Kansas Cosmosphere

The Kansas Cosmosphere is located in Hutchinson, KS, and is one of only three museums to have a manned Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft on display. While a relatively small physical building, they have a large number of artifacts on display. The museum display galleries are very dark; I was told that the Cosmosphere adheres to the Smithsonian's guidelines as to the amount of light to which to subject artifacts, a standard to which the Smithsonian itself rarely complies.

The Cosmosphere has the second largest collection of space artifacts, second only to the Smithsonian; their web site says that they display only 7% of the artifacts in their collection. They helped set up the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.

The Cosmosphere's SpaceWorks division has restored and/or preserved numerous spacecraft and other artifacts and also fabricates museum-quality replicas of spacecraft, space suits, and the like. Their work was featured in movies and series such as Apollo 13, From the Earth to the Moon, and Magnificent Desolation. SpaceWorks is currently conserving the recovered F-1 rocket engines.

I've visited the Cosmosphere twice, once in 2008 and again in winter (the very cold part) of 2013. During the latter visit they really rolled out the red carpet for me, showing me around, introducing me to the staff, granting me special access, and generally doing anything they could do to make my visit a success!

Google Maps link.

As of now, I have not yet sorted through all of my pictures from the Cosmosphere, but some other page references this location. Thus, this is a "place holder" version right now, with only the pictures actually referenced. Come back some time later to see if I've finished up, or drop me an email to request me to prioritize the rest of these pictures.