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– The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will commemorate the 50th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 mission in July 2019 with a "first moon landing celebration".
On Wednesday, September 12, museum officials announced the celebration and plans for a series of events and exhibits that will begin in October. The Smithsonian includes in its collection the spacecraft, space suits and most of the equipment that astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins used to make the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969.
"We view the 50th anniversary of Apollo as an opportunity to introduce a new generation to what has happened in our lifetime," said Valérie Neal, Director of the Department of Space History at the National Museum of Art. air and space. "The majority of our visitors are now born after 1969. They know the story on their own, but they do not have the visceral experience."
"We hope to take this opportunity to spark that kind of excitement and start thinking about what we can do in the 21st century, comparable, whether we do it in space or on Earth," Neal told collectSPACE.
The celebration of the Smithsonian's first five-day landing is scheduled for July 16-20, 2019, so it coincides with the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, the lunar landing and the moonwalk . Details will be announced at a later date, but activities are planned inside the museum and on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Prior to the Apollo 11 celebration, the National Air and Space Museum will join others in the nation's capital to commemorate the first Apollo missions to launch astronauts into space and the moon.
On Thursday, October 11, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 7, the museum will host representatives of the American Mint who will unveil the obverse or head of the commemorative coins of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 of the Mint. issued in January. Under the direction of Congress, the Mint has organized a contest to draw the face of the curved piece of 2019, which will be minted gold, silver and metal plated.
The proceeds from these coins will benefit the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, the Astronaut Foundation and the Smithsonian – the latter to support the Destination Moon Gallery at the National Museum of Air and Space in 2022.
On Friday, December 7, the museum and NASA will welcome historians, writers and journalists to examine the current state of space history.
The Apollo Dialogues workshop will examine future study opportunities using the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing as an opportunity to "reflect on what we know about Apollo's time and his legacies, that we still have to learn and interpret. the importance of spaceflight in today 's and tomorrow' s society. "
On Tuesday, December 11, the National Air and Space Museum will host an event celebrating Apollo 8, the first mission to send human beings into orbit around the moon 50 years ago. "The Spirit of Apollo", to be held at the National Cathedral, will explore the "spiritual meaning of exploration and global unity" during the Christmas Eve broadcast of the mission in 1968, where Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders open the lines of the Genesis of the Bible.
Lovell is scheduled to attend the event, which will also include the National Museum of Air and Space's director, Ellen Stofan, and NASA's director, Jim Bridenstine. Additional speakers and other details, including free tickets for the public, will be available on the museum's website later this year.
In the next ten months, the Smithsonian's traveling exhibition "Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission" will continue in its four-city tour, which began in 2017.
The exhibit, featuring more than 20 artifacts from the first moon landing mission, including the Apollo 11 "Columbia" control module, recently concluded its engagement at the Saint Louis Science Center in Missouri. On September 29, "Destination Moon" will open at Senator John Heinz's History Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Then, starting in March, the historic spacecraft and related displays will relocate to Seattle. The Museum of Flight will host "Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission" on the occasion of the 50th anniversary in July.
"There are all these debates about the reinterpretation of Apollo and all these questions must be based on immutable and material physical truths.It is the role of the museum," said Allan Needell, curator of the museum. Spatial history at the National Museum of Air and Space. "Do not conceive interpretations, but make sure that anyone who wants to anchor his thoughts, has a solid foundation on which to support."
"That does not mean that the whole story is about hardware and physical elements, but it's a key element," Needell told collectSPACE.
To this end, the National Air and Space Museum will present Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 spacecraft for the first time in 13 years as part of the first landing celebration in July. The exhibition concludes an extensive conservation effort funded by thousands of public donations via Kickstarter.
The Apollo 11 Spacecraft and Command Module will be on display in the museum's new "Destination Moon" gallery, which opens in four years.
The museum is planning additional conferences and events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo program to be announced later. For those who can not travel to Washington DC, the Smithsonian Channel will air on television a six-hour series entitled "Apollo's Moon Shot", containing a video of the National Museum of Air and Space then on July 20, 2019 – special time, "The day we walked on the moon", with a focus on the historic Apollo 11 mission.
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