We are out of touch with reality. We forget, or can't comprehend, how amazing and difficult it was (and is) to send people to the moon. Or to send probes to asteroids and planets.
But this happens. And when we forget how incredible this all is, we lose something. We lose an appreciation for challenge, for doing the near impossible, for seeing new things and doing new things and having unprecedented experiences. I haven't lost that sense of wonder, and if you've lost it—I'd like to help you regain it.
The moon is 250,000 miles away, and men walked on it from 1969 to 1972. Today, nobody is capable of sending a man to the moon. Yet, those moon landings were accomplished with 1960s technology. Also, with 1960's technology: sending space probes to take close-up photos of Mars and Venus. Orbiting infra-red telescopes. Space stations. Getting out of a spacecraft 200,000 miles from earth and doing work in the blackness of space.
I do my small part to generate a sense of wonder. I run a website called Museum of Space Travel. I collect historic space memorabilia, and have assembled exhibits that appeared in museums. And I intend to do more.
Here's a small sampling from my collection:
[ Please click on arrows and small
pictures to view larger pictures and
descriptions. ]
Shirt flown on the space shuttle Atlantis
and the Mir space station, worn by pilot
Rick Searfoss
This document, issued to one of the
original 7 Mercury astronauts in 1959, gave
Wally Schirra permission to fly NASA
aircraft and spacecraft.
As unappealing as the day it was made, this
space food was prepared in the 1960s for
Gemini astronauts. This particular "dish",
beef with vegetables, came with a pill to
season the meal.
A flight plan for Gemini 6, it was
scheduled to perform the first docking in
space in 1965. The plan was altered when
the docking target failed to make orbit.
The plan is signed by the crew, Wally
Schirra and Tom Stafford.
This flight plan for the Apollo-Soyuz Test
Project (ASTP) marked the first joint
American-Russian manned space mission. The
two spacecraft docked in orbit in 1975.
This chart was prepared to test emergency
egress from an Apollo spacecraft. On
January 27th, 1967, the entire Apollo 1
crew (Grissom, White and Chaffee) died in a
fire in the cockpit. This egress test was
scheduled for that day.
