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Originally posted by RHINOWSO:

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Originally posted by C L Wilkins:
A place that is overlooked by many is the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. Lots and lots of space junk there. This is where the command capsule of Apollo 13 is housed. If ever in the area it is worth the stop.

Cosmosphere

Worth the stop but when I was there last fall, it was in definite need of an overhaul - looking at the website is seems as they are planning a 5 year / $7M revitalization, which is great.

Lots of cool stuff there but it’s definitely display like a 1980s museum with 30+ years of hard use.

Somebody must have put them on a fast track. We stopped there today and it’s spectacular. The displays include a lot of unique stuff - like the restored Liberty Bell capsule recovered after 38 years underwater and V2 rockets and history, are very well done.

Their restoration division, Spaceworks, does some amazing work.

Well worth a visit.

When I was a kid they had a NASA-supplied mock-up of a Gemini capsule at the Museum of Science in Boston.

One weekend they had a raffle and two people got to take a mock space flight with Halloween-costume type space suites.

They had a blast.

I have an illness that requires that I stop at any display, no matter how small, of aerospace or aviation stuff. I don't care if it's a sun-bleached T33 at some rural strip, I'll stop and check it out.

I hit the Air Force Museum at Wright Pat at least once a year. every time I get a new lens I take it there to test out. There's a nice missile gallery and another space gallery that are worth the visit alone.

I'm stunned that this is still available - I remember getting it when I was a kid making models in the Sixties. I'll be getting one just to have. The link is too long to paste, but Google "1960s missile model kit" - it's an assortment of what was state of the art in like 1966.

I always thought the F-1 engine display in the Smithsonian A&S was cool, where they have the mirror setup to appear like a full-size five engine cluster.