New exhibit makes
AirVenture museum an air, space museum
By Barbara A. Schmitz
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Sam More and Mike
Padrick at SpaceShipOne, the newest exhibit at the EAA
AirVenture Museum. Photo by Phil Weston
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SpaceShipOne was a
favorite of aviation enthusiasts at last year’s fly-in convention—they
got to see the world’s first successful civilian-built spacecraft,
winner of the $10 million Ansari X Prize up-close and watch it fly.
While the original is now
hanging in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., its
sibling, SpaceShipOne, S/N #2, is in the EAA AirVenture Museum and will
be officially dedicated at 9 a.m. Tuesday. It’s likely to be a
favorite, too.
"Since 1962, EAA has
had a museum and we’ve grown to be one of the more wonderful aviation
museums in the nation," said Adam Smith, museum director. But the
SpaceShipOne exhibit will put the museum into new and uncharted
territory.
"SpaceShipOne is
meaningful to the whole museum," Smith said. "On Tuesday we
will become an air and space museum, something we’ve never been
before. And it’s all because an EAA member had a vision…."
Burt Rutan of Scaled
Composites, in Mojave, California, isn’t just any EAA member. Rutan
has lived and breathed aviation since a boy. In fact, a model of a
control-line "Wildcat" that Burt flew in the 1950s is also in
the museum, as are six other of his designs—including the VariViggen,
Rutan’s first plane, and a mock-up of the Voyager, which in 1986
became the first plane to circle the world without refueling.
The SpaceShipOne exhibit
was a large and time-consuming project. Using the same molds and tools
as the original, Scaled Composite volunteers—including Mike Melvill
who first flew SpaceShipOne and became the world’s first civilian
astronaut—built the parts of the spaceship, and then those parts were
transported to Oshkosh to be assembled.
"Mike and Sally
Melvill gave up their Christmas vacation to make the parts," Smith
said. "This exhibit couldn’t have happened without the 25
volunteers from Scaled Composites."
Once the components were
in Oshkosh, five museum craftsmen worked full-time from late January
through June to complete the replica and make it as similar to the
original as possible. Assisting them in their Herculean task were nearly
1,000 close-up photos taken of the original spacecraft when it was in
Oshkosh.
"If a line of screws
were put in crooked in the original, it’s crooked on ours," Smith
said.
Scaled Composites
employees signed their name on the rocket cowling before it launched;
their names and their handwriting is replicated on the EAA version.
And if you look carefully
inside SpaceShipOne’s windows, you’ll see red, blue, and yellow
M&M’s "floating," just like they did in Melvill’s
flight.
But the exhibit is more
than just a static aircraft. Beginning Tuesday with the dedication, a
large screen will descend and the lights will dim at 30 minutes past
each hour as Melvill talks about the historic flight on a six-minute
film.
Alan Westby, director of
collections and interpretation, said the film went through nine or 10
revisions.
"I’ve watched it
many times, but it still makes me laugh. I really think Mike Melvill’s
personality shines through; he’s just so sincere."
On the film, Melvill
talks about training for the flight, his nerves and what it feels like
as you speed at Mach 2 and then Mach 3 toward space and see the blue sky
turning black.
You watch Melvill throw
some M&Ms around, and in weightlessness, stay put. As Melvill
describes the key technological breakthrough conceived by Rutan, the
replica moves and "feathers." The feathering process allowed
SpaceShipOne to slow down and safely re-enter the atmosphere without
excessive heating. Later, it "unfeathers," so Melvill can make
a deadstick landing.
Watching the feathering
process is definitely one of the highlights. Joyce Brown, of Deerfield,
Wisconsin, said she couldn’t imagine the feathering process until she
saw it. She and others who just happened to be in the museum saw a test
run on Saturday.
Her daughter, Alisa, 6, was also
impressed.
"I touched that plane last
year," she said, referring to the actual SpaceShipOne that was on
AeroShell Square in 2005. "I cried when it left."
On Saturday, Alisa spent some time
staring through the windows, trying to find the M&Ms that were
"floating." She announced each one found, including the colors—two
reds and a blue.
Westby said the exhibit is like a
marionette, with heavy cables controlling SpaceShipOne’s feathering.
"I didn’t want to put mechanicals in it, knowing that would be
difficult to repair while hanging from the ceiling," he said.
The SpaceShipOne exhibit is only
the beginning of a whole space gallery. Engineer and EAA member Craig
Willan donated the funding for the exhibits, which should be in place by
AirVenture 2007.
"Phase 2 will be an
interactive space gallery," Westby said. Located in the design
area, it will take a look inside SpaceShipOne and more.
Smith said the SpaceShipOne
exhibit gets back to the reason the museum exists. "The Wright
brothers used ingenuity and changed the world when they invented
aviation. One hundred years later, SpaceShipOne demonstrates that you
are still able to change the world through aviation. You don’t have to
be a big corporation to do it. That gets to the message of EAA—anyone
with some ingenuity can do it. There may be a kid at the EAA Air Academy
whose name we don’t know yet who will get to Mars before the
government. And that’s exciting."
Westby said the exhibit really
revitalizes a person’s dreams of going to space. "Space tourism
is becoming a huge market. This shows that it is possible to get to
space. And you don’t have to be a NASA astronaut to do it."
