The American Space Museum is a museum in Titusville, Florida. It includes the US Space Walk of Fame, an outdoor plaza on the Indian River that honors both the astronauts and the NASA and contractor personnel who made American crewed space exploration possible. The monuments surround a pool and are dedicated to the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. The museum houses related exhibits and artifacts and is located at 308 Pine Street.
The stated mission of the museum is, “Preserving Achievement; Inspiring Innovation.” To accomplish this, the museum preserves artifacts, history, and individual stories related to the American space program, and showcases them to inspire a new generation to innovate, invent, explore, and discover. The Walk of Fame at the park describes itself as "The first and only 'walk' in the nation that honors America's astronauts as well as the men and women behind the scenes who helped America lead the world in space exploration and accomplishments."[2]
Monuments
The monuments at the walk were created by the non-profit US Space Walk of Fame Foundation (USSWOFF) composed of community leaders, aerospace industry officials and current and retired space workers. The foundation is also building a database, currently including more than 10,000 names, of space workers and their employers; and has received a grant to record oral histories from many of the men and women associated with the early US space program.
Mercury Monument
Gemini Monument
History
View of the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building from Space View ParkLaunch of STS-124 as seen from Space View Park
The USSWOFF, a partnership between the foundation and the City of Titusville, created the US Space Walk of Fame as a major component of a redevelopment master plan for Titusville's downtown waterfront. It was conceived in 1988 by Titusville physician Dr. Doyle E. Chastain, who wrote a letter to the Titusville City Council suggesting such a project. With a downtown redevelopment program in progress and a desire to further enhance the area by taking advantage of the riverfront, the proposal was welcomed by the council and the city's Community Redevelopment Agency. The result was the US Space Walk of Fame Foundation.
Several volunteers including space pioneers created USSWOFF with the assistance of the City of Titusville, and the use of grants. The city provided the park infrastructure; and the foundation raised funds for the monuments, plaques, mission insignia markers and other space-related items to carry out the riverwalk's space theme. Engravings sold through the foundation enable space workers or their families to honor the worker by having his or her name engraved on the appropriate monument.
In July 1994, the city dedicated the new riverfront area, named Space View Park, which provides the anchor point for the US Space Walk of Fame. The Mercury Monument and mission plaques, with cast bronze hand prints of six of the original seven astronauts, were dedicated on May 12, 1995; and the Mercury mission insignia[3] were unveiled on May 23, 1997. The Mercury monument is a copy of the one at Launch Complex 14.
Groundbreaking for the Gemini Monument, and the first Gemini reunion, were held on July 19, 1996. The Gemini Monument was dedicated on November 7, 1997. Groundbreaking for the Apollo Monument was held on July 16, 1999 at precisely 9:32a.m. ET, exactly 30 years after the lift-off of Apollo 11. The event kicked off a week-long 30th anniversary celebration of the launch of Apollo 11 and the first crewed Moon landing. The Apollo Monument dedication and an Apollo reunion were held on July 17, 2009 with Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden. The Gemini and Apollo monuments also include cast bronze hand prints of the surviving astronauts who flew those missions.
The Space Shuttle monument was dedicated in 2014.
Museum
The American Space Museum, located nearby at 308 Pine Street, illustrates America's history in space exploration by displaying hundreds of artifacts, including photos, hardware, flight suits, Space Shuttle tiles, space patches and pins, and other memorabilia from personal collections of space workers. The museum also features several launch consoles from Launch Complex 36. The museum was the U. S. Space Walk of Fame Museum until the name changed in 2016 to the American Space Museum.
In 2016, the museum updated exhibits, focusing on new interpretive signage, new artifacts and interactive displays. The museum is adding 3D printers, computers, and other technology focused exhibits designed for children.
Also under the auspices of the museum is the STEAM space program, focusing on science and technology.
Human spaceflight is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously, without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts, cosmonauts (Russian), or taikonauts (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or spacefarers.
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom was an American engineer and pilot in the United States Air Force, as well as one of the original seven men, the Mercury Seven, selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Project Mercury, a program to train and launch astronauts into outer space. Grissom was also a Project Gemini and Apollo program astronaut for NASA. As a member of the NASA Astronaut Corps, Grissom was the second American to fly in space in 1961. He was also the second American to fly in space twice, preceded only by Joe Walker with his sub-orbital X-15 flights.
Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. was an American NASA astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer, aviator, and test pilot, and commanded the Apollo 12 space mission, on which he became the third person to walk on the Moon. Conrad was selected for NASA's second astronaut class in 1962.
Eugene Andrew Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the 11th human being to walk on the Moon. As he re-entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he remains the most recent person to walk on the Moon.
John Watts Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the 9th person to walk on the Moon as commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. He is the only astronaut to fly on four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo command and service module, the Apollo Lunar Module and the Space Shuttle.
