Models, photos to highlight space program’s past and future

Fifty years ago, mankind took a giant leap when astronauts landed on the Moon, a remarkable feat for a species that achieved powered flight only 66 years prior to that.

To help celebrate this historic event and educate younger generations about it, the Oxford Public Library is hosting a special, traveling exhibit provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It will be on display in the atrium from July 30 through Aug. 9.

Consisting of models and photographs, the exhibit showcases the achievements of the Apollo program, which landed humans on the Moon six times between 1969 and 1972. It includes a summary of each Apollo mission.

Models of what NASA will use for future exploration – the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft – will also be on display.

The traveling exhibit is scheduled to visit 14 libraries in five states. Oxford is the only stop in Michigan.

Awaiting the NASA exhibit’s arrival is making Sandy Gilmore, the library’s head of adult services, feel nostalgic.

“I remember the Moon landing and I remember my dad calling me in and saying, ‘You need to come see this. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event.’ We all sat around the TV and watched it,” Gilmore said. “(The library is) just trying to share a little bit of that experience with people (who) might have missed that.”

Gilmore was 9 years old when U.S. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left their footprints on the Moon in July 1969.

Looking back, she said she’s “glad” she witnessed this momentous event, but “I think I might have been just a little too young to understand the significance.”

“I appreciate it more now, for sure,” she said.

Gilmore noted it was the way her father acted at the time that told her the Moon landing was something important.

“I (saw) how excited my dad was, which made me more excited than I probably would have been if we had maybe just seen it at school,” Gilmore said. “He was (usually) pretty stoic, (but) he was just so fired up that day. He came home from work early . . . If it was a big deal to him, it was something worth noting.”

Securing this exhibit has reminded Gilmore of just how omnipresent NASA once was in society. The federal agency loomed large in the public eye during the 1960s and 1970s.

“Now, they’re kind of running in the background. But back when I was a kid, NASA was the be-all and end-all. It was in the newspaper all the time. There were parades. It was quite a big deal,” she said.