Since its opening in 1976, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM), located on the Mall in Washington, D.C., has attracted an average of nine million visitors per year. It received the most visitors in 1984, with 14.4 million. The museum had 8.2 million visitors in 1993 and 8.5 million visitors in 1994. Since 1976, 106 aircraft have been on display at the Mall museum. Of NASM’s 344 aircraft, 62 are currently on display at the Mall museum and seen by millions of visitors to the museum. Of the remaining 282 aircraft, 210 are stored at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility, Suitland, MD; 58 are on loan to and exhibited by other museums;12 are stored at Dulles International Airport, VA; 1 is stored at the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC), Tucson, AZ; and 1 is at Andrews Air Force Base, MD. NASM estimates that 245 of the 344 aircraft are exhibitable, 55 need minor work to become exhibitable, and 44 need major restoration work. Since the early 1980s, NASM has planned to build an extension facility at Dulles International Airport to replace the Garber facility and to display large aircraft that cannot be shown at the Mall museum. The Smithsonian’s earliest acquisition of aviation artifacts was made in 1876, when it received kites from the Imperial Chinese government to celebrate the American Centennial celebration. In 1905, the Smithsonian acquired its first flying machine, Langley Aerodrome No. 5, a model aircraft that made the first successful flight of any unmanned, engine-driven aircraft. Several other aircraft were added to the Smithsonian’s collection before World War I, including the 1909 Wright Military Flyer, the world’s first military airplane. In the decade after World War I, the Smithsonian acquired several World War I aircraft. Paul E. Garber, a Smithsonian employee with an interest in airplanes who joined the Smithsonian in 1920, arranged for the Smithsonian to acquire the “Spirit of St. Louis” in 1928, a year after Charles Lindbergh’s historic solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s, the Smithsonian added many historic aircraft to its collection, which was housed in a small metal building behind the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building in Washington, D.C. In 1946, Congress passed legislation that the Smithsonian establish a separate air museum, which became the National Air Museum. Mr. Garber also obtained many of the Smithsonian’s World War II aircraft from a collection assembled by Army Air Force General Hap Arnold, who believed that it was in the national interest to obtain one example of each type of World War II aircraft, including captured enemy aircraft. After World War II, most of these aircraft were stored in an automobile factory building in Park Ridge, IL, until the government sought to reactivate the factory for the Korean War in 1950. That collection subsequently was divided between the Smithsonian and the Air Force. The Smithsonian’s then newly organized National Air Museum acquired its share of the collection, which was moved to a 21-acre tract of federally owned land, located by Mr. Garber, in Suitland, MD, about 7 miles from Washington, D.C. The aircraft were mainly stored outside at Suitland from the early 1950s until they were moved into temporary storage buildings that were constructed primarily in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. “memorialize the national development of aviation and space flight; collect, preserve, and display aeronautical and space flight equipment of historical interest and significance; serve as a repository for scientific equipment and data pertaining to the development of aviation and space flight; and provide educational material for the historical study of aviation and space flight.” According to the legislative history, the museum was designed to display to the public notable exhibits comprising the nation’s air and space collection, including historic and scientific “firsts” such as the original Wright Brothers flyer, the first to fly at Kitty Hawk in 1903; Charles Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis,” the first solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927; the first Earth satellites; and Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 and John Glenn’s Friendship 7, the first manned spacecraft in the Mercury program. Testifying before Congress in 1964, the Director of the National Air Museum said that the museum “. . . cannot accept one of each airplane and launch vehicle. We accept only those of great historical significance.” The congressional report accompanying the authorizing legislation emphasized that NASM would make possible for the first time a comprehensive presentation to the public of the notable exhibits comprising the nation’s air and space collections. NASM’s collection tracks the country’s early developments of flight to the most recent space ventures. Although NASM’s collection contains some military aircraft, the museum’s focus is not military aviation. By contrast, other federally funded aviation museums, such as the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH, and the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL, primarily display military aircraft. Further, NASM does not display replicas but restores aircraft to original, although not flyable, condition. NASM’s restorations involve using original parts or locating similar parts, or constructing the parts if they cannot be found. Some officials in other air and space museums told us that NASM has very high restoration standards—standards that they said their museums generally could not afford to meet. The Director of the Air Force Museum, for example, said that NASM “wrote the book on aircraft restoration,” and that NASM’s restoration process is “excruciatingly thorough and detailed.” The Air Force Museum Director also said that the museum cannot afford to follow NASM’s restoration standards and must make compromises in seeking originality. The Director of the Champlin Fighter Museum in Mesa, AZ, told us that NASM’s restoration process is more tedious than Champlin’s. An official from the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, AZ, told us that his museum tries to put acquired aircraft on display as soon as possible, limiting restoration work to cosmetic changes. The former director said that NASM’s high standards are intentional and are designed to allow researchers in the future to study the materials and technology originally used to construct aircraft. NASM operates on both federal funds, used primarily for employee salaries, and private donations, which largely fund exhibits. In fiscal year 1994, NASM received about $15.4 million in federal appropriations, grants, and contracts for salaries, travel, research, and supplies. It also received $10.6 million in nongovernmental funds, such as private donations and theater and gift shop revenues. Table 1.1 details the sources of NASM funding for fiscal year 1994. Of the $26 million of funds received in fiscal year 1994, NASM spent about $20 million, as of September 30, 1994. About $6 million of the funds received included revenue from endowments, grants, and gifts that will not be paid out until later years. Table 1.2 shows fiscal year 1994 NASM expenditures in the categories that the museum maintains for its budget data. In December 1994, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was contacted by an historic aircraft organization, which said that NASM was not properly managed and in particular was not restoring a sufficient number of aircraft, thereby allowing its collection to deteriorate. We were asked to assess the rate of aircraft restoration; examine the adequacy of facilities for preserving aircraft; and if preservation problems exist, identify options to better care for the aircraft collection. To obtain information about the formation of the Smithsonian’s aircraft collection, we reviewed the legislative history of NASM and historical materials written about the museum and its collection. We also obtained and analyzed NASM data regarding the current number and aircraft in its collection, their condition and location, and the costs of aircraft restoration and storage. We inspected NASM’s Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, MD, NASM aircraft stored at Dulles International Airport, VA, and DOD’s AMARC in Tucson, AZ. To obtain information about NASM’s plans to collect additional aircraft, we reviewed the museum’s collections rationales for aircraft and space objects. At NASM, we interviewed staff involved in aircraft restoration and preservation, including the Assistant Director for Collections Management, the conservator, 10 restorers, 3 volunteers, and 4 other collections management staff; 5 curators; the former senior curator; the Senior Advisor to the Director; and the former director. We selected NASM employees based on their involvement with managing the collection for our interviews. Some of the individuals we interviewed contacted us on their own initiative to provide information. To compare NASM’s restoration and preservation practices with other federally funded museums, we visited and interviewed officials from the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and obtained data from these museums about their restoration staffing levels. We also visited and interviewed officials from the Champlin Fighter Museum in Mesa, AZ, about its restoration of an airplane for NASM under contract. To compare restoration and preservation practices at a nonprofit museum that receives no government funds, we visited and interviewed an official from the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, AZ. We also interviewed other individuals knowledgeable about NASM’s restoration and preservation policies and practices, including the Director of the San Diego Aerospace Museum in San Diego, CA, and the Air Force Historian.