Kansas Cosmosphere - November 6th, 2010
 A visit to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Museum in Hutchinson, Kansas |
 A Mercury Redstone rocket stands in one corner AKA: a rocket in my pocket |
 A Titan Gemini rockets stand just around the corner |
 An F-1 engine stands between the two. Five F-1's powered the first stage of the Saturn V rocket |
 Dave high-fives Neil about to make a little history |
 An SR-71 is the first aircraft encountered inside |
 Shuttle Endeavour mockup provides administrative space |
 SR-71A #61-7961 last flight was 2/02/1977 |
 The aircraft is supported by its landing gear struts |
 Photo of the SR-71 in place before the museum was built |
 SR-71 pilots also practiced with the low cost T-38 |
 Buy your entry ticket from under Endeavour's wing |
 This SR-71's pilot, Buz Carpenter, gives a talk under his aircraft to children with parents serving overseas |
 The SR-71's retired in 1990, a few were reactivated from 1994-1998, and NASA kept three operational until 2001 |
 Look down on Lunar Module in the Hall of Space Museum |
 Pass the Viking Lander replica on the way to the stairs |
 The world's first ballistic missle, the V-2, would skim the edge of space at 250,000 ft & nose earthward at 3,500 mph |
 The V-2 could hurl one ton of high explosives 200 miles silently, traveling faster than its own sound |
 The Germans spent $3 billion developing the V-2, twice as much as was spent on America's Manhattan Project |
 V-1 “Buzz Bomb” had enough gas to get to its target, then would drop from the sky and explode on impact |
 Replica of the Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis", the first . . . |
 aircraft to reach supersonic speed (Mach 1) on 10/14/1947 |
 Redstone Rocket was America's first medium range ballistic missile, a direct outgrowth of the German V-2 |
 America's first true rocket powered nuclear weapon delivery system was test launched in August, 1953 |
 Spacesuit & rocket exhaust nozzle of the X-15 |
 Sputnik 1 was the 1st Earth-orbiting artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on 10/04/1957 |
 Laika was a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, put into a space craft with a week's supply of air, food, & water for a 3 month mission. Laika died in space within Sputnik II days after the 11/03/1957 launch |
 Explorer 1 was first successful US satellite, launched 1/31/1958 atop the first Juno booster from LC-26 |
 Vanguard 1 was the 2nd successful US satellite launch, on 3/17/1958, and is the oldest artificial satellite still in space |
 Luna 2, first to impact moon on 9/13/1959, carried two pennant balls designed to burst apart & scatter on impact |
 Mercury Atlas 1 blew up at 32,000 feet on July 29, 1960 and was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean. The connecting collar between the capsule & rocket failed |
 Rocketdyne Redstone A-7 engine (78,000 lbs/thrust) |
 Step outside to the Titan Rocket pit |
 The Titan launched the 2-man Gemini capsule into space |
 Soviet Vostok Capsule launched into space unmanned |
 Yuri Gagarin parachuted out of a Vostok on 4/12/1961 |
 Flight ready backup Voskhod with airlock |
 Alexei Leonov made the 1st spacewalk on 3/18/1965 |
 Gus Grissom's Mercury Redstone 4, launched 7/21/1961, sank into the Atlantic when the hatch blew early |
 Liberty Bell 7 was recovered (7/20/1999) from a depth of 15,000 feet and refurbished here in Kansas |
 John Young & Michael Collin's Gemini X capsule |
 Two space walks & two rendevous from July 18-21, 1966 |
 Gemini X rendezvous with two Agena target vehicles |
 . . . in preparation for Apollo's moon orbit rendezvous |
 Gene Cernan's Gemini IX perilous spacewalk spacesuit |
 Apollo 17 Command Module Pilot Ron Evan's spacesuit |
 Apollo 13's Command Module Odyssey brought home |
 . . . Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, & Fred Haise |
 A Service Module Oxygen Tank explosion on 4/13/1970 . . . |
 almost doomed the crew which safely landed on 4/17/1970 |
 Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) procedure trainer |
 A view inside the cramped moon lander simulator |
 Replica Lunar Module built in 1969 and used by NBC |
 . . . during the televised Apollo lunar missions |
 Useful astronaut gear, especially the lower right machete |
 Video and still cameras taken to the moon aboard Apollo |
 Russian remote controlled lunar rover replica, Lunokhod |
 Luna 17 (Nov. 1970) & Luna 21 (Jan. 1973) were successful |
 Final display shows the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous |
 The 1st step toward today's International Space Station |
 This is only a replica, not space rated hardware! |
 Walk by the SR-71 a final time on the way out |