Armstrong Air & Space Museum
500 Apollo Dr.
Wapakoneta, OH
419-738-8811
www.armstrongmuseum.org
The Armstrong Air and Space Museum, located just off I-75 in Auglaize County, is a treasure trove of memorabilia from the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
On the grounds of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, is the actual Douglas F5D Skylancer Armstrong flew as a test pilot. Only 4 of these aircraft were ever built and the only one still in existence. Armstrong flew the plane from 1960 to 1962. The plane was designed to simulate the flight characteristics of a space vehicle that would be launched from an high-altitude airplane enter space, and then re-enter the atmosphere and glide to a conventional landing on Earth similar to the way the space shuttle program which would be developed many years later.
ABOVE: Life-size Apollo and Gemini Capsules on the grounds of the Armstrong Air & Space Museum. The Gemini mock-up allows visitors to sit inside the capsule.
But while Armstrong is the dominant figure, thanks to some recent renovations, many exhibits are designed to give visitors a better perspective on the history of space travel and the politically charged space race of the 1960s. The museum is dedicated to preserving and telling the story of America's aerospace accomplishments.
Included in the exhibits is an actual moon rock from the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong's suit and his Gemini 8 spacecraft which only completed 6 revolutions on March 16, 1966 before the mission had to be aborted after docking with an Agena vehicle. (Click here to read more details about the ill-fated Gemini 8 mission with Neil Armstrong and David Scott).
ABOVE: Detail from inside the Gemini 8 capsule that carried Neil Armstrong and David Scott into orbit and then for the first time docked with another orbiting spacecraft. After docking the two docked spacecraft began experiencing difficulties. Although out of communication with NASA, Armstrong decided to undock from the Agena. Once that was accomplished the real problem became apparent: a stuck rocket thruster began to spin the Gemini capsule so violently that the astronauts were close to blacking out. At that point Armstrong fired the re-entry rockets to bring the Gemini 8 capsule back to Earth. The problem was that they weren't sure where they would come down. As it happened the capsule splashed down in the Pacific, but the closest ship was almost 500 miles away.
The Armstrong Air and Space Museum is located just west of I-75 at exit 111 (Bellefontaine Street) in Wapakoneta. Check with museum for hours / admission cost.
ABOVE: Lunar sample from the Apollo 11 mission on display at the Armstrong Air and Space Museum.
Profile: Neil Armstrong
Everyone knows that Neil was the first man to step foot on the moon, but did you know that the Apollo 11 Command Pilot, Neil Armstrong, then 38, could have missed his destiny as the result of half a dozen close shaves. During the Korean War, he crashed his Panther jet behind enemy lines, but escaped a day later (he won 3 Air Medals in 78 combat missions). As a civilian test pilot in 1962, he plummeted uncontrollably toward earth when the rocket engine in his X-15 failed to start, but it fired up just in time. As the commander of Gemini 8 in 1966, he had to abort the scheduled 3-day flight after 10 hours when a short circuit threw the spacecraft's thrusters out of control. And the summer before he landed on the moon, he had to eject from a lunar-landing research vehicle at an altitude of only 100 ft. when it spun out of control and crashed.
Neil was born in Wapakoneta with a population of just 7500. He was the son of a career civil servant. As a youth, Neil limited his social life to school and church functions; when he went out with a girl it was usually on a double date to the ice-cream parlor. He played baritone horn in the school band. He studied hard, and while his teachers don't remember Armstrong as being a particularly brilliant student, he impressed them all with the thorough, meticulous way he went about his studies. Says Professor Paul E. Stanley, who taught Neil aerodynamics at Purdue: "He was a Boy Scout," in fact, he made Eagle Scout at 17, and he literally lived up to the Boy Scout motto: 'Be Prepared.'
Neil took his first airplane ride in Ford Tri-motor when he was just 6 years old. He worked part time in a drugstore, and as a grease monkey at a local airfield to save enough money for flying lessons. He earned his pilot's license at age 16, but he had to ride his bicycle to the airfield because he didn't yet have a driver's license.
After his flight to the moon and back, Neil was the recipient of many special honors, including the Presidential Medal for Freedom in 1969; the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy in 1970; the Robert J. Collier Trophy in 1969; and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, 1978. Neil Armstrong died from complications from heart bypass surgery in August of 2012 at the age of 82. Neil Armstrong lived in Lebanon, Ohio.
