Speaking of the Museum of Space History, as I said, Clark and I visited it. I hadn't been there since 1993 (when I was out here for one of the DC-X flights) and he had never been.

It's a beautiful building in a beautiful location, overlooking the valley with the white gypsum sands of the national monument and test range in the distance, with lots of interesting artifacts. But the exhibits seem quite out of date, and are often misleading (particularly the older ones). still Some of it seems frozen in the mid-eighties. If your only source for what was going on in space was this museum, you would think that Russia was flying Buran, and planning a fleet of four or five vehicles. You would think that Ariane IV was the most current version, and that there was no Delta new than Delta II, or Atlas built after the eighties version. Much of the text description is written in present tense, with no way for the reader to know that it is a couple decades out of date. (A more minor issue is that they have the date of the Apollo fire as January 26th, rather than the 27th, and this error has apparently adorned their walls for many years).

I know that it costs money to update and reprint displays, but you would think that with modern computer and printer technology it shouldn't be that hard. There would be no shortage of visitors, like me (and Clark) who could point out problems to them if there were some easy way to do so. They need an army of editors, and then some good volunteers (who they apparently have already) to implement the fixes.

On the positive side, the newer wing on commercial space, and New Mexico's role in it, is good (even if there is a little too much NM hucksterism and exaggeration in it). I recommend seeing it, but take some of the displays with a grain (or large bag) of salt, particularly the ones written in present and future tense.

The strangest museum display placard I ever saw was at the Clinton Library in Little Rock. There are these eight large panels, one for each year of his Presidency with various time lines -- international news, science/tech, Clinton-as-savior, that sort of thing.

When you get to the year 2000 display, there was a panel that said something to the effect of "Yemen, October 20 - USS Cole Explodes While Refueling."

Er, yeah, it was just sitting there when KABOOM!! Sorta misses the whole sense of the event. I said something to the docent, but have no idea if it was ever corrected.