At the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, some of America’s most important feats in technology are being preserved for future generations. The department has approximately 20 full-time paid conservators and 20 volunteers who work with airplanes, satellites, space shuttle parts, jet engines, and paper, arts, and photographic artifacts related to the creation and use of these machines.
The museum has the largest collection in the world of spacesuits from the U.S. Space Program, and in 2000 embarked on a project to preserve the Apollo-era space suits. Designed to withstand the rigors of travel in space, the modern materials used in the suits had disintegrated after several decades. This effort, funded by the federal Save America’s Treasures grant program and with matching funds from Hamilton Sundstrand (a United Technologies company), involved research on the deterioration of the suits’ plastic and rubber components.
Smithsonian staff and volunteers, museum specialists, industry experts, and material scientists worked together to determine how the suits could best be stabilized, exhibited, and stored to prevent future damage. The guidelines and standards developed for this project will be shared with other museums that have similar space artifacts in their collections.
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Heritage Health Index 2004 Report