On Oct. 14, eight renovated galleries of the museum in Washington, D.C., will reopen to the public. Chris Browne, John and Adrienne Mars Director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, reveals hints about some of the new installations and his favorite artifacts.
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Rush transcript
Jen DiMascio:
Hi, and welcome to the Check 6 podcast. I'm Jen DiMascio, the Executive Editor for Defense & Space. I'm here with my Editor-in-Chief and Senior Vice President of Content for Aviation Week, Joe Anselmo, and the Director of the National Air & Space Museum, Chris Browne. Here we are, and the museum has been undergoing some renovations, but I first wanted to introduce our guest who took over as the director here in May of this year, after being in the acting capacity and being with the Smithsonian since 2017. But you've been in the process of a multi-year renovation of the Museum and now are poised to reopen eight galleries. So maybe you can bring us up to speed on where things stand to start out?
Chris Browne:
Great. Thanks Jen and Joe. I appreciate the opportunity to share what I think is a great story. We are America's Museum. We like to say favorite and most visited Museum, but it's important for your listeners to understand that they are very much the investors in the work that we're doing, so we appreciate that. But the Museum that people are most familiar with, that opened in 1976 has been hugely successful. Greeting over 350 million visitors over four decades plus. We know it's influence on audiences and visitors because they tell us. And many of us, myself included, found some of their earliest inspiration on a visit to the original Museum. I came here in 1977, a year after it had been opened, at the age of 19, and came out of it and launched myself into a career of aviation, now privileged to be able to serve as the Museum's director.
So, the Museum, we know is an impactful, influential cultural touchstone for the American public and really for the international audience. And so it's victim of a -- success is that it has essentially worn out the facility, is greatly worn out here in the National Mall and there're reasons behind that. But suffice it to say that decisions were made to, for all the right reasons, to completely rebuild the Museum. Literally, taking the structure down to its steel structure. It's a seven year project. It's phased in two parts so that we're able to keep at least half of the Museum open for most of the time.
So you mentioned Jen, that we're getting ready to open eight galleries here on October 14th, but we've got many more to go. Twenty-three in all, that we will complete and have fully opened year end in '25, 2025. So the work continues, but we're glad to be able to open back up eight galleries and, because we took the building down to it steel, and it was a very large project, but also in with lots of opportunities, because it's allowed us to reimagine all the galleries, because we've had to vacate all the artifacts out of the building. Of course, our artifacts tend to be large, wings and rockets and such. And so in the process of rebuilding, it's given our curatorial and education and design teams to say, "Okay, how do we tell these impactful stories to a contemporary audience in ways that are impactful and reach a diverse and broad audience?" And so, it's that opportunity that we've taken advantage of. A lot of capital investment by the taxpayers, but also by our philanthropic community, who've been incredibly generous in allowing us to reimagine this Museum for the next a hundred years.
Joe Anselmo:
Chris, it's ironic. My first visit here was in 1977. I was 10 years old. My parents brought me here and for 40 years it really seemed like a building out of the 1970s. And so you walk in it now, it clearly is a very modern looking place, what you've done so far. We talked about the building, I want to hear about the airplanes and the spacecraft. What are some of the highlights that people are going to see when they walk in here, this revamped Museum?
Chris Browne:
Well, I think when they come back it's important to remember that we're only opening half the Museum. So there're certain artifacts that will return to the Museum when it's fully opened. So for instance, the Bell-X one that Chuck Yeager flew. The first person to break the sound barrier.
Joe Anselmo:
That will be five years ago this March.
Chris Browne:
There you go. Exactly right. That will be, it's currently on display at our Udvar-Hazy Center out near Dulles Airport. That will be reintroduced to the Museum in the next phase. But in all told, half of the artifacts coming into the Museum will be in the Museum for the first time. So as a visitor that span 40 years like myself, it in fact, will be very new and different.
And yet the iconic familiar artifacts like the Spirit of St. Louis, the Bell X-1, the Wright Flyer, many of these are timeless and, of course, will always be showcased front and center in our displays. But this is an opportunity to introduce new storytelling. There have been many new human stories, not just technologies, but the human stories behind them in the 40 plus years since the Museum opened. So it will definitely not only have a new clean look by virtue of it being newly built, but the storytelling itself will be, in many cases, some stories you will be hearing for the first time.
Jen DiMascio:
Can you give us a tease?
Chris Browne:
Sure. As you enter off of the Independence Avenue entrance, because that will be the sort of the front door until we're able to open in addition the mall entrance. But when you enter on October 14th, the first aircraft you'll see will be a home built aircraft by a guy Neal Loving. Neal Loving was an African American, who in the '40s, tried to join the civil air patrol, was denied because of racial bias at the time. But he persevered, formed his own squadron, and he went on to live an incredible life of aviation.
