Wapakoneta, Ohio: Armstrong Air and Space Museum

I'm fond of saying that genius can be found just about anywhere, and this Midwestern trip certainly proved that. After all, the odds of Wapakonetea, Ohio, to host a man who will be remembered on Earth forever were pretty small.

But that's exactly what happened to this little town in Western Ohio (an hour north of Dayton). Wapakoneta was the birthplace and childhood home of Neil Armstrong, who you certainly remember as the first man to step on the moon's surface. It's hard to imagine what sort of fuss that caused back home, but the 1969 parade after the landing looked huge in the newspaper clippings.

The Armstrong Air & Space Museum was built as a tribute to this native son. Considering that Wapakoneta probably didn't have a great deal of money at its disposal, it's a nicely done exhibition.

Visitors go through the history of the space program quite logically, starting with a science fiction exhibit and then going through Project Mercury and Gemini. Armstrong flew on Gemini 8, a mission that had to be aborted because of mechanical trouble. Armstrong's cool head under pressure might have led to his selection on Apollo 11. The Gemini 8 spacecraft is on display, and again it seems impossibly small as a home. Then comes a room filled with Apollo artifacts, and another on the lunar mission.What fun it is to see Armstrong's suits from Gemini and Apollo as well as a moon rock.

Then comes the Infinity Room, an area of mirrors designed to display what it is like in space. Then there's a theater for a 25-minute film on Apollo 11, and a gallery of art work about Apollo 11 essentially completes the tour.

This is small-town pride at its best. Armstrong may not have been the best person from a public relations standpoint to be first on the moon - he was something of a recluse after leaving NASA - but he got the job done. That can't be underestimated. 

Here's a television news report on the place:



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