Air, space artifacts make way to new home in Virginia

Visitors to the Udvar-Hazy Center look over the restoration area in February, 2013.

The Associated Press

Published: January 23, 2014

CHANTILLY, Va. Thousands of the nation's historic air and space artifacts including a Navy dive bomber from World War II and spacesuits from the Apollo era are slowly being moved from a cramped site in Maryland to a state-of-the-art Smithsonian conservation hangar in northern Virginia.

Faced with an ongoing shortage of suitable space to preserve its massive collection, the Smithsonian Institution's new air and space warehouse is a bright spot for the museum complex. The National Air and Space Museum opened its Udvar-Hazy Center annex in Virginia 10 years ago with a design to store thousands of artifacts on display. Now over the past year, the site has also opened a massive $79 million restoration hangar and conservation lab with additional storage space for artifacts.

Conservators will offer the public the first behind-the-scenes look at the facility during a free open house Saturday. Visitors can meet with curators and archivists and learn how aircraft and fragile pieces are cared for.

Last year, the Smithsonian's inspector general testified in Congress that the continued use of substandard facilities elsewhere posed a risk to important art and science collections. One site in Maryland was built in the 1950s and 1960s as a temporary holding site that became permanent.

Chief Conservator Malcolm Collum said Thursday that the museum now has a conservation lab to meet the highest standards of any aerospace museum.

"This is a huge leap forward," he said. "The space we're in now is approximately 10 times larger just in volume. But we've also increased our analytical capability immensely."

Apollo-era spacesuits, which are now 40 and 50 years old, are fragile, brittle and deteriorating, so conservators have been studying how to slow the decay. A special room in the new facility was designed as a cool, dark place to store the historic spacesuits.

See more here:
Air, space artifacts make way to new home in Virginia