Apollo 11 exhibit opening in Daytona Beach
Buzz Aldrin's spacesuit has a yellow glow as the astronaut stands next to the American flag on the surface of the moon.
At least that's how it looks in Andy Warhol's take on the historic moment. The pop artist's print is going up at Daytona Beach's Museum of Arts & Sciences in a display focused on Apollo 11 as the 50th anniversary of the moon landing approaches this July.
"We’re actually looking at more of the imagination behind what the moon meant to people," said Seth Mayo, the museum's curator of astronomy. "Instead of just simply cataloguing it, preserving it again with just real photos, you can kind of add people’s emotions to it. The whole thing is not just this dry, kind of emotionless, only machines did it, kind of thing. There’s humans that were part of this … art allows you to express those emotions for one of the most important moments in human history."
The exhibition, opening Saturday, aims to take viewers from the building of the space vehicles and training for the mission through the launch and moon landing. It includes an Apollo-era training suit for astronauts.
"They would train in suits like this while they were on the surface of the Earth, digging up and practicing collecting samples and all of that," Mayo said. "This was used in training. We don't have a specific who. It might have been used by different astronauts, but it was used in training."
There's also the training version of the portable life support backpack worn by Apollo 17's Harrison Schmitt, the second-to-last person to walk on the moon.
Apollo 11 astronauts brought hundreds of commemorative coins with them to the moon. One of them was given to Project Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra by Neil Armstrong, Mayo said. That coin is part of the exhibition, on loan from museum supporter Preston Root.
Many of the objects in the exhibition are on loan from Root or the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Daytona Beach's role in supporting the program will also be featured, with memorabilia celebrating what the city's General Electric facility did for the Apollo program.
"General Electric, they had an aerospace division ... here in Daytona Beach, and they supported the Apollo program during the main years before the launch and during Apollo 11," Mayo said.
The display has not only lined up with the 50-year anniversary of the mission to the moon, but also with recent news that NASA is aiming to return to the moon by 2024. That project, which could land the first woman on the moon, will be named Artemis, who in Greek mythology was the goddess of the hunt and Apollo's twin sister.
"We’re looking ahead to how we want to explore the moon and beyond that," Mayo said. "So I think it’s important to look back and see how we did it before and what is possible as a motivator for what we can do in the future."
Lori Campbell Baker, executive director of the Daytona Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, expects the exhibit to draw a "great number" of space tourists and multi-generational families into the museum, particularly with it being on display during the "summer family vacation season."
"This really promises to be an amazing exhibit and the timing is perfect," she said.
WHAT: To Choose Our Destiny: The Lasting Legacy of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing exhibit
WHERE: Museum of Arts & Sciences, 352 S. Nova Road, Daytona Beach
WHEN: Opening reception 5:30 p.m. Saturday; exhibit runs through July 28
ADMISSION: $5 for Saturday's reception, free for museum members; regular admission is $12.95 for adults, $10.95 for seniors and students, $6.95 for children 6-17, free for children 5 and younger and museum members