Most people drive by this building and ignore it. Maybe they point it out to their passenger and then forget about it. From the highway it is forgettable. I had noticed signs encouraging people to visit but had never imagined that this building was the Space museum. We have been driving past this building for years and on saturday, we stopped. This is the Armstrong Air and Space Museum. It was built to look like a Moon colony and it doesn't disappoint.
This museum is primarily focused on Neil Armstrong, NASA and how Ohio fits into the Space Program. The cost for our family of six was 26 dollars. A screaming deal considering the Adler Planitarium cost over a hundred dollars for the same sized family. Total time in the museum was around 70 minutes and that included the in-flight movie.
The musuem has only one track to follow and for a family with children, I loved it. Instead of having the children bolt in various directions and finding myself searching for my children and not enjoying the museum, I just lagged behind and blissfully read every placard. It was great. The kids knew to stay between Dustin and I. Unlike other space museums, you can see everything in this one before you burn out and stop caring. (Wright Patt. Air Force Museum anyone?)
A lot of museums say they have hands-on exhibits, but the Air museum delivers. It has a great mixture of science and imagination play exihibits. The kids were fully engaged at every point. We never heard a single murmur or complaint. In general, we had to pull the kids away from one place and get them moving to the next. There was fun to be had at every turn.
This museum had alot of quirky things. There was a wall of art work dedicated to Neil Armstong. Drawings, paintings and even a hook rug where Neil was the focus. It was awesome. The kids really enjoyed the exhibit about space personal hygeine. Who doesn't want to know that all the liquid was just expelled into space...
The museum shows a movie right in the middle of your visit, which is really well timed. It starts out with NASA trivia and then goes on to show amazing footage of Neil Armstrong doing all kinds of crazy things. It also shows the broadcast of the first moonlanding. I might have shed a tear or two. The show was not long enough to bore the kids, but just enough sitting to get them ready for the rest of the museum.
As I said, lots of hands-on stuff here.
Outside, there were life sized replicas of fancy space equipment. It was very cool.
Of course we tried astronaut ice cream. The kids loved it. I thought it was gross but I remember loving it when I was younger.
Overall, this museum was well worth the time and money. You should totally go.
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