The National Museum of the United States Air Force (formerly the United States Air Force Museum) is the official National Museum of the United States Air Force and is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio. The NMUSAF is the world's largest and oldest military aviation museum. More than 400 aircraft and missiles are on display, most of them indoors. The museum draws over 1.3 million visitors per year and is one of the single most visited tourist attractions in Ohio. Admission is free.
Opened to the public in 2004, the Missile and Space Gallery is contained in a silo-like structure that stands 140 feet high. Visitors can view missiles such as the Titan I and II and Jupiter from ground level or can take in an aerial view from an elevated platform that hugs the inside circumference of the gallery. As part of the museum's ongoing expansion efforts, the gallery also features a portion of the museum's space collection, including the Apollo 15 Command Module, Mercury and Gemini capsules, rocket engines, satellites and balloon gondolas.
The United States is one of the most diverse countries on earth, jam packed full of amazing sights from St. Patrick's cathedral in New York to Mount Hollywood California.The Northeast region is where it all started. Thirteen British colonies fought the American Revolution from here and won their independence in the first successful colonial rebellion in history. Take a look at these rolling hills carpeted with foliage along the Hudson river here, north of New York City.The American south is known for its polite people and slow pace of life. Probably they move slowly because it's so hot. Southerners tend not to trust people from "up north" because they talk too fast. Here's a cemetery in Georgia where you can find graves of soldiers from the Civil War.The West Coast is sort of like another country that exists to make the east coast jealous. California is full of nothing but grizzly old miners digging for gold, a few gangster rappers, and then actors. That is to say, the West Coast functions as the imagination of the US, like a weird little brother who teases everybody then gets famous for making freaky art.The central part of the country is flat farmland all the way over to the Rocky Mountains. Up in the northwest corner you can find creative people in places like Portland and Seattle, along with awesome snowboarding and good beer. Text by Steve Smith.