Story & Photos by Elston Hill
On Thursday (April 11) Jackie and I were privileged to attend the media event promoting the Apollo 11 Mission exhibit at the Museum of Flight, which will run from April 13 to Sept. 2.
The exhibit will take place on the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. The Smithsonian could not get the exhibit ready in time for display in Washington, DC., so they offered it to the Museum of Flight. This will be the only exhibit of this traveling show on the West Coast. It was made possible in part by donations from the Bezos (click images to view larger version/slideshow):

Highlighting the exhibit is the historic NASA Apollo 11 command module, Columbia. The Columbia is the only part of the Apollo 11 spacecraft to return intact to Earth. It carried the crew, equipment, and lunar sample through a fiery reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere:

The hatch served as the entry and exit point to the aircraft on the launch pad and after a watery landing:

NASA purchased a felt tip Pen Marker for use on the mission. Some notes were written with it on the spacecraft walls and control panels:

One of two rucksacks filled with equipment to hep the crew survive up to 48 hours in the event of an emergency landing somewhere on earth:

The Lunar Sample Return Container:

Aldrin’s Extravehicular Visor and Gloves:

Note the instructions for what to do written on the glove:


A moon rock from the mission:

Congressional Medal of Honor given to Neil Armstrong by President Jimmy Carter.

American’s sat around TV’s like this one to watch the moon landing:

There were a number of interesting people at this event. When we arrived, I did not remember David Concannon, but he remembered me from several years ago when Jess Bezos donated the rockets that power Apollo 12 to the Museum of Flight (having given the rockets that powered Apollo 11 to the Smithsonian). David was advisor to ten Titanic Missions and participated in three Titanic expeditions. He led the Bezos expeditions to recovered the rockets from Apollo 11 and 12 in 14,000 feet of water some 400 miles off the coast of the United States. When I mentioned to David my picture of Jeff Bezos with the fuel injectors, he replied, yes I know, I stole that picture off the internet.
This is David:

And this is the picture he stole that I took in 2015. I also have a request for this picture to appear in a book about the space exploration to come out this spring:

Jackie was particularly fascinated with Dr. James Joki one of NASA’s outstanding engineers from Ballard. He contributed a lot to the development of the space suits and life support backpacks used on the Apollo mission. He worked on the flight control in Houston. His work at NASA inspired him to pursue another career in medicine as an OB-GYN doctor where he delivered some 6000 babies.

This was the back of the jacket he wore today:

Tickets to the Apollo 11 exhibit should be purchased in advance as they are timed stamped with a specific entry time to avoid being too crowded. In addition to the ticket to the exhibit, you need to purchase a ticket to the museum. Or, you can go on the free night which the museum holds once a month.

To purchase tickets, or for more information,
visit https://www.museumofflight.org.

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