Make Your Plans For May 5!

Visitors of all ages are invited to attend a galactic adventure next week, as the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum hosts its annual Space Day celebration on Friday, May 5, at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.

To encourage families to attend, the center will have extended hours for the day -- 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. Lockheed Martin has even kicked in for free parking for attendees.

Space Day will feature a busy schedule of astronaut appearances, live performances by the Smithsonian's Discovery Theater, hands-on learning stations, book signings, curator talks, tours, stories for children and a special space-themed IMAX film festival with tickets discounted to $5 for each show. The films conclude with an 8 p.m. showing of the IMAX Experience version of the Tom Hanks drama "Apollo 13."

Visitors also will have the chance to win an array of prizes, including trips to Space Camp in Huntsville, AL, and a Bushnell telescope.

Created by Lockheed Martin in 1997, Space Day is designed to encourage students to consider careers in space exploration as they study math, science, engineering and technology. The company sponsors Space Day events across the United States and Canada, with more than 70 partners and associates including the National Air and Space Museum and NASA.

This year’s theme is "Living and Working on the Moon," which reflects NASA's plans to create a lunar test-bed that leads to human exploration of Mars and beyond. The space agency is readying designs for a new reusable spacecraft that can take up to six astronauts to the moon and back.

A 30-minute broadcast of Space Day activities at the Udvar-Hazy Center will be distributed by satellite to more than 200,000 schools in North America.

More than 1,500 sixth-graders from Washington-area schools will take part in Space Day at the Udvar-Hazy Center. In remarks during the opening ceremony, former senator and astronaut John Glenn will offer advice on how young people can get involved in space exploration.

Former senator and astronaut Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, Apollo 17 lunar module pilot, will be on hand for a late-morning talk and book-signing. Shuttle and International Space Station astronaut Carl Walz, former shuttle astronaut Tom Jones and educator astronaut Ricky Arnold will also take part in Space Day at the Udvar-Hazy Center.

Organizations offering activity stations at the center will include NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, AMSAT-Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, the Chantilly Robotics Team and Boy Scout Troop 1154.

"Space Day gives us the perfect chance to inspire the next generation of engineers, astronauts and educators—plus their families," said museum director Gen. J.R. "Jack" Dailey. "The Udvar-Hazy Center is home to some remarkable icons of flight, but programs like Space Day show that we’re also a significant resource for the community and schools, local and thousands of miles away." 

The center features the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar, whose centerpiece is Enterprise (below) -- the only NASA space shuttle anywhere on display to the public. The hangar is also home to the Gemini VII spacecraft, an instrument ring segment from an unflown Saturn V rocket, a space shuttle main engine, the mobile quarantine trailer that housed the returned Apollo 11 crew, and scores of cruise missiles, satellites and space telescopes.

Among its hundreds of smaller artifacts are a human-sized NASA android used for spacesuit testing and research crystals formed in orbit.

FMI: www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy/