On Saturday, December 7, 2024, the Carmel Institute organized a tour of the National Air & Space Museum, which reopened half of its building on the National Mall in November of 2022 after a long reconstruction process. Dr. Fedyashin gave the group a 90-minute in-depth tour of the “Destination Moon” exhibit. 

The collection offers a unique insight into how the space race between the superpowers manifested itself through the competition to land the first human onto Earth’s only satellite. Visitors can explore the story of the first animals sent into space—dogs by the Soviets and chimps by the US. The original capsule in which Ham the chimp went up is on display. Dr. Fedyashin ushered the students through the overlapping stages of the US space program: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. At each stage, Soviet successes in space—the launch of Sputnik, Gagarin’s and Tereshkova’s breakthroughs, and Leonov’s first spacewalk—impelled NASA to become more creative. 

The museum contains Alan Shepard’s original Freedom 7 capsule and space suit. The original Gemini VII vehicle shows just how cramped the early ships were—Frank Borman and Jim Lovell spent 14 days in it. Dr. Fedyashin then led the group through the Apollo missions, which culminated with Apollo 11 landing on the Moon in July of 1969. The original Columbia reentry vehicle is on display and so is the original space suit in which Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the Moon. The space race was one of the rare examples of mutually enriching superpower competition—one where intellectual and technological prowess ended up benefitting all of mankind. The students then watched the half-hour long documentary Worlds Beyond Earth in the newly renovated Planetarium. 

Museum visits, concert attendance, and class-trips have been part of the Carmel Institute’s programming since its inception. As Professor Fedyashin has always reminded his students, although our knowledge about the past depends primarily on reading, history must also be walked, seen, touched, smelled, and tasted. Before coming to Air & Space, the group read selections from a unique space race double-memoir by American astronaut David Scott and Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov called Two Sides of the Moon (2004). 

Exploring history on the page, on the screen, and through original objects is part of the holistic experience the Carmel Institute has championed from its inception.