Travel: Displays at Armstrong museum orbit around famed Ohio astronaut's life

Wapakoneta – Millenia after our politicians and movie stars and sports heroes and maybe even Taylor Swift are long forgotten, one name will undoubtedly still appear in the history books from here to Alpha Centauri Prime (or some such place): Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on a world other than Earth.

So perhaps the name of Armstrong’s hometown will also be remembered longer even than London, Tokyo and Las Vegas.

Perhaps.

In any case, Wapakoneta, the Auglaize County seat, certainly was and is proud of its hometown hero, who died in 2012.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum (armstrongmuseum.org) in Wapakoneta. But for aerospace buffs, any time is a good time to visit the small but gripping museum.

The museum’s striking exterior was designed to resemble a fanciful moon base.

A large, moon-like 56-foot dome rises from the center of the building and contains the museum’s Astro Theater, where visitors can see a short documentary featuring the Apollo 11 mission.

The focal point of the museum is Armstrong’s life, from the first time he flew in a plane as a young boy, to his early career as a test pilot of experimental aircraft, to his two space missions, to his post-NASA days as a professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

But the museum also focuses on other aspects of the American space program and features a large display celebrating all of the many astronauts from Ohio.

Among the exhibits are the restored Aeronca Champion airplane in which Armstrong learned to fly, a moon rock brought back by Apollo astronauts and a lunar lander simulator and a Space Shuttle simulator, neither of which I have ever brought to a successful touchdown - may you have better luck.

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The Armstrong museum is also among just a few to feature one of NASA’s mission-flown space vehicles; the Gemini VIII capsule that Armstrong and David Scott flew into orbit in 1966, three years before Armstrong’s moon mission.

(Ohio is also home to two other mission-flown, U.S.-manned space vehicles: the Apollo 15 capsule at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, nationalmuseum.af.mil, in Dayton; and the Skylab 3 mission Apollo capsule at the Great Lakes Science Center, greatscience.com, in Cleveland.)

Visitors to the Armstrong museum will learn about the harrowing flight of Gemini VIII, which nearly ended in tragedy when a control thruster, stuck in the “on” position, sent the vehicle into a rapid roll.

Armstrong’s quick thinking saved the capsule and crew when he shut off the main control thrusters and used the reentry rockets to steady the vehicle. But given the malfunction and limited fuel, the planned three-day mission had to be cut short. Gemini VIII successfully landed in the Pacific, less than a full day after launch.

Of course, Gemini VIII was not Armstrong’s most famous mission. Apollo 11, which took him, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon – and Armstrong and Aldrin to the lunar surface – launched in July, 1969. Visitors to the Wapakoneta museum will see Armstrong’s backup spacesuit from the trip.

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The Apollo 11 command module, perhaps the most famous extant space vehicle in the world, is displayed at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (airandspace.si.edu) in Washington, D.C., which reopened in October after being closed for a major remodeling project.

The centerpiece exhibit there is “Destination Moon,” featuring the Apollo 11 module in a custom-designed, climate-controlled display, as well as other important artifacts from the moon program, such as Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit.

Another featured exhibit at the Smithsonian museum is “Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age” about another couple of Ohioans who will probably be remembered for a long, long time: Orville and Wilbur Wright.

The Armstrong Air & Space Museum is open daily except Mondays during the fall and winter.

Admission is $10 for adults, $4 for children ages 6 to 12 and free for Ohio History Connection (ohiohistory.org.) members.

Steve Stephens is a freelance travel writer and photographer. Email him at sjstephensjr@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Wapakoneta's Armstrong Air and Space Museum marks 50th anniversary