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Some pics from the National Air and Space Museum. |
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| Some typewritten notes Michael Collins brought into space on Gemini 10. |
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| RYAN NYP, Charles Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis". There's no front facing "windshield", he had to put his head outside the side ports to see in front. |
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| A picture-of-a-picture of Lindbergh's cockpit. It's not a great picture, and it's an oversized one, (I purposely left the image size large), but it really brings home the fact that Lindbergh could not see to the front without putting his head outside the plane. |
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| The Bell X - 1, named "Glamorous Glennis". The rocket plane in which Chuck Yeager "broke" the so - called "sound barrier", and named by him after his wife, despite official disapproval. |
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| One of three X - 15 rocket planes, which the air force used to break into space. The two holes in the nose are peroxide nozzles which, (located top, bottom, left and right sides of the nosecone), are used to steer the ship while in space. |
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| A model of a rocket engine, people nearby for scale. |
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| Actual suits used on the first moon landing mission. It was one of my hopes to some day see them. |
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| An actual moon lander, a backup. |
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| To contrast with the Spirit of St. Louis cockpit, here's a pic-of-a-pic of the cockpit for the SR - 71 Blackbird spyplane. Unfortunately there was no Blackbird on display. |
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| ...and the cockpit of the space shuttle Columbia. No space shuttle was on display, though they have plans for that once their expansion is up and running. |
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| A Tomahawk cruise missile. |
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