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Flights of Fancy at the National Air and Space Museum

© Eugenia E. Gratto

There are dozens of great museums in Washington DC, but when I was a little girl, none captured my imagination like the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution. No matter how many times my parents suggested that we try another museum, that was the one I always wanted to visit.

As an adult, I still love the museum, with its high-flying rockets, jet airplanes and, best of all, the IMAX theater. And I'm not alone. More than 10 million visitors walk through the museum's doors each year—it's one of the Smithsonian Institution's most popular museums.

The Air and Space Museum brought in thousands of visitors during 1998 and 1999 to see Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, a special exhibition that was housed at the museum until January 1999, and now is travelling around the country. It has already appeared in San Diego and Minneapolis, and is currently located at the Field Museum in Chicago through January 2, 2001. Then the exhibit will travel on to Houston; Toledo, OH; and Brooklyn. Click here for more information on the exhibit's itinerary.

The exhibit features costumes and other artifacts from all four Star Wars movies—Star Wars: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace. Visitors can see production models of the Imperial Star Destroyer and Anakin Skywalker's pod racer. The exhibit includes a 30-minute film about the movie series' effect on world culture at the end of the 20th century.

If you can't make it to the exhibit, you can always see the virtual exhibit on the web, which will remain live until the end of the tour in 2002.

But even though the Star Wars exhibit is no longer at the Air and Space Museum, there's plenty there to see.

The Langley IMAX Theater—the only one in Washington DC—draws a crowd to all its movies. One of the films playing there now is Michael Jordan to the Max, and reviewers have given high marks to this film, which puts the already-tall basketball star (and Washington Wizards president) on a five-story-high screen. It's definitely on my list of must-see movies for the summer. The theater always shows the classic To Fly, which details the history of flight, and other current films include Mission to Mir and Cosmic Voyage.

Although the museum is currently under extensive renovations, there are also great exhibits to see. Check the exhibition schedule on the museum's web site to see what's open before you head there for a visit.

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