This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be asked to share with our guests a bit of the private artifact collection of Mr. Ben Gaylo, chief technical engineer at Grumman Aerospace and the lunar module project. It was his job to help design the lunar modules, and then to troubleshoot anything that went wrong with any of them. While Mr. Gaylo has passed away, his family was generous enough to contact DMNS and share with us some of the artifacts he had collected during his career with the LEM.
It was incredible to see the faces of visitors as they got to see some of the equipment that allowed us to land on the moon. Docking position and range indicators, descent rate tapes, titanium-beryllium bolts, an abort button and some of the switches and circuit breakers were all part of the collection. People are still enthralled with the lunar landings. Many of our older visitors shared their stories with me about their memories of the landing. Our younger guests were in awe at how primitive looking the equipment is, and that we really used those items to get to the moon. All-in-all, a wonderful way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of such an historic event.