Can it make this shrine into a school?" he wondered. When the Enola Gay exhibit was being planned in the 1990s, one observer was uncertain whether the staff of the Air and Space Museum could "overcome" the celebratory character of its establishment "and make the exhibit of the Enola Gay the educational opportunity it is planning. He opened the museum on July 1, 1976, on the two hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, another reminder of the patriotic character of the institution's birth. The first director of the Air and Space Museum was astronaut Michael Collins, who piloted the spacecraft on the spectacular Apollo mission to the moon in 1969. Stirred by the passionate arguments of Reserve Brigadier General Senator Barry Goldwater on the floor of the Senate in 1970, an appropriations bill was finally included in the Smithsonian's 1972 budget. The extraordinary increase in visitors to the Smithsonian to see the Mercury spacecraft in which Alan Shepard and John Glenn were hurled into space in 19, and the even more intense excitement when the moon rocks brought back by the 1969 Apollo II mission were exhibited, turned the tide in favor of those insisting that a great new museum be funded to enshrine such glorious objects. The history of its establishment, dating from its authorization (but not funding) by Congress in 1946, reflects a continuing debate between those who wanted to "memorialize" and "enshrine" the sacred symbols of American ingenuity in conquering air and space (such as the Wright Brothers Flyer and the Apollo II spacecraft), and those who wanted to "educate" and "interpret" their broader meaning. The jewel in the crown of all Smithsonian museums is the National Air and Space Museum (nasm), the world's most visited museum.
Its published annual report no longer even lists the publications of its research scholars. Rather it is regarded as a museum, or collection of museums, whose principal purpose is to put on exhibitions for the general public. The Smithsonian is currently seen neither as a national library nor as a research institute. Today the possibility of a similar congressional investigation hangs threateningly over the Smithsonian. Henry won, but not before a congressional investigation led by Jewett's backers on Capitol Hill put Henry's leadership to the test. The issue then was whether the Smithsonian should be the national library, as the librarian Charles Coffin Jewett wanted, or a research institute, as Secretary Joseph Henry preferred. Not since 1855 has the Smithsonian been riven by a controversy to equal that precipitated by the proposed Enola Gay exhibit.