As part of my birthday celebration, My family attended the Fifth Annual Apollo Saturn reunion at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville.

We stayed at the RV park that was attached to the museum. Behind our RV were two of the fairings that went with the Saturn V that was now part of the Davidson Center in addition to some other rocket parts grown up in the weeds. At the reunion itself, we ate dinnner under the refurbished Saturn V (The S-IVB specifically); the food was suprisingly decent.

After dinner, I got up and toured the museum and rocket park. It looked a bit naked without the Saturn V there. Owen Garriot, Story Musgrave, Jim Maser (Pratt &Whitney rocketdyne president) , Paul Calle (NASA Fine Arts), and Steve Cook( MSFC Ares director ) all spoke at the event. It was followed by a spectacular fire works kicked of the with the Star Trek: the Next Generartion theme.

Some photos from the event

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Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

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Clear skies Maksutov.

Is that a cigar in your hand?

lol,

It's actually a pen I borrowed to get Conrad Dannenburg's autograph. I was going to ask Story for his I didn't get the chance to.

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
-Douglas Adams
Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

In Soviet Russia, UFO report you!- Phil Plait

Clear skies Maksutov.

Also, the ISS made a pass overhead (where else?) during the fireworks show. I don't care who you are, that's cool right there (Larry the Cable Guy voice)

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
-Douglas Adams
Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

In Soviet Russia, UFO report you!- Phil Plait

Clear skies Maksutov.

Aaaargh! What's with the news these days? I could have made that one and had no clue it was being held... Must console myself with an anniversary viewing tomorrow of the Spacecraft Films Apollo 11 discs.

Your pictures are making me miss Space Camp already. How the heck am I supposed to make it a whole year? :-(

__________________
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

WOW!! Conrad Dannenberg is still around?! He was an old guy when I saw
him at the International Space Development Conference in Huntsville way
back in 1993. That's 15 years ago. He gave a slide presentation in the
auditorium at the Space and Rocket Center about the work the German
rocket scientists did after they came to the US. I told him afterward that
his presentation alone was worth my entire trip from Minneapolis.

I'm surprised at the number of large Saturn V models in your photos.
The full-size horizontal one in sections inside the building is obviously the
same one I saw horizontal in sections on the ground outdoors. It looks
nicely-restored. How big is the vertical one outdoors? Where did it come
from? I know there were three Saturn V's left over, two of them were
flyable, the other was the first built and never meant to fly. I don't recall
which is which. The other two are at KSC and JSC. That standing one
looks like it could be a full-size model, which really surprises me. Building
it would have been an enormous effort and expense.

That is a Saturn IB standing in the distance on the far left is near the
front gate to the center, if I recall correctly? It was a surprise to see
the one beside the interstate highway upon entering Alabama.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Hey Gemini, that's a totally cool birthday celebration!

The upright one is indeed a full-scale model, finished just in time for the 30th anniversary commemoration in 1999. The original plan was to add a mockup launch tower which would include restaurants, etc., a plan which didn't survive economic realities. The actual one recently restored and put indoors is mostly engineering articles with (IIRC) a bit of potential flight hardware included.

The Saturn IB at the museum is distinct from the one at the welcome center on I-65 southbound entering Alabama, neither of which should to be confused with the Saturn IB (with nose cone, without Apollo) still standing in the rocket garden on base at MSFC. They seem to have had a lot of those left long around. Related trivia: the von Braun Astronomical Society runs a nice observatory and planetarium on the outskirts of Huntsville, on Monte Sano. The planetarium dome started life as the fiberglass shipping cover for the forward tank bulkhead of one of the big Saturn V stages.

My son and went out of our way to stop there in Huntsville on our annual family driving vacation (my wife had to fly back part way through the trip to return to work).

It was our first-ever visit and we had a great time.

The USSRC has posted a photo gallery of the event. I've even spotted myself in a few (sort of like playing where's waldo).
http://www.spacecamp.com/gallery/thu...s.php?album=69

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
-Douglas Adams
Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

In Soviet Russia, UFO report you!- Phil Plait

Clear skies Maksutov.

Gemini,

I notice in your photos and the USSRC photos large, white circles at intervals
along the walls around the interior of the hall, about ten feet above the floor.
Would you happen to know what they are? Oh-- nevermind. Looks like they
are just light fixtures.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Yup, those are light fixtures.

__________________
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Gemini very nice photos showing to us, in the photo you are from..left or from right!! the reunion photos are very rare to see actually. thanks for showing.

Please always show me photos. I get a great amusement by looking the photos, infact I share my family members to see such sort of photos, of that area.

sunil

I'll jump in since you asked Here's another one - a few years ago, I taught a class called "Aerospace Science for Educators", so I took the whole bunch of future teachers to the Huntsville museum. Here's the official class picture (it's an animated GIF, may take a few seconds...):
http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/aem120/aem120class.gif

OkWhat happened?
I clicked on it...
suddenly people popped up.
Then they multiplied.

The Saturn mockup is made up of parts from SA-500F and D. The CM is a boilerplate that flew on a pad abort test and a Little Joe II flight.

I've visited the Center on several Birthdays including 1999 to see the
new Saturn V mock up and 2004 to see the Liberty Bell 7.

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
-Douglas Adams
Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

In Soviet Russia, UFO report you!- Phil Plait

Clear skies Maksutov.

Several minutes at dial-up speed.

The GIF is way bigger than it should be, in terms of file size, because
ten of the 17 frames are duplicates. You have an unnecessary copy
of the first frame and nine unnecessary copies of the last frame! The
GIF kept on downloading and kept on downloading but there were no
more new images.

Each frame has a number attached to it which is the length of time
to display that frame in hundredths of a second, from 0 to 99,999.
Your frames are all set to 100, or one second each. The first frame
could be set to 200 and the last frame to 1000 to give the same
timing, with only seven frames instead of 17.

-- Jeff, in Minnneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Hey, I just noticed something... How come the flag is waving when there's NO WIND??? Fake!

- J