(A cultural artifact of the era, too, is the precarious beehive hairdo Thompson sports in the photograph for her 1960s employee badge as a NASA contractor from ILC Industries, the small company that in 1965 won the contract to create and manufacture spacesuits.) In a video, Joanne Thompson recalls the exacting work of sewing spacesuit gloves to specifications of one thirty-second of an inch, knowing that astronauts’ lives would depend on the precision of her needlework. Also on display is one of the sewing machines NASA seamstresses used to build the suits. Take for example, the evolution of the Apollo spacesuit, masterfully explained in a display featuring a number of fast-changing design iterations, including a training suit that Frank Borman wore in 1967, an early experimental suit and a prototype of a fifth-generation pressure suit. National Air and Space Museum/Jim Preston The museum's single F-1 engine is made to look like it is at the center of an array of five, which were positioned at the bottom of the first stage of the Saturn V rockets that carried the astronauts to the moon six times between 19. These objects are powerful reminders of how the lunar landing was not merely the triumph of a handful of exceptionally capable and courageous Apollo astronauts, but of tens of thousands of people who contributed in ways that those who have never blasted beyond Earth’s atmosphere will find more relatable. These massive engines were positioned at the bottom of the first stage of the Saturn V rockets, which carried astronauts to the moon six times between 19.īut visitors climbing the gallery’s red stairs-made conspicuously to look like NASA’s gantry-to the new mezzanine will find artifacts that are less imposing but equally fascinating. Angled within the ceiling are several mirrors that create the illusion that the artifact-a single engine-is at the center of an array of five. At the center of the newly revamped “Destination Moon” exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, visitors can stand directly beneath the business end of an F-1 rocket engine, the massive power plant for the Saturn V launch vehicle.
0 kommentar(er)
