I visited the National Air and Space Museum in Washington yesterday. First time being there in at least 15 years, I think. What an amazing place.

The entire collection is worth seeing if you’re passionate flying, rocketry, navigation, etc. Something that makes it fascinating it that the history of air and space is in many ways still the history of only a few nations.

Space, certainly. I wondered what so many of the younger families and kids thought (if anything) seeing the Soviet’s “CCCP” insignia here and there. And understanding how close the Soviet’s came to their own moon landing, if only they could have perfected their rockets, is still startling since we’re still in a time when we think American can-doism is something that’s magically transferred through the ether rather than cultivated and conveyed purposefully.

In digitizing decades worth of family photos last year, some of the slides I processed were photos my grandfather had taken on a trip in the 1970s to the museum. It was much different then, of course, but I think his interest was largely in planes. He served in World War II in the U.S. Army Air Corps, and I thought of him throughout. He sparked my visit, really, and I stopped for a long while in front of an Army Air Corps display.

Worth going, if you haven’t. Elon Musk will have his own additions for the museum eventually; see it before history changes.