New Mexico Space History Museum -Alamogordo, NM

While in Alamogordo, New Mexico, we decided to check out the New Mexico Space History Museum. For $13 each we had admission to the five-level museum, plus a planetarium show and a large screen video of “Apollo 11″ (in a separate building and parking lot below the main museum lot.) Be aware the films available are NOT like an Imax. The”movie” was a challenge on the same domed setting as the planetarium show. We expected it to be in a different room with a large flat screen in front of us. While interesting, I would pass on that.
(Abby – you can count on me capturing all things “John Glenn”. 🙂 )

OUTDOOR display:

Mercury Capsule replica – Mercury 7 Astronauts (Shepard, Grisham, Cooper, Schirra, Slayton, GLENN, and Carpenter)

You begin inside by getting in one of two elevators and going to the 5th floor. Choose either “Discovery” or “Endeavor” (although both were the same inside. 🙂 It was pretty cool to start the experience like this. It was totally unexpected!

Fastest Man Alive – Col. (Dr) John Paul Stapp

My generation remembers being glued to TV sets watching this historic event! Apollo 11 Lunar Landing: “One small step for man. One Giant Leap for mankind!”
BUT – do you remember the big moon behind Walter Cronkite during that coverage? Here is a replica of it.

However, BEFORE we landed on the moon…

But before the US would allow a human astronaut to launched into space, the chimpanzee part of the Mercury program had to be successful. Meet HAM…

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MERCURY 3 – FREEDOM 7 First piloted spaceflight with Astronaut Alan Shepard

John Glenn’s heart beat tracings during flight, and the book of 400 favorite letters to John Glenn!

John Glenn grew up in New Concord, Ohio, and attended Muskingum (College) University. My mom and his wife Annie were classmates. When I went to Muskingum, I also experienced the spirit of John Glenn. John was a bit of a prankster, but always had a good heart and gentle soul. Annie struggled with severe stuttering that made it nearly impossible for her to speak. John was extremely protective of her when they were in the public eye, as was portrayed well in the movie “The Right Stuff”. John Glenn’s life is pretty amazing from his military career, astronaut fame, and political career as a 4-term US Ohio Senator, and beyond. John and Annie were married for 73 years! Annie successfully went through treatment for her stutter via Hollins Communications Research Institute in 1970. When Annie called John and spoke one full sentence – stutter free, he cried.

To read more about John Glenn, click here. (Most thorough site I found.)
To read more about Annie Glenn, click here.

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IF you have not seen the movie “Hidden Figures”, you really need to put it at the top of your “must see” list!

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The UNEXPECTED:
When I glanced down at the picture display below, I thought, “WOW, that guy looks so much like Howard from “The Big Bang Theory”…and then realized..It was him, and this was from his astronaut episodes! I do find it funny that they have an error in his character name. Under the picture it is correct (Wolowitz), but in the first paragragh to the right his last name is Horowitz. The astronaut on the far left is a real Nasa astronaut (Massimino). See the “Fun fact” in yellow below.

And more unexpected displays:
Beam me up Scotty!

Fun Fact: The Klingon language was originally developed by James Doohan (Scotty) because he had a great talent for voices and accents.

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Here are some I captured from the list of inductees with Neil Armstrong being the first inductee.

This group surprised me.

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The last area of the museum was an area where any age could dress up as an astronaut and take a picture with the cool lunar landing backdrop! We considered it briefly, but decided to skip with the number of people in and out of these suits.

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We enjoyed the museum, and discovered it through the AAA Tour Books that our friend Joyce suggested to us.(We met Joyce & Warren a couple years ago during our extended stays at Pio.) Thank you, Joyce!