Tuesday, 25 June 2019
Seattle, Washington, USA
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Two means of transport to the Museum of Flight, a few miles away.
Taxi or bus.
$40 or $2.75.
Bus it is.
Oh. Dear. God.
What.
A.
Mistake.
It’s as though there’s been explosions at the psycho unit, the homicidal maniac prison, the local drug den and Lidl. They’re all on this bus.
Can assure you, dear reader, this passenger stood out like a sore thumb. Never, ever, have I been on a bus with such deranged people.
Not even travelling into Mansfield.
They are all weird. No other word for it.
After ten minutes, a bizarre thing happens. They all get off the bus at a particular bus stop. Intrigued, do a search on Google Maps as to why they all might be alighting.
Ah. I see.
There’s a treatment centre across the road. That explains it.
Bonkers woman boards the bus and plonks her hefty frame next to me. She’s stroking the canvas bag around her shoulder. Then the bag goes ‘miaow’. She explains to another zombie across the aisle, because I’m clearly too normal to talk to, that she has a seven week old kitten in her bag, which is fully zipped up. She says she’s training the kitten to like being in the bag. Was that a raised eyebrow, dear reader? Was it?!
Told you. Bonkers. There are lots of bonkers and weird people in Seattle.
Finally, alight unscathed. Not been stabbed. Or shot. Or injected.
Museum of Flight has quite a collection of aircraft. But. The main point of interest is the Apollo 11 exhibition.
It being 50 years since man landed on the moon for the first time.
It’s a captivating exhibition and details the history of the Mercury, Gemini and then the Apollo missions.
All started with JFK’s famous speech, “We choose to go to the moon…’
The highlight though is Columbia. The Apollo 11 Command Module that remained in lunar orbit with Michael Collins on board, whilst Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in the Lunar Module, Eagle.
Once completing their time on the moon, the lunar ascent module detached from the lunar lander and docked with Columbia. From which, the three astronauts returned to earth in a splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
Staggering to think that the object before me has been to lunar orbit and back and was the home for three men for a number of days.
Simply stunning to see it.
Very impressive piece of engineering when you think about it.
Much, much larger than the Soyuz capsule which is used now to return astronauts to earth. And if you haven’t seen Tim Peake’s Soyuz capsule that he came back down to earth in, go and see it. You will be surprised how tiny it is.
Museum of Flight is based on land where Boeing first started building aircraft, in the Red Barn, also available to visit. It’s only when you walk through the old wooden workshop that you realise that it was only 70 years between man first flying and putting a man on the moon.
Quite impressive rate of development when you think about it.
