You could spend seven days in Washington D.C. and not see everything. There's something for everyone from science and tech geeks to sports fan to history buffs.
For science and space lovers go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in the National Mall and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum outside of Chantilly, VA. If you are visiting the Mall, then at the Air and Space you can see an assortment of airplanes and other technological wonders that were important to both history and progress. In the First Flights exhibit you can see the Wright Brothers plane, Friendship VII (John Glenn's), the Apollo XXI module, the Bell X-1 (Yeager's sound barrier broken), and more. You can tour Skylab and take a walk along the path of developing rockets and the space race. The aircraft carrier wing is worth exploring offering views of old WWII through Vietnam era planes and memorabilia. At a far section of the building is a newer unmanned drone display where you can see the Pioneer UAV, the Lockheed Martin/Boeing Dark Star, and the experimental Boeing X-45A Joint Unmanned Combat Air System which is being outfitted to go on missions without human oversight, including landing on an aircraft carrier which is very hard for humans, so imagine how hard it is for robots. There are also changing exhibits for every time you visit. For a bit of a trip outside of D.C. it is worth the drive to see the Udvar-Hazy Hangar in an annexed part of the Dulles National Airport. From the Engen Observation Tower, you can simulate being an air traffic controller and watch planes from Dulles land and take off. In the main part of the museum you can see space shuttle Discovery, an SR-71, the Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress that bombed Japan in 1945, and more planes and space relics throughout history. Several movies have been shot in the hangar including a scene from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen where the SR-71 turns into an ancient Transformer. Other airplanes you can see up close are the Concorde, an F-14 Tomcat which are used in Top Gun, an X-35B which was a precursor to the official F-35 Joint Strike Fighter., and a Black Widow which my grandfathers always liked to see. If you like planes and space, both of these museums are worth a day each.
For sports fans in the summer head to see a Nationals game in Nationals Park in D.C. (though I recommend that you sit in seats that get some shade or you will be roasted!), but there is a "relief" room with free ice water and air conditioning. The mascots are six past presidents--Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Washington, Jefferson, Taft, and Coolidge who run out and race in the field to the crowd's amusement.
For history buffs you could spend months in the various museums. Some highlights that we enjoyed include touring the monuments and several of the history museums in the National Mall. On one of our vacations we took the Night Bus Tour which stopped at many of the main monuments briefly to see them beautifully lit at night. The tour included the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, views of the Washington Monument across the Potomac, the White House, the newer Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, the Vietnam and Korean Memorials, Iwa Jima to see the statues raise the flag, and return back to the Union Station. It was the most handicap accessible tour for my little brother in a power chair, but you did see many places in a couple hours in the night. I'd recommend going back to some of the memorials in the daytime to investigate them further, especially the Vietnam and the Korean ones.
Another part of the Mall to see are the museums. The Archives houses many of the most important documents to our history including the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights. It can be a long wait in the building, and the writing is surprisingly light, but it is worth being close to that part of our history as Americans. The Library of Congress Houses the largest collection of books, newspapers, and documents in the world, and the building itself is a fascinating piece of art. If you are a scholar, you can apply for a library card so you can actually go into the library proper to do research. Other notable museums for us were the Museum of American History which houses the stuff of America's past, but much of it is in storage and the exhibits rotate so much that you never know what will be on display, When we were there, we saw Dizzy Gillespie's custom trumpet, Apolo Anton Otto's skates, GM EV-1 (the first mass produced electric car), and much more. The Museum of Natural History has the Hope Diamond, exhibits of earth science, and fossils with some impressive exhibits of animals from the past.
This is just the tip of the iceberg that is Washington D.C. If you want to see what I mean, spend a week there.
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