Raz's Photos: National Air and Space Museum, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Second stop: The National Air and Space Museum.

Artwork at the front door.

The Wright Brothers' 1903 'Flyer'.

First Boeing 247-D. The Boeing 247 was the first modern airliner, it pioneered retractable landing gear, and wing-mounted, supercharged, air-cooled engines. The 247-D added controllable pitch propellers and wing de-icing. This first production model was the US entry in the 1934 England-to-Australia International Air Derby (aka The MacRobertson Race), it placed third overall.

Chuck Yeager's 'Glamorous Glennis', the Bell X1. This is the first aircraft ever to fly faster than the speed of sound.

Gemini IV, the craft used for the first US spacewalk.

Lunar orbiter (name?): photographed much of the Moon's surface from orbit. (Model or prototype.)

Lunar surveyor (name?): landed on the Moon pre-Apollo, took measurements and analysed surface samples. (Model or prototype.)

LM2. A spare Lunar Module made for the Apollo project.

LM1 was sent to the Moon unmanned and its Command Module returned to Earth during one of the early Apollo missions in order to prove the hardware before risking human life. LM2 was available for a second shot, should LM1 fail. As LM1 succeeded, LM2 never went to the Moon, instead remaining on Earth to later be used for ground-based testing. Consequently, this is the real thing, despite parts of it looking (to me) like a kindergarten project. In particular, the black alloy foil which appears to hang loose was never intended for use in an atmosphere, instead it was there to absorb micrometeorites.

Apollo 11 (Command Module), the craft used for the first manned mission to the Moon.

Cray 1, Serial #14, 1976.

Breitling Orbiter 3, gondola/cabin for the first round-the-world balloon flight.

An Iridium Satellite. (Not quite the real thing: assembled from surplus parts and engineering samples.)