Collecting a Spacesuit in the 21st Century

Abstract

In 1972, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum arranged to take possession of the remnants of the spacesuits that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins had worn during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that landed the first humans on the moon. NASA had put aside these spacesuits and the components that the astronauts had returned to Earth for the express purpose of display to re-create the iconic images of the mission. For many years, the Air and Space Museum had complied with these intentions, but over the years, the deterioration of the suits and their materials led to a reconsideration of the rationale for collecting and displaying the suits. The new approach led to a revised collecting strategy that placed greater emphasis on the suits’ point of creation and the negotiations that had occurred among those who built, designed, and wore the suits. The twenty-first century has marked another shift in collecting spacesuits. NASA has initiated this shift through modifications in the construction, design, us, and disposal of spacesuits. New, modular spacesuits intended for reuse throughout the calculated life of their materials, do not lend themselves to iconic display; neither do they completely reveal the history of their points of creation and innovation because many components are missing, and few of the components were built at the same point in planning as the others. NASA's shift has caused the Air and Space Museum to reconsider a generation's expectations of collecting and exhibiting. Now the museum must focus on which particular stories we can and cannot tell with only a small part of the whole.