 Hey guys, welcome to sunny and sort of chilly, but actually really nice at Washington DC So I am here because NASA is here and I'm actually here for a few days doing some research in the NASA archives For the book, which I'll tell you about later But in the meantime, I wanted to share some really cool space history and just cool history stuff about DC Well, I'm here and we are don't worry. Oh, there's a truck home by We are also going to be going into the air and space museum So we've got a little bit of NASA history and then also the air and space museum So come with me and I will take you along on my space history tour of DC All right, so I should say I should narrate this a bit more This is day three of my four days in DC and I've been in the archives for three or two days already And I've got everything I need Amazingly, I just took photographs of everything guys. It's it's almost a thousand pages. It's awesome But I didn't think to take any pictures of the inside of NASA which in retrospect. Honestly, it's it's an office building It's not super exciting, but I thought I'd show you the outside of the building. Are you ready spin with me spin with me It's an office building It's just an office building You think it would like look like a rocket or look like it does in the Martian, but it's just an office building Anyways, now you guys know what NASA has All right guys, this is a stop. I've been really excited to do so for reference I am in Lafayette Square. So if we turn over this way, the White House is right behind me But the house that I am interested in right now is this yellow house on the corner that's behind me right there So this is the Dolly Madison house. This house actually has an incredible history for American history But the reason we are interested in it It's because this was actually NASA's original headquarters whenever we think about NASA We might think of the big building that I showed you guys earlier on East Street this little yellow house It's a three-story house has been added to and everything over the years since it was built But NASA moved in right after it was formed in 1958 and moved out Who will have to double-check the date on that one insert correct date here So when we think about the Mercury astronauts press conference, right? We've all seen the footage or more likely remember the footage of the scene in the right stuff when they're in that Ballroom this is where that actually happened. This was where the space task group met This is where everything at NASA started for like the first three years So I tried to get inside apparently now it is part of the federal court system So you're not allowed to wander in and take pictures of the inside of the ballroom So that's super neat. I'm really sad it couldn't go inside But I really wanted to share this little nugget of history next time you're in DC Lafayette Square And you come to see the White House because that's a thing people do come to the Dolly Madison house and where NASA started All right guys, so Clearly you can tell from different clothes and slightly different hair It's day two of my Space Nerd tour of Washington and as you can tell from the lunar module behind me I am at everybody's favorite go-to place for Space Nerdery in DC, which is the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum There is tons here. There's like aviation history war history like so much cool stuff It's worth getting to if you ever have the chance but for those of you who haven't been or maybe can't make it yet I'm gonna try to give you the the nuts and bolts of the best stuff You can possibly see and we're also going to be negotiating with a lot of school groups, but hopefully we can make this work Well, it obviously wouldn't be an air and space museum without a lot of space stuff and in this case Of course, this is the lunar module that you see behind me So this is LM2 this lunar module was actually built as a backup for LM1 LM1 was the lunar module flown on Apollo 5 without any legs as a sort of shakedown cruise of the lunar module So this was actually the backup for that mission and because Apollo 5 was so successful NASA didn't ever do another unmanned test of the lunar module It flew on Apollo 5 and then it flew on Apollo 9 with astronauts on board and they basically did a Lunar mission, but in Earth orbit. Apollo 9 severely underrated mission. So this lunar module has been Retrofitted to look like Apollo 11's lunar module So this was actually a training mock-up used and then in the 70s It was kind of tweaked to look like Apollo 11's lunar module So it isn't what it looks like when the astronauts used it, but it does look a lot like it did when it landed on the moon So this is super neat and it's honestly guys. It's amazing like I'm sort of here for scale But you can't totally tell you can see there is an astronaut there for scale sort of but it's so much bigger than you Think it's going to be but also so much more flimsy looking than you expect it to be Okay, so as many of you who've been here know or have heard about it would also know Apollo 11 it usually lives here of you as you would expect the main air and space museum in the country would have Apollo 11 Well, unfortunately, it is actually on loan right now I think it is currently in Houston and it's heading up to Seattle from what I've heard So we don't actually have a flown Apollo spacecraft here But we do have behind me and I will spin around to show you guys these we do have a flown Mercury and Gemini Mercury and Gemini. So let's look at what these are in detail. I'm gonna spin the camera around All right, so mercury we have friendship seven. We have John Glenn's flown capsule You guys can sort of see the wear and tear on the outside of it a little bit But it's the thing that always gets me with these and I'm gonna see if I