At Air and Space, Planning For a Full Passenger Load

By Jacqueline Trescott, Washington Post Staff Writer, April 15, 2002

A visitor at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum can now take the controls of an F-14 Tomcat, zoom off a carrier deck and engage any number of targets with its missiles and cannons.

In three minutes, the fantasy flight is over but the visitor can jump right into another virtual-reality ride: the cockpit of the Red Baron's World War I Fokker Triplane.

Things are changing at the Air and Space Museum. While the tourists were largely staying away from the museums on the Mall during the fall and winter, the museum converted a storage area on the main floor into a gallery of flight simulators.

However, the sleek simulators aren't the only new attractions. The museum has overhauled its planetarium and theater and will open a new food court.

At the Albert Einstein Planetarium, the starry sky has been replaced with a digital film system cast onto the 70-foot-high dome. It is fed by the museum's classic Zeiss VI star projector, as well as 12 new digital projectors incorporating the latest data from space. It moves, it zooms.

The first program, which opens today, is "Infinity Express: A 20-Minute Tour of the Universe." Using images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars Global Surveyor, the video ranges from the work of Copernicus to the early days of rocketry to close-up shots of Valles Marineris on Mars, the largest canyon discovered in the solar system. At one point the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide, an event that might take place several billion years in the future, visualized by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and seamlessly incorporated in the video. The presentation can be updated with the latest material from Hubble and other telescopes. The film is produced by the museum and Sky-Skan Inc. and narrated by actor Laurence Fishburne.

On Friday the museum will unveil "Space Station 3D," its first 3D Imax movie and the first Imax movie made in outer space. It follows the work of U.S. and Russian astronauts from the launch pad to the International Space Station, a partnership of 16 nations 220 miles above the earth. The film, shot by the scientists, includes space walks, the installation of an antenna, the addition of modules to the space station and scenes from daily life.

The film was a collaboration between Lockheed Martin and NASA and is narrated by actor Tom Cruise. Lockheed Martin gave $10 million to the museum. To acknowledge this gift, the museum renamed its movie hall the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater. It had been the Samuel P. Langley IMAX Theater. Langley was an astronomer and secretary of the Smithsonian from 1887 to 1906. The switch rekindled the discussion about the way the Smithsonian rewards private donors.

The museum, the most-visited museum in the world, badly needed fixing up, officials have acknowledged.

"We knew we wanted to do it and were able to get the money. And because of the reduced attendance, this was the time to shut everything down and get rolling," said Gen. Jack Dailey, director of the museum. "This is all making for a more versatile experience. It is going to make it new for the old visitors. There are people who would come if we only had the artifacts. Then there are members of the family who are sitting down, waiting for others to go through the galleries. We hope this provides some alternatives."

The planetarium overhaul additions cost $2.1 million, the Imax changes cost $1.5 million, the simulator gallery cost $300,000. The simulator area is operating on a lease arrangement with the manufacturer and the profits will be split about 50-50, according to Frank J. McClintic, the president of MaxFlight Corp., the machine's manufacturer.

Looking for a balance between the museum's stock-in-trade of aircraft and plain fun, Dailey asked MaxFlight to design several of the simulators around the museum's holdings.

Five are tied to aircraft that are in the museum: Spad XIII, the plane flown by World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker; Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis; the P-51 Mustang, a single-engine World War II fighter; the Mitsubishi Zero, a Japanese craft considered nearly invincible at the beginning of World War II; and Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega, which she flew solo across the Atlantic.

The simulators are silver capsules with two seats. The pilot can control the sway of the machine with a joystick. The hydraulic mounts make it possible to execute a 360-degree barrel roll and turn upside down while executing a loop. The 58-inch screen in each simulator can be programmed for 20 different flights. "Not only can people 'fly' and learn about aircraft, but they have the sensation of flying," said McClintic, a former Army helicopter pilot.

The sprucing up didn't stop with attractions. The project to replace the glass in the window wall on the museum's north side, which at times over the past three years closed down 30 percent of the exhibition space, is finished.

In addition, the museum has replaced 111,619 square feet of its much-traveled carpet, to the tune of $600,000. Visitors will also find that the museum is the testing ground for a new security system at the Smithsonian, with metal detectors at both the Mall and Independence Avenue entrances to the building.

Toward the end of May, a new food court will open with a McDonald's, a Boston Market, a Donatos Pizzeria and a Lavazza coffee bar.

Officials hope all the buzz, and the additions, will bring back the tourists.

In October, the month following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, attendance at the museum dropped 42 percent.

While admission to the museum remains free, the new attractions are not. A three-minute ride in one of the simulators costs $6.50. Admission to the planetarium has increased to $6. Before the overhaul, tickets were $4. Admission to the Imax theater remains $7.50 for adults and $6 for those 12 and under. Other ticket combinations and reductions are available.

Last updated: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 04:16:59 PM