Can you imagine seeing the Earth as the shuttle astronauts see it-an azure, inviting, cloud-garlanded globe by day; a vast, darkly forbidding orb by night, illuminated by scattered, exploding blobs of lightning that electrify hundreds of miles of inky atmosphere? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stand in the midst of a raging hurricane, or zoom through an earthquake fault at supersonic speeds or amble across an African plain with a herd of zebra?
Then come to Washington this winter. Bitter winds may chill your enthusiasm for standing in line (they must be the world`s slowest) to visit the top of the Washington Monument or tour the White House, but indoor Washington offers one a treasure house of things to do and see in the non-cherry blossom season. And you can do and see them without the nuisance of crowds.
The space shuttle views, hurricane, zebras and such are all part of an extraordinary and enormously popular new huge-screen IMAX movie, ”The Blue Planet,” now playing at the Smithsonian Institution`s National Air and Space Museum. You can take that in on a winter`s day and still have lots of time to wander across the Capital Mall to explore the depths of the sea as they were in the time of the dinosaurs, see how the Brooklyn Bridge was made and why it caused so much excitement and take a look at windows-centuries of windows-as you`ve probably never looked at them before.
The Air and Space Museum`s ”Blue Planet” (the entrance to the museum`s Langley Theater is around the corner from the new display of recently deactivated Soviet and American medium-range nuclear missiles) was filmed mostly by astronauts on recent five shuttle missions. It`s not just another space film, however.
A really big show
The IMAX screen is fully 10 times the size of a normal 35-mm movie theater`s. The curved screen surface, combined with the multiple stereo sound sources, provides an extraordinary feeling of depth and dimension. As a shuttle rocket blasts off from its Cape Canaveral launch pad in one sequence, the entire museum seems to shake.
The 42-minute film, shown throughout the day along with such Smithsonian classics as ”To Fly,” is concerned not with space but with the planet Earth. The views from the shuttle, shot from an altitude of more than 200 nautical miles, are rather weather-map like, but eerily real. You are not merely looking at the Earth`s surface, but down upon it as though from the heavens.
The thrust of the movie is environmental, demonstrating how small and fragile the Earth and its life system are. Indeed, the thinness of the atmosphere as seen on the curve of the Earth`s horizon is absolutely frightening. Comparison shots of nearby Mars and Venus are used to show how uniquely if precariously hospitable the Earth and its delicate atmosphere have been to us.
Interspersed with these looks from aloft, however, are more down-to-earth views: the terror of what it`s like to stand in a street during the full rage of a hurricane and watch roof parts go spinning and crashing by and glass windows breaking around you; the deathliness of the Sahara and the choking fertility of an algae-filled, crimson African lake; the numbing power of a simple thunderstorm, power enough to illuminate vast sections of the planet at night; the load of silt and muck dumped by the Mississippi Delta, as sickening from 200 miles as it is up close; the Amazon rain forest-as seen from the sky, and the tree-canopied swampland of its surface.
Generous to a fault
The ride through the earthquake fault is via lifelike computer graphics. The fault in question is the infamous San Andreas, seen first from space, then by means of the computer ride and finally in the aftermath of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.
This film is going to become one of those obligatory sights people won`t want to leave Washington without seeing.
In the National Museum of Natural History just across the Mall, a new exhibit, ”Life in the Ancient Seas,” shows what it was like in the briny deep going back 570 million years ago to the Paleozoic Era. It was a life only a trilobite could love, the trilobite being a now-extinct creature that hung around down there. (The exhibit includes a specially designed video camera and lens that allow museum visitors to see themselves on a video monitor just as a trilobite would have seen them.)
There`s a 120-foot mural depicting, among myriad other things, a 20-foot mosasaur (sea lizard) and a 45-foot basilosaurus (prehistoric whale). There`s also a walk-around diorama replicating a reef of 250 million years ago, replete with more than 100,000 models of bryozoans, sponges, brachiopods and other fun critters.
The exhibition, which is permanent, took 13 years and $4 million to complete.
A building of buildings
Up the hill from the Museum of Natural History is the National Building Museum adjoining Washington`s Judiciary Square. The structure`s huge inner Italianate atrium, considered one of the most beautiful inner spaces in the country, does not house any actual buildings (the Chrysler Building or Chicago`s Water Tower wouldn`t exactly travel well, let alone fit). But ground-floor exhibition chambers are ample enough for some very elaborate exhibits, such as the Museum`s ”To Build A Bridge.” On display through 1993, it uses large-scale models and computer interaction systems to give visitors a grasp and feel, as well as overview, of just how elaborate a project it was to put up the Brooklyn Bridge a century ago, when it was considered one of the great manmade wonders of the world.
In an adjoining display room, the museum has erected window sections of everything from a 17th Century Newport, R.I., colonial cottage to an 18th Century Philadelphia tavern wall to a Depression-era factory to illustrate the development of windows over the last several centuries. You may never want to take one for granted again.
The National Air and Space Museum is at 6th Street and Independence Avenue Southwest. The National Museum of Natural History is at 10th Street and Constitution Avenue Northwest. Both are open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily through the winter. The National Building Museum is at F and 4th Streets Northwest and is open from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday
Admission to the museums is free. Admission to the IMAX theater shows is $2.75 for adults, $1.75 for children, students and senior citizens.
