Closure of "Apollo to the Moon"

[bknight]

https://www.space.com/42622-smithsonian-apollo-gallery-closes.html?utm_source=sdc-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20181204-sdc

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The one and a quarter F-1 engine display at the entrance to the "Apollo to the Moon" gallery at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC used mirrors to create the appearance of there being five engines as was at the base of a Saturn V rocket.

Credit: collectSPACE.com
For more than 40 years, the "Apollo to the Moon" gallery at the National Air and Space Museum has provided millions of visitors a close-up look at some of the key artifacts from humanity's first visit to another world.
On Monday (Dec. 3), the gallery will close forever.
"This was one of the original galleries built for the museum in 1976," explained curator Michael Neufeld, during a tour of "Apollo to the Moon" streamed live on Facebook from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. on Friday (Nov. 30). "It has many key artifacts that are great to look at and will be coming back, eventually." [America's Space Treasures: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Pictures]

Looks like they are scaling back on Apollo.  Sad day for me, I guess there were not enough visitors to justify renovating the exhibit as is. 

[apollo16uvc]

Making room for new film studio to fake landing on mars.

[bobdude11]

Fortunately not completely:

Meanwhile, "Apollo to the Moon" is being replaced by "Destination Moon," a new gallery that will display many of the prior exhibition's artifacts while also expanding the focus of the hall.

"It is like ['Apollo to the Moon'] in the sense it covers the whole moon program, but it is going to be bigger," Neufeld explained. "It is going to cover all of history, from ancient dreams of going to the moon all the way up to the moon missions that are going on now."

"This new gallery will give the whole sweep of lunar exploration, with going to the moon in the 1960s as the core story," he said.

The new "Destination Moon" gallery is scheduled to debut to the public in 2022.

Also:

"We have other things here that you'll be able to see about Apollo. We have a lunar module in the main hall and it is going to stay there, open, until 2022," said Neufeld. "We will have Neil Armstrong's spacesuit opening [on display] in July 2019 for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. And we're going to have a special case of Apollo 11 astronaut artifacts in 2019."