Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum facts for kids

Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum

SR-71A Blackbird on display
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Former name	Strategic Aerospace Museum Strategic Air Command Museum Strategic Air & Space Museum
Established	1959, 1998
Location	Ashland, Nebraska (1998– ) Offutt AFB (1959–1998)
Type	Aviation museum
Founder	Col. A. A. Arnhym

The Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum is a museum focusing on aircraft and nuclear missiles of the United States Air Force during the Cold War. It is located near Ashland, Nebraska, along Interstate 80 southwest of Omaha. The objective of the museum is to preserve and display historic aircraft, missiles, and space vehicles, and provide educational resources.

History

Offutt Air Force Base, south of Omaha and adjacent to Bellevue, Nebraska. became the headquarters of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command in 1948, and continues as the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command. The museum, then located at Offutt, began with its first airplane in 1959 as the Strategic Aerospace Museum. General Curtis LeMay's vision of a museum that preserved historic aircraft had become a reality. Over the following years, the outdoor museum's name changed to the Strategic Air Command Museum or SAC Museum. Ownership of the museum transferred from the Air Force to the state of Nebraska in 1970.

On 16 May 1998, after a $33 million grass roots capital campaign, the museum moved indoors to a location more accessible to the public, between Omaha and Lincoln, that allowed the aircraft to be protected from the elements to which they had previously been exposed. As part of the moving process, two aircraft (a Douglas C-124 Globemaster II and C-133 Cargomaster) were relocated to the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.

The new museum building is a $29.5 million, 300,000-square-foot (28,000 m²) structure that features a glass atrium, two large aircraft display hangars, a traveling exhibit area, a children's interactive gallery, a 200-seat theater, a museum store, an aircraft restoration gallery, and a snack bar. The glass atrium is constructed of 525 glass panels that encase a pedestal-mounted Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. The two aircraft display hangars protect the aircraft collection and exhibits from harsh outdoor elements. The museum participates in an exhibit exchange program with other national museums and displays them in the traveling exhibit area. Three large missiles are displayed vertically outdoors in front of the museum.

On 15 June 2001, the name of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) Museum was officially changed to the Strategic Air & Space Museum. This change incorporated the museum's rich past while attempting to reach a larger audience through dynamic programming and exciting educational programs that seek to captivate the interests and imaginations of everyone. On 25 June 2015, the museum announced another name change to the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum, in an effort to reconnect to the museum's original mission of preserving the history of the Strategic Air Command while promoting interest in aviation and science among the general public.

Collection

Strategic Air Command shield
on exterior of museum

Lockheed U-2C on display

Aircraft

The collection includes the Apollo Block 1 command module from the Apollo program's uncrewed February, 1966, AS-201 mission

Rockets and missiles

Spacecraft