The Cosmosphere: the end (or lucky part 13)

In case you missed any of the previous posts, feel free to follow the links to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, and part 12.  Each link opens in a new window.

It was late in the day, we were tired (my friend Scott and I), and the rest of the people who came with us had already left what seemed like hours ago.  I had one final thing I wanted to see before we left.

It was the Apollo-Soyuz test project link up.  Thankfully, as you can see, we were right next to the museum exit, so all I wanted was a few photos and we could leave.

In the drawing above, the Soyuz is on the left and the Apollo is on the right.

Even though there is no glass to encumber the view of the Apollo-Soyuz test project, also called ASTP, this display is exceptionally difficult to photograph.  As you can see, the entire unit is in a relatively narrow hallway which is dimly lit.  The ASTP, however, is lit by very bright and hot spot lights.  Even though I backed up as far as I could, I was unable to get the entire display in the photo.

Add to that, an incredibly distracting support beam was placed directly in the middle of the docking module.

In July, 1975, the two super powers of space exploration came together for a brief encounter and a symbol of détente.

Before the joint link up, Apollo allowed Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona, or eclipse surrounding their ship, which provided useful information for future joint U.S. and Russian space flights, such as the International Space Station.

This support beam caused me to be unable to get a good photo of the docking station, the area the American astronauts walked crawled through to reach the Russian craft.

You can see how incredibly narrow and dark this area is.  I lightened it as best I could in PhotoShop.

But now it was definitely time to leave.

As Scott and I walked to the parking lot, I stopped long enough to take a photo of this old car.

Here are a couple of photos I took on the way home. 

The rest were most unimpressive.

Thank you for tagging along with me through these past 13 Cosmosphere posts.  I appreciate you joining me while I recalled the events and shared the photos I took that day way back in April.  And to think, it only took me six months to get all these photos onto my blog!