What at the National Air and Space Museum is referred to as Rocket Row ?
The space race in the 1950s and 1960s led to the renaming of the museum to the National Air and Space Museum , and finally congressional passage of appropriations for the construction of the new exhibition hall , which opened July 1 , 1976 at the height of the United States Bicentennial festivities under the leadership of Director Michael Collins , who had flown to the Moon on Apollo 11 .