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• To allow the public to observe the ongoing process of restoration and preservation of air and space artifacts. The workshops at the Garber Facility, when moved to the Extension, will be designed to allow visitors to observe the activities of the Museum's restoration and preservation staff.

• To inform the public on the impact of human activity on the global environment, with emphasis on the role of air and space technology in monitoring this impact. Air and spacecraft provide vital observational platforms for monitoring such global environmental consequences of human activity as desertification, oceanic pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, increasing carbon dioxide and other atmospheric greenhouse gases, and the dramatic decline in stratospheric ozone due to industrial effluents. Global environmental problems are best understood in the context of the natural interactive processes connecting biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. These issues are inherently interdisciplinary, offering a wide scope for collaboration with other Smithsonian bureaus.

• To develop and present interdisciplinary and interactive exhibits. The current Museum, with its high volume of visitors, can offer only limited "hands-on" interactive exhibits. Wide use of such exhibits and exploratory apparatus, in support of the major themes of the Extension, will offer vivid demonstrations of the basic principles of aeronautics, rocket propulsion, orbital dynamics, remote sensing of the Earth and planets, and global environmental systems. Exhibits at the Extension will have more supporting interpretative material, allowing an exposition of scientific principles in greater depth than is possible in the Museum on the Mall. In addition, the Extension will offer facilities for testing experimental exhibit concepts developed in concert with other Smithsonian bureaus.

4.2 The Future of the Museum on the Mall

For many years the staff of the Air and Space Museum has been proposing innovative ideas for exhibits at the Mall, but only a few of these could ever be realized, due principally to

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