Photo Feature: Apollo 11 Command Module prepped for cross-country voyage
The Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia, at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / SpaceFlight Insider
WASHINGTON — The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution is planning a cross-country tour, encompassing four public locations, for Columbia, the Apollo 11 Command Module. The tour is set to begin in October 2017 and will go through the 50th anniversary of humanity’s first voyage to the surface of another world.
According to a report appearing on NPR, Columbia will be at Space Center Houston from Oct. 14, 2017, through March 18, 2018. From there, the Command Module will be transported to the St. Louis Science Center where it will reside until Sept. 3, 2018.
It will then be moved to the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The capsule will be there from Sept. 29, 2018, until Feb. 18, 2019.
Finally, Columbia will be at Seattle’s Museum of Flight from March 16 through Sept. 2, 2019.
In July 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins rode this capsule to the Moon. The mission culminated in history’s first human landing on another world on July 20, 1969. After descending to the surface inside a Lunar Module called Eagle, Armstrong and Aldrin spent less than 24 hours on the Moon, including a single 2.5-hour long moonwalk.
The duo returned to lunar orbit and rendezvoused with Columbia to join Collins before beginning a three-day cruise back to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969.