The Space Coast is a region in the U.S. state of Florida around the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It is one of several "themed" coasts around Florida. All orbital launches from American soil carrying NASA astronauts have departed from either KSC or Cape Canaveral. The Space Force Station has also launched unmanned military and civilian rockets. Cities in the area include Port St. John, Titusville, Cocoa, Rockledge, Cape Canaveral, Merritt Island (unincorporated), Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach, Indialantic, Melbourne Beach, Palm Bay, and Viera (unincorporated). Most of the area lies within Brevard County. It is bounded on the south by the Treasure Coast, on the west and north by Central Florida, and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean.
Cosmosphere is a space museum and STEM education center in Hutchinson, Kansas, United States. It was previously known as the Kansas Cosmosphere. The museum houses over 13,000 spaceflight artifacts—the largest combined collection of US and Russian spaceflight artifacts in the world, and is home to various space educational programs.
James Alton McDivitt Jr. was an American test pilot, United States Air Force (USAF) pilot, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut in the Gemini and Apollo programs. He joined the USAF in 1951 and flew 145 combat missions in the Korean War. In 1959, after graduating first in his class with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Michigan through the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) program, he qualified as a test pilot at the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School and Aerospace Research Pilot School, and joined the Manned Spacecraft Operations Branch. By September 1962, McDivitt had logged over 2,500 flight hours, of which more than 2,000 hours were in jet aircraft. This included flying as a chase pilot for Robert M. White's North American X-15 flight on July 17, 1962, in which White reached an altitude of 59.5 miles (95.8 km) and became the first X-15 pilot to be awarded Astronaut Wings.
Thomas Patten Stafford is an American former Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, and one of 24 astronauts who flew to the Moon. He also served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1969 to 1971.
Project Gemini was the second United States human spaceflight program to fly. Conducted after the first, Project Mercury, and while the Apollo program was still in development, Gemini was conceived in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual astronauts flew low Earth orbit (LEO) missions during 1965 and 1966.
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is the visitor center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It features exhibits and displays, historic spacecraft and memorabilia, shows, two IMAX theaters, and a range of bus tours of the spaceport. The "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit contains the Atlantis orbiter and the Shuttle Launch Experience, a simulated ride into space. The center also provides astronaut training experiences, including a multi-axial chair and Mars Base simulator. The visitor complex also has daily presentations from a veteran NASA astronaut. A bus tour, included with admission, encompasses the separate Apollo/Saturn V Center. There were 1.7 million visitors to the visitor complex in 2016.
Space Center Houston is a science museum that serves as the official visitor center of NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. It was designated a Smithsonian Affiliate museum in 2014. The organization is owned by NASA, and operated under a contract by the nonprofit Manned Spaceflight Education Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization. The Johnson Space Center is the home of Mission Control and astronaut training.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to space exploration.
The United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, located inside the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Heroes & Legends building on Merritt Island, Florida, honors American astronauts and features the world's largest collection of their personal memorabilia, focusing on those astronauts who have been inducted into the Hall. Exhibits include Wally Schirra's Sigma 7 space capsule from the fifth crewed Mercury mission and the Gemini IX spacecraft flown by Gene Cernan and Thomas P. Stafford in 1966.
NASA's Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center, also known by its radio callsign, Houston, is the facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, that manages flight control for the United States human space program, currently involving astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The center is in Building 30 at the Johnson Space Center and is named after Christopher C. Kraft Jr., a NASA engineer and manager who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control operation, and was the first Flight Director.
The Stafford Air & Space Museum is located in Weatherford, Oklahoma, United States. The museum, named for NASA astronaut and Weatherford native Thomas P. Stafford, became a Smithsonian Affiliate in June 2010. The museum features exhibits about aviation, space exploration, and rocketry, and a collection of over 20 historic aircraft. Displays include Stafford's Apollo 10 spacesuit, the Gemini 6A spacecraft, artifacts from the Space Shuttle program, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Mir Space Station, a Moon rock, a Titan II missile, and a Mark 6 re-entry vehicle.
Samuel T. Beddingfield was an American test pilot and a pioneering aerospace engineer and who had a long career with NASA during its manned space programs.
With the advent of robotic and human spaceflight a new era of American history had presented itself. Keeping with the tradition of honoring the country's history on U.S. postage stamps, the U.S. Post Office began commemorating the various events with its commemorative postage stamp issues. The first U.S. Postage issue to depict a U.S. space vehicle was issued in 1948, the Fort Bliss issue. The first issue to commemorate a space project by name was the ECHO I communications satellite commemorative issue of 1960. Next was the Project Mercury issue of 1962. As U.S. space exploration progressed a variety of other commemorative issues followed, many of which bear accurate depictions of satellites, space capsules, Apollo Lunar Modules, space suits, and other items of interest.
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