24 



Annals of the Smithsonian Institution 1999 



History, and the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies 

 (CEPS), continued their work in scientific and historical re- 

 search, collecting significant artifacts, and developing 

 exhibitions related to all aspects of aviation and space flight. 



The Smithsonian Institution History of Aviation series 

 was replaced by the Smithsonian Institution History of Avia- 

 tion and Spaceflight series. Allan A. Needell, chair of the 

 Division of Space History, and Dominick A. Pisano, chair of 

 the Division of Aeronautics, serve as series editors. 



Senior Aeronautics Curator Tom Crouch's book Aiming for 

 the Stars: The Dreamers and Doers of the Space Age was pub- 

 lished by Smithsonian Institution Press, and Rick Leyes's 

 The History of North American Small Gas Turbine Aircraft En- 

 gines was published by the American Institute of Aeronautics 

 and Astronautics. 



CEPS continued an active research program in planetary 

 and terrestrial geology and geophysics using remote sensing 

 data from Earth-orbiting satellites and manned and un- 

 manned space missions. The scope of research activities in 

 fiscal year 1999 included work on Mercury, Venus, the 

 Moon, and Mars, and corresponding field studies in terres- 

 trial analog regions. CEPS staff study a variety of 

 geophysical processes, such as volcanism, floods, cratering, 

 tectonics, and sand movement. Of particular interest are 

 studies of past and present Mars climate, using data from ac- 

 tive spacecraft such as the Mars Global Surveyor. CEPS staff 

 are also involved in mission design and landing site selection 

 for future Mars exploration. Many of the terrestrial studies 

 also address topics of current concern for global climate 

 change. 



In addition to the Spacelab and Breitling Orbiter 3, major 

 items added to the collection in fiscal year 1999 included a 

 full-scale engineering prototype of Mars Pathfinder, the 

 flown Faint Object Spectrograph from the Hubble Space 

 Telescope, and a digital camera carried by former senator 

 John Glenn on his recent space shuttle mission. Fiscal year 

 1999 saw the beginning of a major shift toward preparing 

 the collections for the move to the planned center at Dulles. 

 The Collections Division entered into a partnership with 

 Rolls Royce NA to assist in cteating the Rolls-Royce Avia- 

 tion Heritage Trophy competition. NASM authored an 

 Aircraft Restoration Judging Guideline and assisted in the 

 actual judging of the aircraft in the highly successful inau- 

 gural competition. 



Several long-term projects to complete environmental 

 control systems in storage buildings at the Garber Facility 

 were completed. This allowed the Collections Processing 

 Unit to complete inventories of the objects stored in these 

 particular buildings and accomplish major strides in the 

 project to barcode the objects. The Restoration/Preservation 

 Unit of the Collections Division began the shift from major 

 restoration projects to preparing artifacts to be moved to the 

 center at Dulles. Major restoration work on the Soviet SA-2 

 missile transporter, the Aichi Seiran, and Nieuport 28 was 

 completed. The exterior of the aft fuselage of the Boeing B- 

 29 Enola Gay was polished. In addition, work on one of the 

 first projects being prepared for the move to the center at 

 Dulles, the Soviet MiG-15, was begun. 



The Business Aviation exhibition was removed from 

 Gallery 104 in the NASM West End. The Beech King Air 

 was lowered, and it and the Cessna Citation were then disas- 

 sembled, mounted on stands, and prepared for transport. 



The Henri Keyser- Andre conservation intern for 1999 ac- 

 complished a conservation project on the Mars Viking 

 Lander and a badly corroded navigational sextant that had 

 been discovered during an earlier collections inventory. 



As of January 1, 1999, the museum's new collections in- 

 formation system, The Museum System (TMS) was fully 

 operational. After rigorous testing, existing collections data 

 were migrated into the new system, and a new decentralized 

 method of inputting object information was adopted. Cura- 

 tors and Collections staff now share the responsibility for 

 entering data and for ensuring their accuracy and complete- 

 ness. When the data were converted, TMS contained basic 

 accession records for 32,635 objects. Due to limits of the for- 

 mer CIS system, few of these object records had significant 

 contextual information and none had images. During fiscal 

 year 1999 a coordinated program was initiated to close a 

 backlog of uncatalogued objects and add historical informa- 

 tion and other context to TMS object records in place. By 

 the end of fiscal year 1999, TMS contained over 40,000 

 records and nearly 20,000 images. Approximately 13,000 

 object records had had basic historical information added as 

 well, significantly exceeding the performance goals origi- 

 nally set for the transition program. 



The Archives Division began reviewing its database sys- 

 tems with the intent of replacing its DOS-based software 

 with a Windows compatible system. Near the end of the 

 year, software, which will be tested in FY 2000, was se- 

 lected. The museum also became a member of SIRIS 

 (Smithsonian Institution Research and Information System). 

 The new software and SIRIS will enhance the museum's abil- 

 ity to manage collections and to make those collections 

 available to the staff and the public. 



Processing of the Aircraft Technical Files, consisting of 

 over 400 cubic feet of reports, photographs, and publications 

 about heavier-than-air flight from its beginning to the pres- 

 ent, was completed. 



Exhibits and Public Service 



The pace of exhibit work for the center at Dulles remained 

 brisk. Accomplishments in fiscal year 1999 included the 

 completion of prototype display cases and exhibit stations, 

 graphic design for signage, the design of the donor recogni- 

 tion wall and information desk, and a 3-D model of the 

 major artifact placement layout. 



In October 1998 a new planetarium show, "And a Star to 

 Steer Her By," opened in the Planetarium. It explores the 

 tools humans have used, from stars to satellites, to meet the 

 challenge of navigation. Complementing the planetarium 

 show is "GPS: A New Constellation," a new exhibit that ex- 

 plores the Global Positioning System. 



Two temporary exhibits were added to the Space Race 

 gallery in June. "The Soviet Challenge in Space: Illustrating 

 the Threat" is a display of 12 paintings created for the De- 



