The US vs USSR Space Race of the 1960s was a time of superlatives as the space agencies of each country used their best and their brightest to make the next step closer to putting footprints on the Moon. APOLLO, the exhibit, reflects those times with artifacts both towering and diminutive, each with powerful stories of the people behind them. APOLLO is about individuals taming powerful new technologies to fulfill impossible dreams. The exhibit will be the first public display of the long-lost rocket engines that launched the Apollo astronauts to the Moon.
The historic Apollo 12 and 16 F-1 engines that boosted the might Saturn V Moon rockets were lost at the bottom of the sea for 43 years until discovered and raised by Seattle-based Bezos Expeditions in 2013. The sunken remains were our last missing links to the first adventures to another world. The aged and sculptural artifacts still show the scars of their service and of resting in the depths. They will now punctuate the Museum's new exhibit about the dramatic adventure of spaceflight through the post-Apollo ebb in the 1970s. For comparison, a full-scale F-1 rocket engine, on loan from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, will also be displayed.
The exhibit will feature many other unique artifacts from the Space Race, including Moon rocks, a lunar roving "moon buggy," the only Viking Mars lander on Earth, space suits and the first Apollo command module.
Photos below:
APOLLO Image Library
