After seven years and nearly $1 billion, the Smithsonian has finally finished renovating the National Air and Space Museum's flagship building in Washington, DC - a project so extensive it apparently required the museum to be closed in phases, because nothing says "world-class aerospace collection" like a decade of construction fencing.
On October 30, the museum debuted its last-to-open spaceflight exhibition, "At Home in Space," a gallery devoted to establishing a spacefaring civilization. Curator Jennifer Levasseur guided a virtual tour, explaining that the exhibit tells "the story of long-duration spaceflight in the last few decades. We generally call it 'reaching orbit.'" So, the story of humans living in space - a thing we've been doing for 25 years - now has its own gallery. Better late than never, one supposes.
"It's the prep story, the space shuttle story," Levasseur said. "It's what allows us to end up at a place where we have 25-plus years of long-duration spaceflight experience, the capacity for humans to be living in space on the International Space Station (ISS), and then it carries that story forward. So the middle of our story then becomes the ISS, and the end of the story are the next steps." The next steps, presumably, being the part where we figure out how to do it without relying on Russian rockets.
The gallery joins a roster of other new exhibits: "Destination Moon" (how astronauts first entered space and landed on the Moon), "Kenneth C. Griffin Exploring the Planets" (robotic probes exploring every planet in our solar system), "RTX Living in the Space Age Hall" (how technology impacts daily life), and "Futures in Space" (what's next). "At Home in Space" follows the similarly themed "Moving Beyond Earth," immersing guests in the equipment and spacecraft that enabled humanity to go from visiting space to living there - setting up the near future for bases on the Moon and Mars, because apparently we're still pretending that's happening soon.
The gallery's centerpiece is an overhead mock-up of an astronaut on the end of a robotic arm, set against a full-size photo mural of the ISS. The astronaut is modeled on a real person, though Levasseur wouldn't say who. "They are wearing an Expedition 60 patch, so that'll give you a little clue," she teased. So it's someone who was on Expedition 60. That narrows it down to, oh, a handful of people. Thanks for the hint.
Among the artifacts: a space shuttle main engine, Robonaut 1A (a prototype humanoid robot), and an extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) spacesuit. "It's pretty damn special," Levasseur said of the EMU. "This, as far as I know, is the first and potentially only public display of a fully flown set of EMU equipment in the world. I know NASA has one in its EVA office, but it is not on public display." So the Smithsonian has the only one you can actually see. Take that, NASA's EVA office.
Unlike Apollo-era suits tailored to each astronaut, the EMU was designed for reuse - components can be swapped to fit different sizes. Introduced during the early shuttle program, the same suits are still used on the ISS for US spacewalks. The museum's example is missing a functioning portable life support system (PLSS), because all the backpacks are still needed for actual spacewalks. So the suit on display has only a PLSS shell. A shell of its former self, literally.
The gallery also features Guy Bluford's and Sally Ride's in-flight suits - the "shirt-sleeve" outfits worn by the first African American and first US woman in space, respectively. Ride's suit is notably missing its jacket, a late change to the plan. "We were given a drawing of this, a 3D mockup of its display case, and our designers then put it in this way without the jacket on," Levasseur told collectSPACE. "And we thought, 'Hey, that's actually kind of a nice contrast. Let's keep the jacket out.'" So the jacket is somewhere else, presumably in a drawer labeled "nice contrast."
The gallery also includes recovered components from the Challenger and Columbia tragedies - only the second public display of fallen orbiter debris after a Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex exhibit opened in Florida in 2015. "We wanted to honor the individuals who were lost during the shuttle program," Levasseur said. "So we have an elevon hinge from Challenger that washed up on the beach a few years ago and a little wiring panel fragment from inside the payload bay. And then from Columbia we thought it was appropriate to help tell that story with a piece of RCC [reinforced carbon-carbon]. This is a T-panel from the starboard wing. We also have a CD on a long-term loan from David Brown's family." A compact disc - because nothing says "space tragedy" like a mixtape from 2003.
Visitors can walk through a full-size mock-up of the ISS's Destiny module, the US national laboratory, with equipment on both sides and above and below. The floor detailing was originally going to be a mosaic of real images, but accessibility concerns prevailed: "We found that for accessibility reasons people might come in and see the cables and worry that they were real, creating a tripping hazard," Levasseur said. "On the flip side, and I had to fight to get these, we had to have labels to indicate activity happens on the floor and happens on the overhead. People need to see this is a literally three-dimensional space." So the museum had to fight to include labels explaining that yes, the floor is the floor. Worth the billion dollars.
The module has interactive elements and crew equipment artifacts, including coffee cups engineered for microgravity. "This is probably the best section in my mind because it has fun stuff," Levasseur said, pointing out the flown miniPCR biotech toolkit and MinION portable device used to sequence DNA in space for the first time. Also on display: the first 3D printer used in space. In 2014, Made In Space (now part of Redwire) and NASA flew the printer, which produced hundreds of objects, from astronaut tools to space station repair parts. So now you can see the machine that made the tools that fixed the thing.
And then there's the scent station. "My absolute favorite thing to work on in this gallery answers the questions: What does space smell like, and what does the ISS smell like?" Levasseur said. "We have little scent oils inside each of these that allow people to smell them." Finally, a chance to confirm your suspicions that space smells like burnt steak and regret.
The gallery concludes with a space reserved for the Artemis I capsule, the spacecraft that flew uncrewed to the Moon in 2022. A Lockheed Martin scale model of Orion holds the place until NASA delivers the real spacecraft later this year. "This is the piece of Wright Flyer fabric that went to the moon with Artemis II, so that's on display here, too," Levasseur said. A bit of the Wright brothers' plane went to the Moon. If that doesn't sum up the last century of aviation, nothing does.
The renovation also included refacing the exterior cladding, replacing mechanical systems, and other improvements. The first half reopened in 2022 with eight new or reimagined galleries, the Northrop Grumman Planetarium, museum store, and the Mars Café. The second phase opened in 2025 with five new galleries, and five more opened July 1. "Modern Military Aviation" opens November 11.
"We are thrilled to complete the most extensive project the museum has ever undergone," Chris Browne, John and Adrienne Mars Director of the museum, said in a statement. "With the opening of these last two galleries, the public will once again be able to visit the entirety of the museum and learn from and engage with the nation's world-class aerospace collection." Admission remains free, but timed-entry passes are required - because even free things come with a catch.