posted 12-02-2007 04:00 PM               

Well, that's the plan. Some of you have known about this plan for a while now. It's slow going with a lot of paperwork, red tape etc. But well worth all the effort.

We have a website up now and I welcome any input that will help me make this a better project. I certainly can't do this all on my own. We will need board members, volunteers, donations of all kinds and expert advice from folks like everyone here on collectSPACE.

We will be working on the 501c3 paperwork real hard over the next few months and hope to have our rating by the middle of next year.

posted 07-27-2008 11:42 AM               

We are looking at a 31,000 sq. ft. building here in Southern Colorado. A perfect building in a perfect spot.

Thanks for the help, advice and support I've received from some of you. Anyone interested in helping out can visit our website. We now have a PayPal link as well as a separate link to another site that will help raise a few dollars. This is going to be a multi-million dollar effort so every cent is appreciated (and tax deductible too)!

posted 09-28-2008 11:03 PM               

The tire was flown on STS-106 in Sept. 2000 on Space Shuttle Atlantis. STS-106 was a mission to the ISS that delivered supplies and did maintenance just before the station was to be occupied.

We have the tire on loan for three years with the option to renew the loan for another three years. We are now working on a complete display of mission info (crew, mission stats, etc.) to go along with the tire. Any suggestions are certainly welcome.

posted 07-13-2011 10:18 PM               

All the effort we've been putting into this museum thing has finally paid off. After years of searching, brainstorming, meeting with countless folks and negotiating, we have teamed up with the Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum here in Southern Colorado.

They have offered us space in their brand new 20000 sq. ft. building to start our museum effort. They just happen to have one of the helicopters that was involved in the recovery of Alan Shepard and his Freedom 7 capsule so our space is in the same area as this helicopter.

Since we are right in the middle of building the full scale mock up of a Mercury capsule, it was a no brainer to focus on making ours as close to the Freedom 7 configuration as possible. We still have quite a way to go on the capsule build but I'll get back to that on the other thread.

Right now we are frantically building display cases for some of the artifacts that are on display or soon to be. I'll take some photo's this weekend. We have the Space Shuttle tire on display along with a thermal tile, a pre-Challenger life vest and a display case full of Alan Shepard/Freedom 7 memorabilia to go along with the chopper.

Soon to be put on display are a couple of articles from the F-1 engine and a nice piece of foam from the Shuttle's external tank and a section of wing leading edge of the type that was used in the investigation after the Columbia disaster.

This week we will also be filling a display case with nothing but Apollo 11 stuff to help commemorate July 20.

I have to thank everyone from cS who has donated items to our cause over the past couple of years. Thank for your confidence that we could pull this off. Many of you wished to remain anonymous and we certainly respect that. Others wished to wait until we actually had a building to house the collection, we sure respect that as well.

So now we have it and those of you wishing to donate anything... now's the time. All donations are tax deductible too. Whether you wish to remain anonymous or don't mind getting credit for a donation, we're accepting anything that comes our way.

We also have a had a number of astronauts that have been kind enough to offer items from their personal collections.

posted 07-17-2011 09:42 AM               

Space Shuttle main landing gear tire flown on Atlantis to the ISS.

Space shuttle tile display

Pre-Challenger era life vest

This is a collection of Freedom 7 stuff that sits in front of the Navy's Seabat helicopter that assisted in the recovery of Freedom 7.

posted 09-25-2015 11:41 AM               

Right now it is in pieces and needs to be reassembled. We're hoping to get a couple of technicians from Lockheed to come down and assist us in that process. It's an incredibly complicated instrument and might take a while to put together.

And just wait until you see what ULA is donating, it's AWESOME!

posted 06-03-2016 02:32 PM               

Delta 2's have been a workhorse vehicle for decades because they can have additional solid-fuel boosters attached to push heavy payloads into space. Some of those boosters were even manufactured in Pueblo when the Boeing Co. had a plant at the airport industrial park.

One of those motors came home Thursday when it was unloaded for display outside the Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum. It was donated by United Launch Alliance, the rocket partnership that formed in 2005 between Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp.

The 4,400-pound motor was given to the Southern Colorado Space Museum and Learning Center, which is a long name for the personal space collection of Steve Janssen, its enthusiastic founder.

Janssen, from Westcliffe, has his space collection — which includes items like a tire from a NASA space shuttle — housed at the Pueblo aircraft museum.

posted 03-26-2020 10:27 AM               

The fairings are the very top section of the rocket that protected satellites or other payloads during launch. This artifact will be placed on display in the main parking lot next to the GEM rocket booster that was also donated by ULA.

The mold is 40 feet long and 14 feet wide. We're grateful to ULA for allowing us to display and preserve these historical artifacts. The museum is closed now during the quarantine but we hope you'll stop by and visit once things get back to normal.

posted 04-25-2021 02:23 PM               

The space museum has a lot to be grateful for lately. We finally received the only Delta II main rocket engine left along with the engine section and the 1st stage liquid oxygen (LOX) tank. the tank would hold roughly 10,000 gals or 10 tons of liquid oxygen and the engine would consume it all in about 265 seconds!

We can't thank ULA, United Launch Alliance enough for donating such awesome, historic and cool artifacts.