Mike Bezemek is the author and photographer of three books that combine stories with trip guides, including Paddling the John Wesley Powell Route: Exploring the Green and Colorado Rivers and Discovering the Outlaw Trail: Routes, Hideouts, and Stories from the Wild West. His newest book, Space Age Adventures: Over 100 Terrestrial Sites and Out of This World Stories, was published last month.

July 20th is National Moon Day! We’re celebrating the day man first walked on the moon by featuring an excerpt from Mike Bezemek’s Space Age Adventures. The combination of terrestrial sites and true stories makes this book the perfect guide for having unique adventures and discovering one of the most dramatic eras in human exploration.

Featured in this excerpt is a guide to the Armstrong Air & Space Museum; plan your visit today!

Armstrong Air & Space Museum, Wapakoneta OH

Debriefing

Located in rural western Ohio, this museum tells the story of hometown hero Neil Armstrong and contributions to space travel by other Ohioans. Opened in 1972, the building is designed to resemble a futuristic Moon base. Exhibits have evolved over the years to include later programs like the space shuttle and uncrewed planetary probes.

The Stars

Outside the museum, there are full-size mock-ups of Apollo and Gemini capsules, the latter of which visitors can sit inside. There’s also a restored F5D Lancer, which Neil Armstrong flew during test flights for the U.S. Air Force’s brief X-20 Dyna-Soar space plane program.

Inside the museum, artifacts include the Gemini 8 capsule that Armstrong piloted during a harrowing 1966 malfunction in orbit that aborted the mission. Also on display are Neil Armstrong’s Gemini and Apollo spacesuits, plus an Apollo 11 Moon rock. Another displayed aircraft flown by Armstrong is the Aeronca Champion he learned to fly as a teenager.

Other exhibits include an H-1 engine like those used on the Saturn I and Saturn IB rockets, several space shuttle displays and artifacts, and a one-quarter-scale model of the Mars rover Curiosity. The model was built by engineering students at Ohio Northern University.

Included with admission, the museum’s central dome houses the Astro Theater, which shows a twenty-five-minute documentary about the Apollo 11 lunar landing. There are also two simulators, one for lunar landings and the other for space shuttle landings.

Countdown

Wednesday–Sunday 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.; closed Monday
and Tuesday

Mission budget: $

Flight team

419-738-8811 | https://armstrongmuseum.org

Coordinates

40.564, -84.1724 | 500 Apollo Drive, Wapakoneta OH 45895

Flight plan

The museum is a mile southeast of Wapakoneta, just off I-75 at exit 111.

Rations

Restaurants can be found throughout the town.

Orbital neighbors

Three hours west, on the campus of Purdue University, there’s a bronze statue of alumnus Neil Armstrong, depicted as a college student, and a trail of Moon boot prints in front of the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering.

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For more space reads to celebrate National Moon Day, check out the latest titles in the Outward Odyssey: A People’s History of Space Flight series!