SEATTLE – On Thursday, May 18 at 10 a.m. The Museum of Flight welcomes members of the press to an exclusive preview of its new exhibit about the 1960s Space Race, APOLLO. Two exciting new announcements will be revealed at the event, and the special guest speaker is explorer David Concannon, who helped lead Bezos Expeditions’ quest to find and recover the exhibit’s centerpiece F-1 rocket engine that launched Apollo 12 to the Moon. The exhibit will be the first public display of the long-lost booster. It opens to the public May 20.
Please RSVP to Ted Huetter, Senior Public Relations Manager, [email protected]
About the APOLLO Exhibit
The US vs USSR Space Race of the 1960s was a time of superlatives as the space agencies of each country used their best and their brightest to make the first footprints on the Moon. APOLLO, the exhibit, reflects those times with artifacts both towering and diminutive, each with powerful stories of the people behind them. APOLLO is about individuals taming powerful new technologies to fulfill impossible dreams. The exhibit will be the first public display of the long-lost rocket engines that launched the Apollo astronauts to the Moon.
The historic Apollo 12 and 16 F-1 engines that boosted the mighty Saturn V Moon rockets were lost at the bottom of the sea for 43 years until discovered and raised by Seattle-based Bezos Expeditions in 2013. The sunken remains were our last missing links to the first adventures to another world. The aged and sculptural artifacts still show the scars of their service and of resting in the depths. They now punctuate the Museum’s new exhibit about the dramatic adventure of spaceflight through the post-Apollo ebb in the 1970s. For comparison, a full-scale F-1 rocket engine, on loan from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, will also be displayed.
The exhibit will feature many other unique artifacts from the Space Race, including Moon rocks, a lunar roving “moon buggy,” the only Viking Mars lander on Earth, space suits and the first Apollo command module.
May 20-21 SpaceFest 2017: The Lunar Legacy
The Museum 4th annual SpaceFest has a lunar theme to enhance APOLLO’s opening weekend with programs featuring astronauts, rocket scientists, undersea explorers, lunar VR experiences and Moon movies. Lunar VR experiences will also be offered at the APOLLO press preview.
For general Museum information, please call 206-764-5720 or visit www.museumofflight.org
