 Hello everyone welcome to another vintage space tour of a museum. I am here in lovely Hutchinson, Kansas today at the Kansas Cosmosphere. You guys who have been out here have told me I have to get out here I've been trying to get here for ages and I finally gave a talk at a conference that allowed me to sneak away for a day before I dump on a flight and actually visit the museum So I'm going to take you guys through the tour of the space stuff and highlight some of the really incredible stuff that is here It's actually an amazing museum which it kind of blows my mind that it's in Kansas because when you think space You don't think Kansas, but I wanted to start with what is directly behind me because guys this is awesome So this is an SR 71 that has flown This is awesome. This is wild. It's it's impossible to like capture the scale And how big it feels but like you walk into the museum and there is just an SR 71 Directly in your face. It's awesome So on that really good starting note, let's go check out all of their amazing space artifacts that they have because this Really is an incredible collection that's worth traveling for First up, let's see if this is gonna work out. All right, so first up This is one of the coolest things. I think that is in this museum They actually have a v2. We'll pan up so you guys can see it So they actually have a v2. You know, this isn't obviously not one that was flown but this is actually a replica that was made from parts that were recovered from Germany so and they have the the absolutely beautifully horrifying Prisoner who is building the v2. So I've talked about the v2 a lot before They've I've got videos I've got links in the description if you guys want to learn more from previous videos But the v2 was the german The german rocket that winterfront brown and walter dorm burger and that whole crew built For the german army and its use was then strong-holded by the ss to use it as an offensive weapon And it was the the ss who made the first The call to actually launch it the first time and it was really like hitler didn't love the v2. He didn't love rockets He wasn't super excited at the prospect of actually having a rocket as a weapon. Oh, I walked into a wall He couldn't really see the value in it even when and i'm gonna try to show you guys the length of it here even when He went to to penamunda where it was built in the northern northern german northern germany He saw one taken apart to actually see the insides and he still wasn't super impressed by it It wasn't until um the the allies raided penamunda and tried to bomb it with the goal of taking out all of the scientists in august 17th of 1943 That hitler realized that this weapon was scaring the allies and maybe it was something worth putting all of his money and And effort into so it was only in late 1943 that the v2 program Well the the a4 program as it was called before it was a vengeance weapon So that was when the production of the v2 moved to me tell work in the middle of germany So it would be less coastal and less vulnerable to attack by allies and this was also When it started to be built by prisoners of war and concentration camp laborers The camp that was near me tell work was called dora and it was by all accounts The most horrifying conditions of any concentration camp And we've got a really cool thing at the end I'm going to try not to hit the other pole and show you guys that it's actually open On the end so you can actually see the inner workings of the rocket engine of the v2 so the v2 was first launched in um Date off the top of my head escapes me but 1944. Um, I want to say september august And it was it was launched successfully for the germans not so much for the allies It did kill a fair number of people but far more people were actually killed building the v2 with slave labor Then were killed by by being bombed with it. So of course as we go through the story The v2 was like the standout technology of the second world war, right? Everyone wanted to get their hands on all of this good stuff right up here And also the brains that made the good stuff form of warner fun brown So the soviets and the americans wanted wanted it and as we know sorry spoiler lord if you don't know Werner fun brown wanted to work with the americans not exchanging one terrible Dictatorship for another and go to the soviet union. So he surrendered successfully to the americans But the soviets also got a handful of v2 engineers. So the story continues So one thing I will say about the cosmosphere. They're not shying away from the v2 Oh, you can sort of see it better here They're not shying away from the v2's nazi past because there are swastikas everywhere in this room to really drive home The fact that it was the nazi war weapons. So it's weird. It's very very interesting I've actually seen v2's in museums. The smithsonian has one Um, but you don't see them with nazi flags around them all the time. So yeah, you know where it came from So you know where the v2 came from but you also know where it went There's a really interesting map right behind me on the wall here that actually shows every Red dot is a v1 and every green dot is a v2. So you can actually see Some of the impact sites from the v2 So as we know the story of the v2 kind of comes to a head when The soviets and the americans are both trying to get their hands on the scientists So they could build their own versions and have their own offensive weapons Now it does ultimately as we know the cold war comes down to a war of ideologies And there is this one part of this museum that for some reason just makes me I just think this is the best visualization So on the one side is a statue of lenin that was in belarus This is a real statue that's been on display for years and he is staring down Uncle sam the idealistic american Um, yep, this is great. And then behind them we have the two rocket geniuses