A Space Stuff Junkie Pilgrimage

I have an obsession. Anything related to space. It began as a young impressionable child in the 60’s with my Apollo-Snoopy lunch-box filled with Space Food Sticks, and Tang. All 3 of which can now be found in museums. Ouch. I bet the Food Sticks still taste as bad. One warning. If you don’t know anything about the plane Glamorous Glennis in the photo above, you may find the rest of this post rather confusing and might want to go back to Tick-Tock. For the rest … “Go flight”.

A quick look at our movie library shows that my interest has not wavered in space stuff. Although I wish I still had that lunch-box. The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, First Man, and Hidden Figures are a few of the movies that get played repeatedly, sometimes followed by a well placed eye-roll from Molly. The movies based on real events get the most play. Very few fiction movies make the cut. However, some of you may debate the following exceptions. NASA named a shuttle the “Enterprise”, so sufficient cred to Star Trek … but only the original movie series. Likewise, NASA has built some models for Mars exploration that are very similar to props from The Martian. Check. Obviously 2001 and 2010 get included. Since we haven’t explored that far yet … Stanley could be right. Clearly his timetable was a bit more optimistic and HAL now seems pretty archaic, but we will give him some slack. So, yep to both of those movies. We don’t REALLY know what happens in the British Secret Service. Perhaps Moonraker really happened ? Molly thinks Roger Moore was one of the best 007s. I know, I’ve given up arguing. She gets one vote. I am also not going to argue with Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland. Therefore, Space Cowboys gets a spot. Every collection needs a solid documentary that outlines important information, should you ever find yourself in space. As a result, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And finally, a nod to those forces that may exist which we just don’t yet understand. “May the Schwartz be With You”. Voila … Spaceballs. That is it. Capricorn One ? Nope. Fake news.

Anyways. I enjoy space stuff. So on our recent jaunt to the East Coast, we made a bit of a pilgrimage. The plan was to start at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum for my birthday. My last visit was in 1981. Still free admission. But now you need to buy timed entries and they are sold out up to 4 weeks in advance ! “Houston. We’ve had a problem here”. Oops. Devastated. However, “Failure is Not an Option”. In reality, Molly slapped me and yelled something like “Snap out of it”. I eventually recovered.

We visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk North Carolina. The museum tells a fascinating story of relentless determination and curiosity. Then we jumped about 40 years forward and visited the NASA Langley Visitor Center in Hampton Virginia. Among other notable historical contributions, it was home to Katherine Johnson … aka Hidden Figures. They have a nice collection, including the Apollo 12 Command Module. Finally, we ended at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum located out near Dulles. Wow. A HUGE collection that I think is much better than the museum on the mall. Where else can an Airstream trailer get such a prominent display ? There is an observation area where you can watch them restoring old aircraft and space vehicles. So cool. They seem to be doing much better than I could do with those boxed plastic models. They don’t have to break each part off of the plastic runners, but can you imagine the amount of model airplane glue required ? Feeling dizzy. Among the hundreds of exhibits are famous craft like the Space Shuttle Discovery, Friendship 7, the Enola Gay, a Concorde, an SR-71 Blackbird (which I once had a plastic model of), and Glamorous Glennis. Evidently several exhibits normally being displayed at the museum on the mall have been temporary relocated to this museum while they do some refurbishments. A great end to our pilgrimage. “Nailed the Landing” !

For those who share my affliction, here are a few images from our pilgrimage which covered 108 years of history. If none of this made any sense and you still got to this spot, check-out the following books and don’t forget your towel; Moonshot, Failure is Not an Option, The Flight, The Wright Brothers (Thanks to Mark Sturgis for my copy), The Right Stuff, and of course The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.