2027488901. Send us a tweet at cspan history or join us on facebook at facebook. Com cspanhistory. As we move outside to inside, one of the displays, and there are so many inside this fabulous museum, is moving beyond earth. And an example of the evolution of americas Space Shuttle program. And joining us again is valerie neal. We saw you just a moment ago in the tape portion. You are the curator, the chair of the Space History Department here at the museum. And lets talk about the shuttle program. No other country had Something Like that. Well, briefly, the soviet union did. They built a craft called buran that mimicked our Space Shuttle. But it was several years later. They flew one test flight and then retired it. They didnt really have a need for a shuttle craft. But they were very worried about what we might use ours for. And they thought they should have one too, just in case. But really, in the annals of space history, the u. S. Space shuttle is unique. Its the only operational
Were back live now at the Smithsonian National air and space museum where the museum today is celebrating its 40th birthday. It was 40 years ago today that president gerald ford dedicated this museum. In about a half hour, well bring you live coverage of the events celebrating that anniversary. In the meantime, we want to hear from you. Our phone lines are open. 2027488900 for those in the eastern or central time zones. If you live out west, 2027488901. Send us a tweet at cspan history or join us on facebook at facebook. Com cspanhistory. As we move outside to inside, one of the displays, and there are so many inside this fabulous museum, is moving beyond earth. And an example of the evolution of americas Space Shuttle program. And joining us again is valerie neal. We saw you just a moment ago in the tape portion. You are the curator, the chair of the space history here at the museum. And lets talk about the shuttle program. No other country had Something Like that. Well, briefly, the
Were back live now at the Smithsonian National air and space museum, where the museum today is celebrating its 40th birthday. It was 40 years ago today that president gerald ford dedicated this museum. In about a half hour, well bring you live coverage of the events celebrating that anniversary. In the meantime, we want to hear from you. Our phone lines are open. 2027488900 for those in the eastern or central time zones. If you live out west, 2027488901. Send us a tweet at cspan history or join us on facebook at facebook. Com cspanhistory. As we move outside to inside, one of the displays, and there are so many inside this fabulous museum, is moving beyond earth. And an example of the evolution of americas Space Shuttle program. And joining us again is valerie neal. We saw you just a moment ago in the tape portion. You are the curator, the chair of the Space History Department here at the museum. And lets talk about the shuttle program. No other country had Something Like that. Well, b
Prizewinning flight, but it was the recordbreaking flight. And so they went to the trouble to reinstall the dented engine nozzle on it. Our next stop will be sky lab, and were going to look at that because it is one of the original artifacts on display here since before this Museum Opened. Sky lab is so large, it was brought into the museum before the building was closed out. Now im standing in front of a model of sky lab thats as tall as i am but the real sky lab orbital work station behind me absolutely dwarfs the model and me. It reaches from the floor up into the sky lights of this building, two stories tall. Sky lab was the United States first space station, placed in orbit in 1973 and in 1973 and 74, three different nasa astronaut crews spent time aboard it. Three men at a time, one group was there for one month. Another group for two months, and the third group for three months. The whole point of the sky lab missions was to get some experience in living and working in space. Wh
The moon. So its actually fairly flimsy in some areas. The legs are obviously strong and mount for the rocket engine is strong but the craft itself and particularly the crew module or crew cabin was really fairly spartan. It had two windows. Neil armstrong had command of the craft during the final descent to landing. Both of them were standing. They were fully suited in their space suit and they pretty much filled that interior volume in that position with those space suits on. It was not really designed for comfort. It was designed for the purpose of landing, giving the crew an exit so they could spend a couple of hours on the surface of the moon and then launching again along with their precious cargo of lunar soil and rocks to bring back home to demonstrate that they had been there and to have those materials for scientists to begin analyzing and better understand the moon. Its also amazing to think that the Computing Power required in that day to send these craft to the moon and pr