S M I T H S O N I A N   I N S T I T U T I O N
N A T I O N A L   A I R   &   S P A C E   M U S E U M

Washington D.C.

The Apollo to the Moon Gallery is dedicated to telling the story of how the Apollo 11 Project resulted in America winning the race to the Moon.

I enter the exhibit and walk around a bit. It proves to be an interesting exhibit, however, I don't take many shots, sorry. I think I've been touring the Museum too long, everything is starting to look the same to me and I can't seem to stuff anymore information into my little head. Are you the same way? Do you go into overload mode like me?

This, however, does catch my attention. It's a massive rocket engine.

If you wanna explore the Moon, you have to have a sweet ride to get you there. An interesting place to visit, the Lunar Exploration Vehicles Gallery has on display a number of spacecraft designed to poke and prod the mysteries out of our lunar neighbor.

The gallery contains a number of fascinating vehicles, including:

• Ranger
• Surveyor
• Lunar Orbiter
• Lunar Module
• Clementine

The predominant exploration vehicle on display is the Lunar Lander. This is an actual lunar module, one of twelve that were built for the Apollo Project. It contains two primary stages. The lower stage contains a rocket system that helps the vehicle land on the Moon's surface. The upper stage is where the astronauts ride to the Moon's surface while attached to the lower stage, then breaking away from the lower stage, rising up, up, and away to the above orbiting Command Module.