a ragtag team of punk insects and dinosaurs from the Museum of Natural History, whose national origins are certainly in dispute, taking on the likes of true Americans like Buzz Aldrin or the Wright brothers and winning just doesn't sit right. With this in mind, we'd like to offer a hastily thrown together list of suggestions and possible reasons behind Air and Space's decline, all with dubious grounding in reality. Add your ideas in the comments.
Why are fewer people going to the National Air and Space Museum?
- Astronaut Ice Cream finally revealed to be made of chalk.
- The Museum of the American Indian has better food.
- Battlestar Galactica really is that good, keeping folks chained to their TVs.
- Ever since the country saw Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck save the world from a meteor in Armageddon, the ideas of an International Space Station and unmanned vehicle to Mars just don't seem that exciting anymore.
- The continued absence of an exhibit including William Shatner's 1970s performance of "Rocket Man".
- Mumble mumble something in poor taste about a crazy murderous woman wearing diapers mumble mumble.
- Parents are finally sick of hearing their kids snickering when they get to the exhibit of the Enola Gay
- Despite a letter writing campaign, Spacecamp 2: Electric Boogaloo never made nor shown in the museum's IMAX theater.
- When they didn't let Lance Bass into space, it just wasn't worth it anymore.
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Never confirmed the authenticity of the last episode of "Pigs In Space" from the Muppet Show.
Zounds, Galactica has one "L", you Cylon-loving wench! Good post though!
Frack! Thanks, fixed.
Ever noticed how the place smells generally like farts? That's why I don't go.
Mr. Witt summed it up best: Air & Space is (and has been) looking a little ragged these days. The Natural History museum has received major renovations in recent years and added an IMAX, and when the American History renovations are completed, it will draw visitors away from Air and Space, as well. Plus, the Natrual History museum has the added pull of being somewhat close to the tourist magnet that is the Penn Quarter neighborhood. Air and Space is close to nothing much besides the American Indian museum (also taking away attendance) and government office buildings.
Can't we just get some more Asian tourist groups to visit? I mean, in addition to the 100 or so that are there on any given day.
Compared to the spacious new Udvar-Hazy facility, the old NASM appears mired in the 1970s. The old carpeting has to go, and all traces of deep red and dark brown colors should be removed from the premises. The smoke-tinted glass should be replaced with modern crystal clear UV protective stuff, and the lighting improved. Also, many of the aircraft displays are dusty, and unprotected from children's hands and fingers. Nix the hokey yellow-painted-feet-on-escalators thing. Get rid of the atrocious "sculpture" that truly represents the low point of American art history. Clean the bathrooms more frequently. And, what happened to the starship Enterprise model from the original ST series?
I blame the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The museum should have fought tooth and nail to expand and keep a full presence on the Mall rather than setting up a satellite (pun not intended) facility in Dulles. Dulles may be convenient for at least some suburbanites, but tourists aren't going to think of going there for any reason except leaving Washington.
(I also don't like the name "Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center." First, the naming of national museums ought to reflect the nation, not an individual. Second, if we are going to name a museum after an individual, it ought to be a heroic exemplar of the subject of the museum, like Neil Armstrong or Charles Lindbergh for aviation. Unlike all but a few thousand other Americans, I actually know who Steven F. Udvar-Hazy is, and I still couldn't pick him out of a lineup of other rich sixty-something white guys in business suits. Third, if we are going to sell vanity naming rights to national museums to sixty-something white guys in business suits, can we at least be honest about their low level of penetration into the popular imagination? "Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center?" What, did they think we would confuse him with some other Steven Udzar-Hazy?)
"It will get more historic through time."
The thing is, the Air and Space Museum really is a museum of a museum. You go there and you're like, "wow, this is what museums looked like back in the Cold War."
That's not a bad thing really. The American Museum of Natural History in NYC is totally awesome because it's main exhibits haven't changed a god damn thing in since the 30's. It's become a time capsule. I honestly enjoy it a lot better than the new museums that seem to assume a 10 second attention span and have concluded that humans can no longer read words that are not on computer screens.
