Apollo 11 50th anniversary: Events near Tulsa

In addition to watching commemorations on television and online, Tulsans have several options nearby and within a day's drive for remembering the 50th anniversary of mankind's first steps on the moon.

The 2019 Oklahoma Aviation and Space Trail links the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City, and the Stafford Air and Space Museum in Weatherford, west of OKC on I-40, all of which are exhibiting Apollo-related artifacts. Getting a "passport" stamp at all three museums prior to World Aviation Day on August 19, 2019, enters you in a drawing for a free one-year membership.

Tulsa Air and Space Museum has a temporary exhibit on local contributions to the Apollo 11 mission. The display includes an Apollo command module, two Master Command Control consoles, a large-scale model of the Saturn V rocket, and the story of record-setting Skylab astronaut William Pogue, from Okemah and Sand Springs, Oklahoma, who worked in a support role to help Buzz Aldrin prepare for Apollo 11 and played a key role in the command center during pre-launch.

The Oklahoma History Center will host a special showing of the Smithsonian Channel documentary The Day We Walked on the Moon at 1:00 pm on July 20.

The Stafford Air and Space Museum, named in honor of General Thomas P. Stafford, a four-time astronaut and native of Weatherford, has a permanent exhibit of space artifacts, including many related to Stafford's astronaut career, such as the Gemini 6A capsule and his Apollo 10 space suit. Stafford served on two Gemini missions, was commander of the Apollo 10 moon landing dress rehearsal, which flew to within 9 miles of the lunar surface, and commanded the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, which involved rendezvous and docking of American and Soviet vehicles in earth orbit.

Four hours' drive from Tulsa, the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas has a week of special Apollo 11 events leading up to a July 20, 2019, screening of CBS News moon landing coverage on the Cosmosphere lawn, followed by an opportunity to view the moon and planets through a 16" telescope. Our family has made several visits to the Cosmosphere, which tells the story of the space race between the USA and the USSR through a well-organized timeline of artifacts, including the Mercury Liberty Bell 7 capsule. The Cosmosphere has the largest collection of Soviet space artifacts outside of the old Soviet Union.

As you might expect, Space Center Houston at NASA's Johnson Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston, which served as Mission Control for Apollo 11, has a nine-day extravaganza of events planned running from the anniversary of launch on July 16 to the anniversary of splashdown on July 24. Highlights include mission briefings related to the day-to-day timeline of Apollo 11; Apollo 11-themed pop-up science labs; panel discussions with Apollo flight controllers on July 16 and with the children of Apollo astronauts on July 18; a July 19 briefing, for museum members only, on the next generation of lunar vehicles, from the chief engineer of Lockheed Martin Commercial Civil Space Division; and a July 23 panel discussion with current NASA flight controllers. The July 19th presentation with mission flight director Gene Kranz is sold out. The event that looks the most interesting to me is a special presentation on July 21: Apollo Engineering Design, Development, and Certification Challenges, featuring engineers who were involved with the design of Apollo spacecraft systems.