Gone to Space, Be Back Tomorrow

A couple of weeks ago I took advantage of the "Journées de Patrimoine" (European Heritage Days) to visit the Paris Museum of Air and Space (it was free!!) I spent a majority of my time in the Space section.


At the beginning was a clip from a silent film that came out at the start of the century. Several men in top hats climb into a bullet, get themselves blasted out of a giant canon, land in the mouth of the man in the moon, tumble through several layers of moon rock (interrupting the festivals of several lunar tribes on their descent) and finally come to rest at the bottom layer of the moon.
After that, I walked past a series of rockets that constituted France's part in the nuclear race. They were the third country to have a long range nuclear missile; they call it the diamond.


Moving on, I came to a section where they had the actual capsule in which the first French space man returned to Earth. It was Russian, of course. And I touched it, so I can say that I touched something that has been in space. Here is a picture of the interior. Believe it or not, they cram three people into that space.


Here is the backside of the capsule. They should have gotten my friend E to help them with their English.


On the same level was a Vostok capsule identical to the one Yuri Gagarin rode into space, becoming the first human to ever visit.


And a model of a Salyut space station (a 3rd generation version, I would guess). They didn't have any models of MIR or the International Space Station.


Then they had a section dedicated to the moon landings, where I found the item that for me was the most fascinating- the actual suit worn be Eugene Cernan, the last man on the moon. I could almost touch it.


Look at the brown edges of the patch. I have seen moon dust! As a side note, the letter hidden by the switch is an A. I don't know who "MAN" and "MOM" are, but they can't talk at the same time!



Hanging from all parts of the ceiling were full-sized satellites.


And outside were two full-scale models of European Space Agency rockets.


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Moving on to the aviation section, they had a very fun collection of flying contraptions that predate the airplane. Believe it or not, this flew several times:


This dangerous device was launched many times from a hill in the town where I go to church:


And here is our friend Otto Lilienthal, who made over 2,000 good flights and one bad one:


From here, aviation made leaps and bounds. But some people are stark raving mad and still use gliders that are little more than a wing and a seat. Lots of them identical to this were still being used in the 60s.


The museum also had some very bizarre airplanes that came out of France's early experiments on the other side of the sound barrier:


And possibly the coolest thing France ever made, the Mirage. It is a supersonic VTOL (it can take off and land like a helicopter).


They also had an interesting collection of WWII planes.


Throughout the museum there were lots and lots of films. Old news footage, documentaries, etc. There were some really amazing films in the space section with computer-generated models and reproductions. It was easy to spend the whole day there. As I was walking home from the train station I looked up and saw the moon, so I got out my camera. As I was snapping photos, this airplane flew into the frame.


It was a perfect ending to the day. The only way it could have been better is if I had actually gone flying.