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