MASSIVE pile o' pics below the fold
Mercury-Friendship 7 capsule and cockpit detail. This was the Mercury spacecraft flown by John Glenn, and the first American spacecraft to orbit the Earth.
Gemini IV capsule (below) and cockpit detail (above) - Ed White's spacewalk. (White later died in the Apollo 1 fire.)
I don't think this next famous spacecraft needs any introduction.
I will say, I miss models. They have a weight that CGI just cannot match. (Yes, this is the model that was used on the show
fifty freakin' years ago.)
They only ever filmed the starboard side of it - you can see the cables that powered the lights exposed on the port side for easy maintenance.
Did we
ever see TV!
Enterprise's rear? I don't recall the Christmas-tree color scheme, which was long gone by the time the movies rolled around.
Apollo 11 "Columbia" Command Module. I can't tell you how badly I wanted to touch this. We have the Apollo 8 CM at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago - this is pretty much the only thing that's cooler than that. (8 was the first one to go to the moon - it just didn't, y'know, land. That was because NASA was doing the whole thing step by baby step - 7 tested the hardware in Earth orbit, 8 made sure it could get to the moon, 9 tested the rendezvous and docking procedures in Earth orbit, 10 tested the same procedures in moon orbit, and 11 landed.)
Cosmonaut spacesuits (above and below right). John Glenn's spacesuit (below left). Me in the reflection - these are short people! You can't tell but the suits are on a platform maybe eight inches off the ground.
Apollo-Soyuz mockup
Space shuttle rocket, and people for size comparison
Saturn V rocket, and people for size comparison.
Apollo CM controls - this is from a simulator.
WWI French bomber - Voisin VIII
WWI Fokker D.VII
WWI Sopwith Snipe
Now we move to the WWII planes, which means
this becomes required listening.
WWII Spitfire VII
WWII Mitsubishi Zero
WWII Messerschmitt 109, which is pretty cool, but it's not a Junkers Ju 87 (aka a
Stuka - there are only two of
those left in existence and the Museum of Science in Chicago has one - nyah nyah!) Sorry, Blue Oyster Cult fans, they have an
ME 262 but apparently it was in the Jet Propulsion exhibit, and I didn't go in there. Oops.
WWII Mustang P-51D
DC-3 (above left and below rear)
5-AT Tri-Motor (front)
DC-3 front detail
DC-7 interiors
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