He actually lost both his legs in a glider accident, but undeterred, continued flying with two prosthetics at a time when folks generally weren't, and went on to build his own aircraft, with his own hands, he designed and built. And that aircraft that is now on display in the Museum for the first time, is one that he built, that has folding wings, and he would tow behind his aircraft to a field and then fly it. He had something like over 600 hours of flight time in it. So, an incredible aviation story, a remarkable artifact. And it's in the Museum for the first time, and we think will appeal to an audience that may be able to see themselves in those kind of stories.
Jen DiMascio:
One thing I'm pretty excited about is the Innovation Gallery that you're putting together. That's not static, correct?
Chris Browne:
Correct. Some of our galleries, so for instance, Destination Moon, which tells the story of Apollo, that storytelling, that exhibit as it now, has been re-imagined, will be in place for decades. We'll update some of the digital content perhaps, but fundamentally that, as it looks today, will be with us for decades, I would expect.
We do have though, a gallery set aside, it will not be opening on the 14th of October, but probably in 2024, and that will be a rotating gallery about every 18 months, maybe 24 months, where we introduce new themes, new artifacts, new storytelling in a very contemporary way, so that it has a very high turnover intentionally so that we can stay current and contemporary with what people are actually hearing and seeing and reading about in the world as they're living in it.
Joe Anselmo:
For those of our listeners not fortunate enough to come to Washington, there's actually two Air & Space Museums. There's this original on the National Mall, and then there's the much larger Hazy Museum out in Virginia, next to Dulles Airport. How do the two relate to each other? Will you rotate exhibits between the two, or will one specialize in A and the other in B?
Chris Browne:
Well, they complement each other very well. And what it does is allow us to display a very large portion of the collection, which as you know, most museums are only able to display a fraction of what's actually in the collection. And the layout of them is different, as your listeners, if they've experienced them, will attest to, I mean here in the National Mall where we have extensive storytelling in galleries, there's sort of a beginning and an ending storyline in some cases. The Udvar-Hazy Center is really an open storage hangar, where we provide context and description, but a lot of it is more sort of self-guided. The artifacts are no less significant. I mean certainly the Discovery Space Shuttle is at Udvar-Hazy, along with Enola Gay, and F-14, close to me. [Browne, a Top Gun Fighter Weapons School graduate, flew Grumman Tomcats off the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.]
Joe Anselmo:
And the SR-71, my favorite.
Chris Browne:
SR-71. And so, we're able to share that collection in a broader way, but in a different kind of way to connect with our audiences. So we see the two complimenting each other very well. But as we got into this project here in the mall, we did have the opportunity to bring some of the artifacts that had been on display previously in Udvar-Hazy to actually be in the gallery. So for instance, previously when you went to the Udvar-Hazy Center, you probably saw the Lear 23 hanging from the ceiling, as we say. That's the second Lear built, the first one crashed in test. It's the longest surviving Lear Jet, but certainly iconic when you want to tell the story of business aviation. So that aircraft is now here in this Museum, part of the storytelling in our Thomas Haas We All Fly Gallery.
Joe Anselmo:
And it used to have here the Wright Brothers Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, those are coming back, right? The Apollo 11 Space Capsule?
Chris Browne:
Absolutely. The gallery, the Wright Gallery, it's a new gallery, but certainly with the familiar artifacts, starting with the Wright bicycle, but certainly, the Flyer will be available on display, in its new setting and its new storytelling when we open on the 14th.
The Apollo 11 Command Module is part of our Destination Moon Gallery, which is really quite impressive. It's an interesting story to try to tell because our previous gallery that told the Apollo story that opened in 1976, all our visitors, it wasn't even memory, it was almost current events. And now we have an audience that is coming into the Museum and seeing and learning about Apollo for the first time perhaps, because they weren't certainly alive during Apollo. And so when, I think just recently the President used the term moonshot. So what does that mean to a younger, more contemporary audience? What Destination Moon Gallery does, is try to contextualize that and show that when you put human ingenuity and resource and vision together, incredible things can happen. So we see how we can tell that Apollo story accurately, authentically, with all the real artifacts, but in a way that will resonate with a younger, newer, contemporary audience that was never alive during Apollo.
Jen DiMascio:
And also as NASA gets ready to undertake its next moon mission, do you look ahead at all, to what might happen next?
