Armstrong Air & Space Museum

Hello! Sorry! We know! It's been... a long time, I admit. We've both been super busy the past - wait, has it really been NINE MONTHS? No wonder we're both crazed! Okay! On with the reporting!

Armstrong Air and Space Museum! Wapakoneta! Awesomeness!
Today we resumed official staycation activity with a drive up Rt. 33 to Wapakoneta and the impressive-looking Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum.

The Armstrong Air and Space Museum

The museum, a site reminiscent of the Epcot Dome (though not as massive) features replica Apollo and Gemini capsules out on the front, along with a NASA painted F-5 Skylancer aircraft.

Inside and to the right, there is a rather dismal gift shop. Skip it unless you need to pee. Or unless you want to purchase a mission patch from one of the many (MANY) missions NASA has conducted. Friendship, Gemini, Mercury, Apollo, Shuttle, ISS and even some Soviet missions are represented. Instead, hang a left and pay your admission (or get the VIP treatment with your membership in the Ohio Historical Society!) and start checking out the exhibits.

The museum starts with the first baby steps into space, from the Soviet missile and satellite launches (don't miss the model Sputnik!) to the Freedom/Friendship missions that placed Americans in orbit. Incredibly comprehensive coverage lines the walls, documenting the strides taken and sacrifices made along the journey from the briefest glimpses of space to the 363ft. Saturn V rocket standing tall to take man to the moon.

Lynn posing with a Saturn Booster engine bell.

Moving further along the path, you can watch a brief video of the Apollo 11 moon landing near some kind of quasi-voodoo shrine to Neil Armstrong. The bronze bust is especially compelling!
Assuming you can avoid laughing yourself silly at the mental image of an astronaut using a fecal collection bag, the next thing you will see is the excellent display of items and artifacts from the moon landing itself.

Armstrong's (backup) EVA suit, a lunar seismometer, moon camera equipment and A REAL MOON ROCK are all on display. Sure, the moon rock is small and fairly unimpressive to look at. But the rock itself... is 4 BILLION years old. And it was just laying about on the surface of the moon. How old is that? It's certainly older than most stuff laying about on the Earth. Earth... hmm... wait... didn't I hear something somewhere? Oh, right! The Earth itself is only estimated at 4.5 billion years old! Now that's a wicked old rock! Very likely predating life on Earth itself, this tiny gray lump has borne witness to the birth and death of every human being who ever lived or died. Well, not literally sat there and watched. But still, it's old.

And a little spooky.

The rest of the tour is slightly less awe-inspiring. There's a pseudo-planetarium showing a 15-20 minute movie, a series of tribute items on loan from the Armstrong family, and a broken lunar landing simulator. There is also a shuttle landing simulator that I did not get to try, due to the younger kids busily wrecking the virtual space shuttle into every inch of the landscape.

Also, before you leave:

Make sure you get your picture with the OTHER heroes of space!