Ooooh... Rockets and Space Ships!

We hit the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Annex during one of our recent have-to-stay-out-of-the-house excursions. If you aren't familiar with the annex, it's a huge building/hanger complex out by Dulles airport. It's given the Smithsonian Institution a place to display many of it's aeronautical and space craft that simply won't fit at the NASM's downtown location.

It's pretty cool. They have one of the Concorde jets, an SR-71 Blackbird (pictured to the left - it still holds the world speed record), the Enola Gay, a multitude of other civilian and military aircraft and, of course, the first space shuttle (that's a pic of me standing under the nose of the Enterprise below).

Since we had just recently watched Discovery's launch and landing, the kids were particularly thrilled with a 3-D flight simulator that we all got to ride. It simulated a shuttle launch, a space walk at the International Space Station and then the shuttle's return to Earth. They loved it, and have taken to asking me to give them math and science "homework" during the day so that they can grow up to be astronauts.

{sniff} {sniff}

They're gonna make their Daddy proud!

Tags: NASM; Udvar-Hazy; space shuttle