Chris Browne:
Absolutely. As Museums, we're always collecting, and we're very mindful of that because this is the National Collection and so we have to be very discerning about what it is that we think warrants, what's the providence of the artifact that we want to accession into the National Collection, and importantly, or frankly, more importantly, what's the story behind it? So even looking forward to the ISS that we understand and know is going to de-orbit in 2030, we're in conversations with NASA about items on the space station that we want in this collection. And as you all, and your listeners well know, bringing things back from space isn't as, in some ways, just as hard as getting it up there. And so, we have some time to work on, but our curators have identified what's on the space station and hopefully we can make arrangements to bring that back and introduce it into our collection and displays, the storytelling, because the ISS is such an impactful story and it would be tragic to lose it when it de-orbits.
Joe Anselmo:
We were all talking about the Museum yesterday at Aviation Week, and one of our long time purists, who can be grumpy sometimes, was grumpy a little bit about the fact that there's going to be a Star Wars Model Fighter hanging here. And he said, "Why do Star Wars when you have all this real stuff here?" I mean, why Star Wars?
Chris Browne:
Well, I think it's important that we have to meet our audience where they are. How do they present? How do they come to us? And we know that many of our audience are fans of Star Wars and science fiction and it's really a question of, how do people... what inspires them? What is that trigger? What is that ignition point that really inspires them to pursue an interest in aviation or aerospace? So clearly that X-Wing Fighter will do that for certain audiences. Not everybody, we get that, but just a stone's throw from the X1 Fighter is a T-38 Supersonic Trainer in the building for the first time. One that Jackie Cochran, the first woman to break the sound barrier, flew and set many records. And so, there's something here for everybody, but I recognize there are going to be people say, "That doesn't belong in the National Collection because it never flew."
And a little bit tongue in cheek, but accurately, we also have over 6,000 paintings in the National Collection that have never flown either. So, I would say give us a chance and we dare say that there'll be something here that will really resonate.
Jen DiMascio:
Well, you're trying to capture a massive audience. I was just looking back before coming over here, but attendance figures from 2016, seven and a half million visitors came to the National Air & Space Museum. And so, it's just fascinating to me that this is such a draw for the American public and the global public. How do you cast such a wide net?
Chris Browne:
Well, it's always been my view that aviation and aerospace is not uniquely American, but I think aviation and aerospace have uniquely influenced the American persona and the American experience unlike anything else I know. You've undoubtedly, your readers and others probably share that view. And so we're just really fortunate to be able to help tell that story to a very large audience, because it touches everybody in different ways, whether you're a visitor of the area that flew in on an aircraft or you're a young child wondering what it might be to be an astronaut. In some of our galleries, we actually had toys and some of the things that served as inspiration, Ray Bradbury's book to some of the early astronauts and explorers. And so it's really a matter of meeting people where they are and sharing with them what I think is, as I say, an incredibly influential piece of the American experience in ways that I don't think are replicated anywhere else.
Jen DiMascio:
I think we have time for one more question. Joe?
Joe Anselmo:
So you're opening your doors to the public on October 14th?
Chris Browne:
Correct.
Joe Anselmo:
Okay. And do you have to have tickets or is it like the old days, first come, first serve?
Chris Browne:
Well, it's important to remember that because we're the National Air & Space Museum, the Smithsonian is free to the public. So if somebody tries to charge you to come in here, don't pay them. But because we're opening half the Museum, and have literally half the space to provide to what we know is a very large audience, to ensure really two things, a quality visitor experience, but also to ensure our building codes are complied with. We are going to be issuing free time to pass entries, tickets or they're free passes, as we say, available online. And we always hold in reserve tickets in some cases for no-shows or others that we will make available daily to folks that choose not to or unable to reserve online. But the surest bet to make sure you get in to see this Museum in an unhurried, and in a quality way, is to go online and reserve those free passes.
Joe Anselmo:
Last question. What's your favorite exhibit here? Well, it's like asking what your favorite child is, but I'll try. I mean, I'm an aviation guy at heart, but I really think the Destination Moon and the Apollo story is a remarkable one. But there is one artifact, not in that gallery, but that's in the Wright Gallery, as you exit, that I think is really a big... it captures a lot of the essence of the Museum in its timeline. And that is a piece of original fabric and a piece of wood. A small piece of wood from the original Wright Flyer. The original Wright Flyer is in the exhibit, but there are a couple pieces that the family recovered off of that aircraft and retained and gave to Neil Armstrong, he's from Ohio, as well. He carried those two small pieces with them to the surface of the moon in 1969.
And when you realize that the time span from first powered flight in 1903 to the first person stepping foot on the moon 66 years later, I really think captures the magnitude of that effort of aviation and aerospace that is reflected in the work you do and in Aviation Week & Space Technology, and I think it captures a lot of what the Museum is trying to do.
Jen DiMascio:
That's a great point to end on. Thank you very much for joining us today on Check 6. Please join us again next week for another edition. Bye-bye.
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