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  • National Security Act Sections 207-209

    The following text is taken from the National Security Act of 1947 and is the document authorizing the creation of a separate U.S. Air Force. President Harry S Truman signed the National Security Act on July 26, 1947, aboard the Douglas VC-54C Sacred Cow displayed in the museum's Presidential

  • Thiokol TE-M-364-4 Solid Rocket

    The TE-M-364-4 is a 15,000-pound thrust, solid-propellant motor developed for use as an upper stage in a variety of USAF space program applications. It is an enlarged version of the TE-M-364, one of a series of solid propellant motors that powered the workhorse USAF Burner I and Burner IIA upper

  • Inertial Guidance System for Thor IRBM

    This inertial guidance system for the Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile was produced during the 1959-1962 period. It is mounted to a prototype test stand.Donated by AC Spark Plug Division of General Motors Corp.Click here to return to the Missile Gallery.

  • Emergency Rocket Communications System

    As the threat of Soviet nuclear weapons grew in the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force needed a way to ensure that its strategic forces could be controlled after a Soviet attack. The Emergency Rocket Communications System (ERCS) made sure that national and military leaders could send pre-recorded attack

  • Space Foods

    One of the early problems associated with space flight was the development of foods and techniques for feeding astronauts. Space and weight limitations aboard the space vehicle were critical and there often were no facilities for heating or refrigerating. In addition, foods had to be low in bulk to

  • Gemini EVA Maneuvering Unit

    This maneuvering unit mockup was designed during the Gemini program of the early 1960s in an effect to study the best ways to work outside of spacecraft. Similar units became operational in the early 1980s during the Space Shuttle program and were used to retrieve several satellites.Click here to

  • Marquardt Space Sled

    A design for individual space maneuvering in the vicinity of a spacecraft, the space sled lost out to the seat-like maneuvering unit. The mannequin riding the sled is wearing an experimental space suit that was one of a series tested in the mid-1960s. Unlike the space sled, the suit was part of a

  • Space Hardware

    The effort to operate freely in the environment of space encountered a host of challenges never before experienced in such magnitude by earth-bound humanity. Weightlessness or Zero "G" was one of the most difficult to overcome, and a variety of unique devices were designed and tested to make human

  • Advance Biomedical Capsule Training Couch

    At Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., Air Force researchers trained chimpanzees to push levers in response to timed and colored lights in order to approximate human behavior in spaceflight. The training couch on display contains two levers and a selection of lights. Holloman's group of six chimps

  • HAM's Undergarment & Flight Jacket

    HAM's UndergarmentAn astrochimp named HAM (for Holloman Aerospace Medical Center) wore this undergarment on his Jan. 31, 1961 suborbital flight on Mercury-Redstone 2. Biomedical sensors recorded his pulse, respiration, breath-depth and temperature during the 16.5 minute flight, in which HAM was