SMITHSONIAN AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM
J. STEVEN F. UDVAR-HAZY CENTER
I was just five years old when Alan Shepard was the first man launched into space on May 5, 1961. I vividly remember watching on a black and white television screen the liftoff of the Mercury 7 II rocket. The photographs of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum / Udvar Hazy Center are my personal documentation of the iconic aerospace objects that prompted my curiosity about space exploration so many years before.
Frank Schramm, 2020-21
Explorer and Vanguard Satellites
Pioneer 5 Launched March 11, 1960 (replica)
Lofti 1 - Launched February 22, 1961 (Reconstructed satellite)
US Army Homing Overlay Experiment (HOE) Test Vehicle – first test (1964)
NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) System
Mercury Capsule Freedom 7 II – 15B
Mission Control Flight Controller Stop Watch for Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle’s decent to the Moon’s surface.
Apollo 11 command module Columbia
Pressure Bubble Helmet worn by Astronaut Michael Collins on Apollo 11 space module, Columbia
Astronaut James Irwin’s Apollo 15 training pressure space suit.
Skylab 3. Cuff Checklist instructional notebook which contains instructions for operating the M-509 maneuvering unit.
Skylab 4. Cuff Checklist instructional notebook which contains instructions for operating the M-509 maneuvering unit.
Spacelab Instrument Pointing System
Space Shuttle Discovery – Flew a total of 39 Earth Orbital Missions
Space Shuttle Discovery
Right under belly of the Space Shuttle Discovery with the view of the HRSI reusable surface tiles on the right Elevon.
Right Rear Elevon – Space Shuttle Discovery
Closeup of Right Rear Elevon
Space Shuttle Discovery
The Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 main engines of Space Shuttle Discovery
The James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
Witnessing the Space Race and Landing Man on the Moon
Growing up as part of the “space generation”, I became very interested in the space missions of Mercury, Gemini, and the Apollo. As each mission progressed so did the visual images from space which were absolutely dazzling. As a boy, the excitement of space exploration captivated me, and I built model rockets and launched them. I collected space memorabilia in printed magazines such as LIFE and Look. The power of those images I will never forget.
My experience of witnessing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take their first steps on the Moon brought the memories reflected in a testimony I shared with the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in the summer of 2018:
As a result of this testimony, the Associated Press reached out to me in 2019 to request my reflections of the Apollo 11 Moon landing for a story about memories in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing.