We've got serigate choralev on one side and wonderfront brown on the other So we we start to see the division of the two sides of the space race right now Well, wonderfront brown is working on the redstone irb m. He of course wants to put something into orbit He understands that it's going to be a huge psychological victory for the first nation to put something into space Even if it's really small So he had earmarked two red stones rs 27 and rs 29 that could take uh spacecraft tiny little satellites into orbit and there was even a launch in september of 1956 Where if the fourth stage had been active and not just filled with sand as ballast It could have put a satellite into orbit and actually um someone from the army I think it might have been general madera's actually was sent down to make sure that the fourth stage wasn't live To make sure he wasn't sneaking a satellite up and of course as we know From brown was right He was right that the first satellite was a huge psychological victory because the soviet union beat the u.s To the punch on october 4th of 1957 with this So this is sputnik as you can tell but what's super cool about this one Is that this is actually an engineering mock-up? So chris chev and choralev both actually touched this model. Let's look at it again So there is a full-scale model of sputnik What I sort of didn't notice or didn't think about seeing it in pictures Look at how long those antennas are they just keep on going that is a very long antenna for a super tiny little ball But this was actually built as the engineering double in the soviet union and somehow it's ended up at the kansas cosmosphere So that's kind of awesome. And then of course as we know The soviet union followed that up with Sputnik 2 so here is a mock-up of sputnik 2 This is not the as I don't think this is as fancy a An engineering double but you can see so you can get in there You can see the model of leica in there So that's sad leica of course did not return to earth nor have a very great flight But um, yeah, so these are the first two Really big embarrassments as the display is want to hammer home I think this is really funny. Let's see if I can show it. So sputnik 2 Oh, no, that's the wrong side sputnik 2. Here we are is labeled embarrassment number two So sputnik 1 is labeled embarrassment number one in this museum, which I actually think is really really funny And then over here i'm just going to spin us around we have um embarrassment number three in the form of vanguard So sputnik we just saw it's pretty big as we know vanguard is tiny This is an engineering double of the the vanguard satellite So this was the famous uh flopnik slash state putnik Spatnik any other joke term puffnik was another one So this was the one that the the navy launched on there the American made homegrown vanguard rocket Actually, here's the footage that I guess I can just sneak into the video But um, this was the this was the um This was the launch that got you know a few inches off the ground and then failed and then landed back on the launch pad and exploded And because eisenhower had actually said that this test is actually the tv3 test launch He had said that it would be the first satellite shot. Um, the whole thing was broadcast live So the entire country got to watch their its satellite attempt fail in a giant Blaze of glory and this was the teeny tiny satellite So then let's just continue the story because it's all in the same hallway. So fun brown knew He had no faith in the navy's ability to actually make the vanguard work He didn't think it was a great system He knew that his redstone was ready to go and would be able to actually launch something So he was given clearance in the days after um After the vanguard failure let's fix the lighting here after the vanguard failure He was given 60 days to get his Version up his satellite offering up. Um, of course the the challenge was right No one really wanted to give the first american satellite shot to an ex nazi, but they did and it worked So on uh, january 31st 58 slash february 1st depending on time zone Here's a model of explorer one. It's backlit. So it's a bit hard to see it See if I can well here it is. Here's the model of explorer one. So it is Bigger than than vanguard, but it's still not a massive satellite, but that is america's first satellite So it was really with the launch of explorer one and 58 that things started to become Even in the space race not by a long shot So as we know the next step was putting men into orbit and the museum takes us right into that story So this is something neat that i've never actually seen and I thought this was a super cool Visualization because again, we don't necessarily See the things you read about so we know that warner von braun and his team ended up in White sands new mexico working on the v2s and then eventually with the start of the korean war They were they were sort of thawed off their waiting period as it were they were sort of talked about being put on ice They were they left went to mexico Re-entered the country to officially begin Begin the process of becoming american citizens and then they all moved to the redstone arsenal What became the redstone arsenal in huntsville, alabama to build this this is the redstone warhead This was actually a mock-up so we can kind of see the inside how much stuff is going on in here This is the warhead. I'm just going to walk along it because I sort of Didn't realize it was going to be that big so yeah, this was what was designed to go on the redstone Um when they were building it as an offensive weapon as an irb m and an intermediate range ballistic missile Of course, then as we know it was then modified to carry a mercury spacecraft, which I believe is just around the corner All right, so super dark room But this is kind of neat and I wanted to show you guys because I did not expect this to be at the kansas