can actually zoom in a tiny bit and show you the control panel Sort of there we go This thing is so teeny tiny I can't imagine putting this thing on as they said and actually getting into it and going into space Let's see if we can actually look at the heat shield of it We can kind of see the heat shield. It's hard because it's under glass So you can kind of see the heat shield where it was you know protecting him through the atmosphere And Gemini guys we have Gemini 4 the real Gemini 4 is flown I love this so again This is another one that every time I see them in person just shocks me how absolutely tiny they were so this one Of course was flown by Ed White on America's first EVA or spacewalk and Jim McDivitt in 1965 so you can see inside as well I'm trying to get some kind of shot on the inside for you guys we can see just how tiny it really is This is two guys so think about it. Okay, this spacecraft obviously this one was Gemini 4 It was not a super long mission, but imagine Gemini 7 That was the two-week endurance test to test the batteries and all the you know the fuel cells and stuff that they would need on Apollo That's two guys in here for two weeks So it's pretty pretty incredible and we're gonna walk around and I'm gonna try to show you guys because you can see it The where on the heat shield from reentry like that is Pretty great looking it kind of looks like a model of the moon Okay, a couple of other really neat things are on the ceiling behind me So I'm gonna attempt to show you guys well. I tell you what they are, but you're gonna. Nope wrong way Okay, you're gonna see them the reveal the reveal Full-scale model. Oh, I don't you point out that much full-scale model of Sputnik and Explorer 1 So of course as we all know Sputnik was the first ever satellite launched in 57 October 4th 57 It's not very big. I mean it looks big because I'm so far away from it But it's an epic size bigger than a basketball, but it weighed 184 pounds and just has these big long antenna So as you can imagine right you always hear people saying that they could see Sputnik as it passed overhead Well, let's look again at how absolutely tiny this thing is you're not seeing this from the earth Okay, what you're actually seeing oops, or there's my finger. Nope. Oh, you can't zoom on the front camera What you're actually seeing is the roof is the the light hitting the upper stage of the rocket that followed Sputnik into orbit So then over here on this side, we have Explorer 1 which as we know is America's first satellite You can kind of see they're both really small They're both really really small compared to things that we launched after that But that was of course the one that Warner from Brown and his team helped to get into space This was the one that was launched on behalf of the Army Vanguard 1 it was the one that was launched on behalf of the Navy and guys I didn't know this was here But we're gonna go find it next so that I can show you guys this because I I've never seen it But they have the TV 3 Vanguard 1 satellite here, and I'm super excited because it doesn't look good All right, so these were one more shot one more shot history's first two satellites And now let's go look at the first public failure of the American space age All right, I promised you guys America's failed for a satellite and here's America's failed for a satellite So the story we all know of the TV 3 Vanguard launch. This was never actually supposed to be a Space shop, but Eisenhower actually got this mixed up in a Briefing from one of his advisors and assumed that it was the launch the launch was broadcast live This is the and this was supposed to be a test fairing mine supposed to be a test So this was never supposed to actually be televised as like the first official space shot But it ended up as the first official space shot And of course the rocket raised off the launch pad a few inches and then lost thrust and then tumbled back on itself and exploded into a lovely poof of fire But the satellite this satellite that we're looking at right now Felt the loss of thrust and assumed that it was in space and separated from the launch vehicle And it ended up in a nearby puddle and it started broadcasting its beep for everyone to hear super proud Like it was in space only it was actually in a puddle and then they recovered it And this is actually what it looks like I have never seen this and this see if I can zoom in to some of the Cracked features on it and you could actually see the inside of it. This is super neat. So Vanguard TV 3 America Failed nationally and internationally on television All right, so we've got John Glenn's mercury space suit and unfortunately being under glass it's really hard to get a clean reflection, but I'm trying for you guys and Yeah, it's all in its beautiful silver glory and right next to it similarly under a reflective glass We have Yuri Gagarin's space suit, which is super neat and also kind of emphasizes Gary wasn't super tall. He actually wasn't much taller than me So here it is in all its orange glory Another super cool suit that is in this museum is Alexei Leonov's EVA suit. So here it is on a dummy, which I'm not actually sure I kind of feel like I heard at one point that this dummy is actually Ivan Ivanovich But here it is shown as it looked getting out of the airlock on Voskhod 2 So this is and you got to remember this is attached to a massive spacecraft and for good measure We of course have some moon suits. This is Dave Scott's EVA suit From Apollo 15. I love that you can still see the dust and grime on it. I mean, this is a worn-in Lunar EVA suit. It looks so good. I don't know. I love it And because we are not leaving out the Soviets This is a Soviet EVA suit. So instead of having the separate backpack It was actually built into the suit and kind of see that