The Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum maintains the largest collection of historic air and spacecraft in the world. It is also a vital center for research into the history, science, and technology of aviation and space flight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics.

The Museum has two display facilities. The National Mall building in Washington, D.C. has hundreds of artifacts on display including the original Wright 1903 Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Apollo 11 command module, and a lunar rock sample that visitors can touch. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center displays many more artifacts including the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay and Space Shuttle Enterprise.
The museum is divided into 22 thematic exhibition galleries with names such as 'Milestones of Flight', 'Early Flight', 'Aviation in WWII' and 'Space Race'. Besides displaying the planes and space modules, the museum also includes interactive exhibits as well as the 230-seat Albert Einstein planetarium and the Langley IMAX theater where you can watch breathtaking movies on a five storey high screen.