Picture of the Day - 8/31/08

After six weeks on the road, covering two photo assignments, finalizing an engineering article for Test & Measurement World, outlining and completing an article for Backpacker Magazine, creating a front cover design for our engineering society magazine, visiting friends & family and most importantly, HAVING A LOT OF FUN in between, it's time to head on home to Colorado.

After attending church with Mike & Wanda, we headed for Hutchinson, Kansas, home of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center - an amazing collection of early German, U.S. and Soviet space program artifacts. On display are early V1 and V2 rockets designed by Werner Von Braun, who (with his design team) later surrendered to U.S. forces near the end of WW2, to become one  of the major rocket designers for the U.S. space program. The museum steps through rocket design history in Germany through the early satellite experiments by the U.S./Soviet teams, and all the way to the manned space programs and eventual moon landings. They managed to collect a real lunar module, lunar rovers (both U.S. and Soviet), actual V1 and V2 rockets, the Apollo 13 capsule and much more. Pictured is an actual space suit used during one of the moon landings. Highly recommended!