NASA restores historic Mission Control in time for Apollo 11 50th anniversary
NewsJune 28, 2019
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER -- HOUSTON. NASA's Mission Control room at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center has been restored to the way it looked 50 years ago when U.S. astronauts landed on the moon.
Johnson Space Center historic preservation officer Sandra Tetley says that everything will be just like it was in 1969: “It will look like you have stepped back into time -- like the flight controllers just stepped away from their consoles to get a cup of coffee, or take a smoke break.” The room used to be hazy from the cigarettes or cigars avidly smoked in mission control; except for the smoke, NASA says, the room will be a perfect rendition of what it was during that pivotal mission.
Bringing the Apollo control center back 50 years required collaboration with the National Parks Service, which performed an analysis of the historic furnishings and what needed to happen for a restoration. Tetley and her team interviewed flight controllers and directors now in their 70s and 80s, pored over pictures from the time period, and brought in specialists in paint, wallpaper, carpeting, electricity, and upholstery.
The Control Room museum will open on July 1, 2019, about three weeks shy of the 50th anniversary of the historic moon walk. For more information visit the NASA website.