I'm not sure of why most folks are staying away, but really the Air and Space museum is nothing more then an ode to U.S. Military technology. It's really quite disgusting to anyone with the ability to see Empire unfolding, and its just not compelling to everyone else.
Fuck you, you dumb hippie
My thoughts exactly, Colleen.
Maybe if the museum would include exhibits that
deal with new developments in our understanding of the universe, I would actually go. At present, I have no desire to see the "US military dominates space in your face" wank-fest that currently is the air and space museum.
A museum should of course document the history of the breakthroughs in air and space technology. But it shouldn't stop there.
Maybe people are tired of being treated like criminals or terrorists by oath-breaking government officials who, contrary to their promises to uphold the Constitution, consider all visitors to be guilty until they prove themselves innocent.
Agreed with Reid on this one. Also, did anyone mention that about 1/4 of the thing is under renovation? And why not recognize that the uber-mod, ultra-huge hanger in Dulles is merely an ANNEX to our beloved museum on the National Mall? That is worth mentioning, and the visitors to the ANNEX should be counted in the tally.
"The continued absence of an exhibit including William Shatner's 1970s performance of "Rocket Man".
I know at least twenty people would attend if this exhibit was added. Everyday. For the rest of their lives.
Except that since the NASM is focused on science and technology, it would seem to have a stronger obligation to remain current and depict the cutting edge in those recently-evolving fields. We wonder why people are losing interest in NASA these days - maybe it's because we're not being educated on the advances made in the last 20 years, either in the media or through venues like NASM.
Everybody's already seen it, and it's shabby. It's not much different than it was on my 3rd grade class trip in 1978. The Annex is still new, so people want to see it, and it has the "stuff" factor. Educational, schmeducational, a lot of people want to see cool stuff that they can't see anywhere else. Udvar-Hazy has the goods. I go to Natural History whenever I'm close to there and have a few minutes. I always head straight for the *bling*.
Everybody's already seen it, and it's shabby. It's not much different than it was on my 3rd grade class trip in 1978. The Annex is still new, so people want to see it, and it has the "stuff" factor. Educational, schmeducational, a lot of people want to see cool stuff that they can't see anywhere else. Udvar-Hazy has the goods. I go to Natural History whenever I'm close to there and have a few minutes. I always head straight for the *bling*.
The Udvar-Hazy is in BFE. Let's admit that. It's not easy for anyone east of the Potomac to get there on a weekday.
For the record, has anyone walked to the Udvar-Hazy? Ridden a bike there? Are you still charged the $12 for parking?
I actually heard a family with two small kids get talked out of going to the Air & Space Museum by a local friend, who said "If you go to Clyde's instead, you can sit down the whole time, have a drink and a meal, and the kids can not only see planes hanging from the ceiling, but a train that runs on a hanging track, too." That sealed the deal. (This convinced me to give Clyde's a wide berth as well as the museum, but you get the idea.)
Serious, the museum is a bunch of static displays representing "old school" types of museum. Now-a-days, museums are more interactive with rotating exhibits, touch-and-feel things and take-a-ways resulting in a more dynamic experience. NASM was not built like that. No museum would in their right mind would build something like that today. Consider the Spy Museum, Newseum and to some degree Mount Vernon. Something to think about.
They could just change the name of the Air and Space Museum to "The Future of the Past" and be done with it.
Reasons why the NHM is trouncing the NASM.
- half of the people in the NHM went into the rocks and minerals display in the early 90s and just got lost.
- Pictures of fluffy baby orbiters just don't work as well as fluffy baby tigers.
- The NHM is offering a Hope diamond for every 10 millionth visitor.
- The DC birds on the NHM bottom floor have been flying a lot longer and better than a couple Kittyhawk doofuses.
- Religious fundamentalists believe the space program was created in six days, rather than over years of scientific evolution.