cosmosphere Um, but uh, so there's a an exhibit as you're going through the early space race as we know It was a war of ideologies right the cold the cold wars of war of ideologies The space race was an incarnation of that and they have this beautiful display right here So behind me is a piece of the german wall So this was the wall that split germany in half, right? And then there's a statue of kennedy looking super chill staring at a yelling kruschev So the soviets and americans are both trying to build rockets and spacecraft to put people into space before the other one because Race to be first means you're best So as we know yuri gagarin got there first and they have at this museum a genuine vostok spacecraft Which unfortunately has everything reflected in it. So it's kind of hard to see But if you notice right up here, there is actually a skull and crossbones painted in it So this is an actual flown vostok. This was not launched This is obviously not the one that gagarin flew this was launched in the test before he flew Which I think means that it might be the one that Ivan Ivanovich flew Which if you guys remember from my video, he was the humanoid dummy stuffed with mice and Other living things And had a piped in sound of a chorus singing and also a recipe for beet soup that he would broadcast They could test the communication system. So it's possible if this if i'm right because it doesn't actually say anything about Ivanovich On these panels, but it might be that this was the one that launched Ivan Ivanovich before yuri gagarin So the soviet union got the first man in space as we know with yuri gagarin But that didn't mean nasa was not gonna keep going with mercury and of course behind us We have a mock-up of a mercury spacecraft This was the first to put humans in americans into space The first two of course suborbital and then orbital and I am touching this because it is not a real spacecraft So I think some of you guys probably know that the kansas cosmosphere is home to liberty bell seven Which was dusk brism spacecraft that sunk after his mission in 1961 and was recovered from the bottom of the atlantic three miles deep in 1999 so Obviously everybody wants to look at liberty bell seven So it's on tour right now. So I have not that's still a capsule. I haven't seen so this is a mock-up of uh freedom seven So that's here. So uh moving on to the more awesome stuff that so Right after voss doc and mercury things had to get a little bit bigger and better and um up next for the soviets was voss god So voss god, I will turn around Is right behind me. So you can kind of see here's the here's the the sort of service module Equivalent um, here's the actual manned module and extending out is oh, it's so dark in here I'm so sorry guys. It's really hard to see but extending out of here is actually the airlock That alexa leona of used when he did the first spacewalk in 1965 So the voss god was actually just a modified voss doc to hold more people Um, and as we know nasa did something a little bit different when it did its second generation spacecraft rather than just build a Well, they basically built a bigger mercury, but it was much more capable and we have as you guys know my favorite Here's demony. It's demony 10. So this was john young and mike collins um Second to third to last rather uh, gemini mission. So see if you can get can't totally get to show you guys the inside of it But um, here's the hatch so you can actually see how complicated it was and actually see how big an opening there was Um to do eva's so you can see the comparison So voss doc or voss god rather couldn't be fully depressurized Hence the airlock to actually get the astronaut out for gemini. They just depressurized the whole thing and just opened the door Um, so this is of course. It's behind glass. I am touching the glass. Um, I probably shouldn't even touch the glass, but um This is the real flight article. This was actually a gemini that has flown in space. Um, so that's always fun to see in kansas I just noticed this so we're gonna show it This is the handlebar that ed white used to close the hatch on the first spacewalk on gemini 4 in 1965 Alrighty, so the the crux of the museum and we're going through sort of the history of manned space flight tour Um, I don't know if you guys can hear they're piping in mission audio from apollo 17 Um, but is the apollo room and there is so much in here. I yeah, I can't show you everything But i'm gonna try so first up. Let's see if I can get a shot of this. It's on the ceiling There's a massive cut away Like a model that's clear of the saturn 5 so you can actually see what's going on inside it Which is super neat. I love these kinds of models that actually let you see kind of what is happening inside the rocket There's a couple of really cool things too. I just did a video about this recently. I'll put the link up But here's the saturn 5 cue ball It's the cue ball that actually measured dynamic pressure and air pressure as the rocket was launching to know if it had to abort Um, how to do it safely so that the crew would not like plunk down somewhere scary or roll over in flight. Um Proper video explains the more things about that. Um, and here's something that I've actually never known anything about So I will be looking into this. Um the auxiliary propulsion system. So here is one of the auxiliary propulsion system rockets Um that was on the saturn 5 So it looks like it was on the s4b stage And was one of like the allege motors So i'm gonna look into what exactly the auxiliary propulsion system did and the little placard here mentions that there were 83 like total engines on a saturn 5 So i'm gonna i'm gonna have to go through and figure out what all of those 83 engines are Okay, so I can't hide this because it's massive and behind me, but here's the lunar module Um, right, so this obviously never went to the moon. Um, the lunar