it's like, oh, it's reflective It's really really hard to show you guys, but basically there's a cavity where you'd put the suit on Oh, you can sort of see it there You put the suit on and then close it up with all the electronics against I guess you're sort of the inner suit Um, and this one. Yeah, it's a little bit harder looking than the Apollo suits But there you go. This was what the Soviets were planning to use when their cosmonauts walked on the moon All right, it is basically impossible to get this whole thing in a frame at all, but I'm gonna do my darndest We have a full-scale mock-up So here's the Soyuz side And over here we have the Apollo side. So this is obviously not flown. These are training mock-ups The flown stuff is obviously, you know, didn't quite make it back through the atmosphere But um, yeah, this is full-scale and it's just kind of amazing to see this up close and personal And I have told this story before but just in case you've forgotten it This is the docking module between the two spacecraft that there's this weird story here I'll bring it back down to me There's a weird story that it had to be a common docking module because neither the Americans nor the Soviets Were willing to be the female half of a male female docking mechanism Which is absolutely untrue. The two spacecrafts just had different atmospheres The the Soviets used a an oxygen nitrogen mixed gas environment with equivalent pressure atmospheric pressure to sea level and the Americans as we knew on Apollo used a Five psi of pure oxygen So you can't go between these two spacecraft without having a way to equalize the gases So this wasn't because no one wanted to be the female half of a docking unit This is because this was the only way to actually have the atmosphere pressurized between the two vehicles So the cosmonauts would go into this and and depressurize that and bleed it into the American side So they could go visit that and vice versa You couldn't actually have the two spacecraft open to one another because their oxygen systems were completely separate So this is another one behind me that's always impressive to see The last time I saw one was at the Kansas Cosmosphere and it was lying down. It's more impressive standing up So we have a v2 So as we know the v2 was the first uh, one of the first rockets the one that uh, Werner von Braun and dorm burger developed for the german army in the second world war that the united states then um Brought over or recovered and brought back to work on in white sands Now you see this little rocket in front of it this one right here This is the gpl designed WAP corporal, right? So they're it's much tinier than the uh, than the the v2 So you put these two things together and you get the bumper WAP. That's the first two-stage rocket Was the WAP corporal on top of the v2 Apparently there is a flown Apollo command module here. This is the command module from skylab 4 I love you can see how worn it is from re-entry Of course one of the coolest pieces in this museum would have to be The glamorous glinnis This is jager's bell x1 aircraft in which he broke the sand barrier in 1947 And every time I see this plane or even a mock-up or a model it blows my mind that it is so small All right guys hands down my favorite aircraft, you know is the x15. Oh my god. I am in love with this airplane Every time I see this it's so small It's just so small considering they went up to over 380,000 feet in this thing. Oh my god if you look at the back end of it It's just power It's just a big powerful rocket with a cockpit on it. It's just nuts All right, so I am going to go ahead and say that my favorite thing in this museum this time around Might actually be the spirit of st. Louis for some reason or I guess st. Louis because I always pronounce that like a non-american So when you think about transatlantic flight like yes, okay Anyone who's been in an airplane and cross the atlantic ocean or any big body of water It's big these planes are big the last time I personally flew overseas Was in an airbus a380 the double decker massive jet and it was insane Can you imagine crossing the atlantic alone in this thing? I like I've always been a bit of a lindberg I mean, I've always been a lindberg fan who anyone who loves aviation and space history can't not be a lindberg fan I feel like I just have a new appreciation for just everything that he did seeing how small this thing is 33 hours from From brucevelt field in long islands in new york to paris france in that thing alone over the ocean All right guys. Thus ends my lightning fast tour of the air and space museum I've run out of time and I was also asked to please stop filming And to stop running around the outside of cases that are apparently beyond the velvet rope because I was looking for Very specific people who are honored in this museum, but oh well That is kind of the the highlights from the vintage space Perspective of course, there is world war one aviation golden age of aviation stuff Airmail stuff airline piloting history so much amazing stuff if you guys can make it Please do if you can't and find yourself in washington or near washington It's worth the day trip um and give yourselves plenty of time to see the museum. It is honestly incredible as always guys Okay, so uh, this is a one-off right you guys know I normally do straight up education videos if you do like that kind of stuff Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and of course consider sponsoring vintage space You can do that there is a video right up here that tells you all about sponsorships So that I can continue making the content that you guys love and of course You can always follow me across social media on facebook twitter and instagram for daily vintage space content. All right Thank you so much guys. Thanks for watching