Thursday, October 13, 2022

The Air Zoo: The Space Exhibit

In addition to it's fine focus on Aviation, the Air Zoo has an extensive exhibit dedicated to space flight and space exploration.

The exhibit begins with early rockets like a V2,  and full size examples of the RIM-8 Talos missile:

And it moves on to manned spaceflight and they've got a mock-up of a Mercury Capsule:

 

They have an actual Gemini Capsule Trainer vehicle on display:


Notice how small the interior is:


Amazing how astronauts could even fit inside, it barely had room for their big brass ones, let alone the rest of themselves.

And they've got El Kabong! 

Not Quick Draw McGraw but the actual El Kabong that was drop tested as part of the Gemini program to see if they could return the Gemini capsules to land rather than splashing them down into the ocean after re-entry.  It was not a success.

I wonder if it sounded like "Kabong!" or "Kaboing!" or just "Thump!" when it hit the ground during the testing.

There's also exhibits regarding what living quarters look like on the the ISS, and even coke cans that came back from the MIR space station:

Apparently Coke is as refreshing in space as it is on earth.

Lots  and lots of cool space stuff.

Then there's some space fantasy through the ages, including a neat exhibit on how space exploration, aliens, and robots have been depicted in cinema:

And it wouldn't be the future without some might-have-beens, including this actual Milner Motors Air Car, a flying car:

Were were promised flying cars and instead what we got was 144 characters and woke pronouns.  

Then again, given how I've seen most people drive, a flying car for the general populace raises lots and lots of issues.

The Space Exhibit at the Air Zoo is worth the price of admission for the entire museum all by itself.

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