Free Republic

CHANTILLY, United States (AFP) - The airplanes hung from the rafters have the allure of models in a child's bedroom, but each of the giant trusses holding them up could hold nine tonnes: the new National Air and Space Museum is a modeler's dream -- made life-size. AFP/File Photo   The giant hangar is "perhaps the largest room in the world," Smithsonian Institution (news - web sites) secretary Lawrence Small said. It contains the first copy of the space shuttle, the B-29 that first dropped an atomic bomb as a weapon and the supersonic Concorde airliner. The 311-million-dollar museum includes...