Jul 1 1976
From The Space Library
In Washington, the Smithsonian Institution's new National Air and Space Museum was opened with a speech by President Ford, in observance of the U.S. Bicentennial. The President and Vice President Rockefeller were escorted through the $41-million museum by museum director Michael 1. Collins, who had piloted the Apollo 11 spacecraft. At a signal given 18 min previously by the Viking 1 spacecraft in orbit around Mars, a 3-m metal arm was activated to cut a red, white, and blue ribbon to officially open the building. "That's the most expensive scissors in history," the President commented as he began his dedication. The museum was "a perfect birthday present from the American people to themselves." During the next century, he said, the best of the American adventure lay ahead; it could find out how to harness and preserve the forces of nature, explore the "uncharted frontier" of the oceans, turn space into a partner for control of pollution and improvement of worldwide communications, draw more energy from the earth and sun, develop new agricultural technologies, and conquer cancer and heart disease. The President noted that just 100 yr ago Alexander Graham Bell first publicly demonstrated his telephone. Progress, he said, can be measured "not only by the extent of our knowledge but by increasing awareness of all that remains to be discovered." Described by Smithsonian Institution Secretary S. Dillon Ripley as "a chic hangar" and by Washington Post architectural writer Wolf von Eckardt as "a work of art" with "a beautiful, natural quality" and "a modest timelessness about it," the museum occupied 3 blocks on the Mall, stretching more than 200 m and standing about 26 m high. The first 2 floors contained more than 10 acres of exhibit space; the third floor contained offices, a library, and a cafeteria. The design called for a structural-steel frame covered with thin slabs of the same Tennessee pink marble used for the National Gallery of Art directly across the Mall; the building was divided into 7 bays-4 marble boxes connected by 3 bronze glass bays facing the Mall. The center entrance bay, "Milestones of Flight," contained the only permanent displays: the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk flyer, Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the Bell X-1 (first supersonic plane), and the North American X-15. The problem, said the New York Times, was to design a building that "couldn't possibly hold" all it was meant to display; the Saturn V rocket measured 4 times as high as the building, and a Boeing 747 fuselage was longer than the building's width. "Space Hall" in the east bay contained the full-size rockets formerly on display near the Smithsonian "castle"; a pit had been dug and the floor lowered to accommodate the 22-m missiles, and the 30-ton backup Skylab had been cut out so that visitors could walk through the astronauts' living area. The west bay was for "Air Transportation"; more than 100 spacecraft and 64 aircraft, nearly 10 times as many as were previously on display, would be exhibited in the new building.
Chartered by Congress in 1945, the new museum had' been quartered in temporary structures until after the Vietnam war. All the stories on the opening noted that it was constructed on time and within its budget. The Smithsonian had begun its aeronautical collection 100 yr previously with a group of Chinese kites presented for the 1876 Philadelphia centennial exposition; its interest in aeronautics had begun even earlier. Joseph Henry, first Secretary of the Smithsonian, had sponsored a balloon ascension from the Mall in 1861 to encourage President Lincoln to use balloons for military observation. In 1916, the Smithsonian had begun its 29-year association with Dr. Robert H. Goddard, father of the liquid-fuel. rocket.
The museum expected 7 million visitors a year; opening date had been changed from 4 July to accommodate the Bicentennial crowds expected in D.C., and the museum lobby on Independence Ave. had been open to the public since 2 Feb. (CSM, 14 May 76; W Star, 25 June 76, C-1; 1 July 76, A-1; W Post, 27 June 76, E-1; 1 July 76, B-1; 2 July 76, A-1; NYT, 2 July 76, B12; 4 July 76, 22; C Trib, 2 July 76, 4-16; Newport News (Va) Daily Press, 25 Apr 76)
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