I'd fly around the universe in Fireball XL-5

The next doorway takes the visitor toward a large display depicting the evolution of the space race, then moves on to a historic collection of spacecraft including the Mercury Sigma 7 space capsule, a Gemini two man spacecraft trainer, and the Apollo 14 command module. There is also a tribute to the three astronauts (Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H White, and Roger Chaffee) who died in the Apollo 1 fire back in 1967.

Lighter moments give me the opportunity to sit at Mission Control consoles, which I admit (remember my mental age was 11!) I did sit at and recounted my own space missions in my head. I looked over all the information about the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions that I had dreamed of as a kid. I use to land my little Airfix Lunar Excursion Module on its simulated lunar surface over and over again and I was the astronaut who set foot on the moon (as well as Mars) and discovered the wonders of the universe. ‘Ground Control to Major Jim…’ but I always made it back, and sitting at the console brought back all the old dreams and fantasies. Ah, the innocence of youth.

Being so close to Sigma 7 and to the Gemini trainer and the Apollo 14 command module made me realise something. Something I had never really thought of before. These things are small. Not just small, but really small. Mercury had a crew of one. Gemini a crew of two and Apollo a crew of three, but oh my, these things are really small. I once heard a description of a Gemini flight which was described something like this, ‘try to imagine sitting in the front seats of a Volkswagen Beetle with your best friend, for two weeks’. Now, that gives you an impression of how small these things actually were, not like the “luxury” of the Space Shuttle.I

In case you are not aware the maximum crew a shuttle can take comfortably is seven.

The next part of the Hall of Fame features displays and tributes to a number of astronauts that have served the cause of space exploration. The mission patches of all missions are featured and displayed as well as the world largest collection of astronaut personal mementos. And yes, I got all dew eyed looking at the cloth and Kevlar and steel that made up the patches and flight suits and spacesuits that filled my slightly misted vision.

I looked through and studied histories of the heroes I knew from watching moon-shots, (Apollo 15; David Scott, Al Worden, Jim Irwin, Apollo 16; John Young, Ken Mattingly, Charlie Duke; Apollo 17; Gene Cernan, Ron Evans, Harrison “Jack” Schmitt;) Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz link up of 1975. I remember seeing the floating images of the Americans and Russians wondering who was going to make the first move. Then the smile of Alexei Leonov as he greeted Donald “Deke” Slayton filled the screen. 

It showed that even if two “cold warriors” from different sides of the Iron Curtain (remember this was 1975) respected each other and were prepared to work together “for all mankind.”