Published in Senior Scene Magazine, July 2016, Page 22
U.S. Space Walk of Fame
Titusville, FL
GPS: 28.613792o, -80.804177o
Only a few steps separate the Apollo Walk of Fame and the Shuttle Walk of Fame. We hardly noticed passing from one to the other.
The Space Shuttle Program, officially The Space Transportation System (STS), ran from 1972 to 2011. The goal: "crewed orbital launch and reentry". The shuttle usually carried four to seven astronauts (though crews as small as two and as large as eight are recorded) and up to 50,000 pounds of payload. A total of 355 people representing sixteen countries traveled on the shuttle on 134 missions. There were two disasters in the program – Challenger (28 Jan 1986) and Columbia (01 Feb 2003).
There is a lot of heavy technical information here. One should not be in a hurry when visiting.
We ended our day at the US Space Walk of Fame Museum, about a block away, at 308 Pine Street. There we saw America's history in space exploration on display by hundreds of artifacts, including photos, hardware, flight suits, shuttle tiles, space patches and pins, and other memorabilia from personal collections of space workers. The museum also features launch consoles from Launch Complex 36.
Andrew went home with happy memories of his week in Florida. Now we are waiting to repeat the adventure this summer with his younger brother Joshua.
“Going Once! … Going Twice! … Sold! … Lot #35 for $3,300”.
Today, 02 April 2016, I spent most of the day in Titusville, attending the U.S. Space Walk of Fame Museum Charity Space Memorabilia Fund Raising Auction.
Charity Space Memorabilia Fund Raising Auction
The Lunar Roll of Honor Capsule, an inscribed aluminum capsule intended to stay on the moon after the first landing, became Lot #35. Removed from the manifest after the Apollo I fire, it never made it onto another manifest. Eventually recovered from a scrap pile, today it sold for $3,300.
There were 200 lots of memorabilia — records, manuals, badges, patches – even a real Russian Space Helmet. On site were about a dozen bidders. Bidding over the internet were many more. The auction lasted from noon to early in the evening and raised a lot of money for the museum’s Space Walk Academy. The museum staff is planning more fund raising auctions in the future. There will be some item of space memorabilia just right for you or your grandchildren. Watch for the next auction.
Andrew is ten. John Glenn, the last surviving member of the original seven, still lives, and commercial space travel is in its infancy but very real. In my tenth year, Orville Wright was still alive, and commercial air travel was a fledgling industry with commercial jet powered airliners still more than a decade away (October 1958 with Pan American World Airways). I wonder if Andrew might find his way back here with his ten year old grandson. What will space travel be like then … and will this little park still be here?
Click here to see part 1
Click here to see part 2
Learn more at US Space Walk of Fame