- Three words: Hot Naked Neanderthals
Note that the Spy Museum, Newseum and Mount Vernon all charge admission. And there is nothing more expensive than interactivity in Museums. Just keep that in mind. The Smithsonian is only funded enough by the gov't to keep the lights on. Anything new and exciting is paid for privately - thus the need to fundraise and recognize private donors with named museums, galleries, etc.
Yeesh. I'm not really a fan of Air and Space, but Natural History is a cross between a mid-century hands-off science museum and a relic of Victorian anthropology. If Air and Space is "a bunch of static displays," then Natural History is "a larger bunch of even more boring, and occasionaly borderline racist, static displays."
The concept behind Natural History is archaic. The museum needs to be dissolved, and replaced with a straight-up hands-on science museum that rivals Boston's or Toronto's.
Update! HA! you're saying that like were Chicago, or Toronto, or one of those cities where the residents are actually attached to it.. No buddy!! were all just passing through.. no ones responsible here..
By the way, did you guys get a little too close to WIT and now offer "Blog Writing for DCist" as part of the stand-up comedy program ?
More posts on BSG, please!
I went to the Udvar Hazy thing the first month it opened. It was so packed that there was a two hour wait to get in. But you can only find this out after entering the $12 parking lot (the front of the building is not visible from the massive parking lot entrance. I was with elderly relatives who can't wait in line for 2 hours, so we got right back in our car and left. Astonishingly, the parking lot people told us we owed them the $12 for the privilege of not being able to go to the museum.
At that point I had to tell them to fuck themselves.
A common thread in these comments: that both Air and Space and Natural History are old-school (not that I think there's anything wrong with that) and run down (which sucks) simply illustrates how low on the funding totem-pole the Smithsonian Institution has become. It's all part of that smaller, sleeker, conservative government where we cut federal funds (for things like educational museums and historic preservation), and shift the service-deliveries (such as they are) to for-profits. The Annex had scads of private aerospace funding, right? And isn't Boeing funding the current renovation at the old ASM?
So, yeah, let's talk about the effects, but we should also mention the cause.
Udvar-Hazy isn't the only museum to be named after an individual, almost all of the musuems on the mall are. If you look at the frieze on the American History Kenneth Behring Center, NMAI is funded by a large number of Native Americans, the Portrait Gallery and American Art are at the Donald W. Reynolds Center. Maybe if the Feds actually funded the museums then it would be possible for the museums to update the exhibits and avoid this type of private naming.
My fave example of that is the Orkin (of pest control fame) insect museum inside Natural History. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Mrs. Paul's (of breaded fish sticks fame) gets the new marine life exhibit named after them.
There's just no value put on unapplied science.
the air and space museum looks like a nasa garage sale... "and here are some big lovely wires that look like something that might have been used on a satellite in 1962..."
Hey, the food's a legit complaint. I'm still traumatized from a cafeteria visit there when I was a kid.
Other than that, at least Natural History makes a visible effort to update their exhibits and integrate interactive features. Air and Space exhibits look like something out of an old science class film strip that predicted we'd be living on the moon by now, only without the narrator to explain to you what you're looking at and why it matters, especially in relation to the stuff around the corner. Staring at the planes hanging from the ceilings might work if you're only here for a week, but it's not enough to encourage repeat visits.
Udvar-Hazy is the CEO of a giant aircraft leasing company. Still alive, and actually kinda youngish, I think, for someone giving away so much money.
Anyway, the Dulles Air & Space *is* in BFE, but is very much worth the trip if you dig airplanes and space. In a single hall you have an Air France Concorde, a collection of scaryfun death trap home built aircraft, and an SR-71 Blackbird (among dozens of other aircraft). There is NO way you could have kept this in DC (short of turning National Airport into a museum (not that US Airways hasn't tried . . .)). Anyone who's been there can tell you that.
(And from what I hear, short of a death ride on a stretch of very busy road, it's impossible to get there on a bike, but (as always) there are future plans . . .).
Also, why can't they get their escalators going in the right direction. All across the universe when facing the escalator the right escalator goes up and the left goes down. Not at Air & Space. Very strange.