modules did not come back from the moon Um, but this was a training walk up So astronauts did actually use this when they were training for the moon I'm gonna try to show you as best I can. It's it's bigger than you think I mean you see pictures you see pictures of men inside it. You know how big it is sort of but It feels really big Um and really impressive like I I'm not gonna get picked out. I'm not gonna reach out and touch it, but um It's massive like it feels much more substantial like we talk about how you know the gold foil and in some places Um, it's only you know a few millimeters thick that you can put your foot through it if you're not careful It feels a lot more impressive Standing in front of this one and actually looking at how Much like heft it has then you would almost imagine it would be so there's also a Lunar lunar rover here. Um, I don't know off the top of my head to be totally honest If this one was used in training or if it was just a mock-up, but um It does give you a sense of how tiny it was That thing can obviously be folded into the storage compartment of this thing. Oh, I hear children Okay, so there's a couple other things. I need to show you guys here Um, of course most cool space museums like this have a moon rock. So here is an apollo 11 sample rock Um, you can see the little blinking light. I'm afraid to even get too close to it Let's press that off an alarm, but this is like a substantial piece of the moon. All right, so When you think Kansas cosmosphere, this is why I was super excited to come to this museum in the first place Um, there is one pièce de résistance that lives in this museum And I'm super excited that it's not on loan anywhere. So I got to see it because Odyssey is here Um, the command module from apollo 13 lives at the Kansas cosmosphere. So here it is. It's it's beautifully presented I can't totally show you what it looks like because it's so It's quite dark in here and everything's lit really beautifully. Oh my god The light inside is flashing the light inside so you you can actually look inside there's a couple of mock-up astronauts in here get a sense of it and um This is just reminding me of that scene in apollo 13 when they're powering up the command module and the light's flickering Because they're trying to conserve all their power Um, this is eerie. This is really really neat. I kind of love this right now But it's I mean if you've never seen a command module in person Oh, and I can show you guys maybe if it's if it's not too dark Uh, I can't totally see it, but the hatch is separate right here. You can actually see the workings of the block 2 hatch um It's beautiful. I mean if you've never seen a command module in person They're you know that they're not massive, but they still feel pretty big which is actually really neat Um, I'll see if I can swing around and give you guys a quick look at the heat shield And there's of course all the uh information about the mission and everything here So we've got all the stuff down here, but here's apollo 13's heat shield Oh, and a fuel cell is behind me as is reflected in the glass. Let's turn around and show you that Here's an apollo fuel cell Um, you can't totally see it because of the reflections But this this would be what powered these service modules and of course what caused some problems On on 13. So there's a couple more really neat things. I want to walk through in this little apollo room with you guys Um, so we have an apollo uh lunar module trainer So this was a real trainer that they did use. Um, I'll see if I can show you guys the inside of it Um, sort of it's really really hard to see. It's easier to see when you can put your face up against the glass Unfortunately, but it does give you a sense of just how tiny the lunar module was Um, even this trainer looks a little bit claustrophobic Um, and then they have one really really awesome piece here that I had no idea would be in a museum I don't know why I didn't think about this, but we are walking into the apollo white room Um, so this was I'll turn around so you can actually see it This was where the astronauts so you can tell the shape is like the command module So this is where the hatch would be so astronauts would Grab onto the bars and lift themselves into the spacecraft and we'll see if I can can show you But I'll take a picture of it and put it up So and right above the the top bar up here right up here Um, it's signed by gunter vent the pad leader. So this is just a really neat Like piece of history that exists in this museum It's really beautifully presented and on the other side we have the other side of the white room that switches and dials and everything Um, I'll do a video about the white room because now that I think about it. I've never done one But this is a super cool place to stand Um, just knowing sort of what happened in this space even though it is very far away from uh from Kennedy right now But yeah, this is a neat little I love when they have exhibits like this that like the ceiling is here and everything So you actually get a sense of the physical space as opposed to just seeing a picture or seeing a piece of it Um, it's really it's quite something. This is the Apollo room that sort of the museum funnels you through to the end of It's absolutely astounding Okay, there is a whole little exhibit about photography and lunar and space photography And it's not going to show up beautifully in this video I don't think but I had to show you guys or attempt to show you guys So I think I believe we're looking at hassleblads or pieces of the hassleblad cameras that were brought back from various missions And they're all signed by the astronauts that use them. So we've got walley shura Um, that looks like gym level Rusty schweigart, uh tom stafford buzz aldrin dick gordon. No, that's gym level That's also gym level. So there are two gym levels Ed Mitchell Dave scott charlie duke and gene sernan. So all these things are here. I had no I didn't know this is here This is like awesome. And then behind me on the other wall. There's a whole other Yeah, there's a whole other thing of like a displays of all the different cameras that they use with all the pictures It's really hard to see in the video. But if you can get here, it's awesome All right, so I just found this wall of amazing Apollo artifacts I'm super backlit apologies, but then I saw something that I had to show Show you guys the video. So I know you're gonna notice it. So here is a disc key That was flown on apollo 12 with peak honrad guys peak honrad real peak honrad touch that But here is the survival kit flown on apollo 8 Look at the size of that knife. Look at the knife that was part of that survival kit. That thing is massive I've never actually dug into what was involved in survival kits and where they were stored But that's a knife Yeah, that is a serious knife. Also, I'll point out because I have the video on You can sort of see it that little like goobery looking thing up there That is an earpiece worn by Ron Evans on apollo 14. So yeah, that's in here All right, so the last thing on as you kind of walk through the mercury gemini apollo Whole story the last thing you get to as you can see behind me is apollo soys So this is obviously a training mock-up I think I think both of them are actually training mock-ups if I remember the tour from yesterday, correctly But here it is. It's it's really hard to get into into a single shot But I'll walk along so you guys can see a little bit more about it It's also tough to see because it's set against black and the the docking unit is black So I'll just come over here and show you guys the soys half, of course The soys is still the same spacecraft that the soviets flew have been flying and russia now flies since 1967 So I just want to relay the quick story of the docking adapter right here this black bit in the middle See if I can get a proper shot of it So, uh, I've heard the weird story that people and I I just kind of want to tell this in case This is a story that people actually think is real so The right when you have a docking With anything you need a male and a female part so that you actually have a hard dock so that the two vehicles can actually combine enough to Um to you know be able to create a tunnel so the the command The command service and lunar modules did this the command module was the male and the Lunar module was the female you get a hard dock take the adapter out and you have a tunnel and now you have two spacecraft So there is this weird story apparently that people know that um It was like a thing of machismo that because the apollo has a male docking port and the soys Has a male docking port no one wanted to switch theirs to be the female part because masculinity That's not a thing that I've ever heard of what I know about the docking unit, which makes like sense for science Um Is that it was an issue of mixed gas environments So the apollo as we know use pure oxygen under pressure even after the apollo won fire Well the soys the soviets always used a mixed gas environment They used oxygen and nitrogen so that it would be less flammable Now remember the soys or the soys the soviets rather lost a cosmonaut during a training exercise to an oxygen fire So they learned their lesson, but america did not also it would have been really hard to retrofit all that into apollo So the docking adapter was actually built to link the two spacecrafts such that you wouldn't have to change the environment And in either one for the astronauts to go between them So I think the way it worked and I'll have to do a separate video on this Sorry, we've got we've got visitors now But is that you could Docket together and then you could depressurize or you could pressurize the docking adapter section With one environment and then that would be kind of your way to move between two spacecraft You couldn't open it up to both you had to have this midsection because the environments were different So that's the story and here's where we end our quick little tour So Apollos or use also handshake in space great story. There'll be more apollos or use videos to come All right, thus ends so so I should show you guys this like amazing stained glass um Apollo window behind me, but that that ends the tour my little Super quick nerd girls guide to the uh, canas cosmosphere It's definitely worth the trip out here if you guys can make it to hutchards in canas Which admittedly is not the easiest place to get to it's like an hour drive from wichita Which is the airport that I flew in here to get here Um, but totally worth going totally worth if you are in the area. It's worth coming out for a day Um, probably need half a day to see it. Um, but it's kind of awesome So, yeah, I just wanted to show you guys that because some of you guys might not be able to get out here And uh, you should see how awesome this museum is. So thank you guys for dealing with my shaky handheld camera work for another, uh museum tour Oh Yeah, I should do this too If you guys want to see more of these museum tours, let me know where you would like me to go I can't promise that I can get there But if I end up there, I can be sure to do another museum tour And of course if you have questions or comments or anything about stuff that you've seen in this video in this museum Let me know I can look into stuff I can put up links to videos that I have already for things And of course, let me know your thoughts and all those things in the comment section down below Be sure to follow me on twitter and on instagram for daily vintage space content Be sure to like this video and of course if you would like Vintage space content every single week usually more polished proper videos than this one I promise be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode