HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Cosmosphere will have a long list of activities for visitors during spring break.
Visitors are invited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission. The museum will offer extended hours until 7 p.m. from March 14 through 22. Take a selfie with Odyssey and find all Apollo 13 artifacts in the Cosmosphere museum.
There will be guided tours through the museum, with special attention given to the Apollo 13 mission at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on the following Saturdays in March: 14, 21 and 28. Additionally, guided tours will be available from Tuesday, March 17, through Friday, March 20, at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Interested participants are asked to meet at the museum entrance stairs. Admission to the Hall of Space is required to participate in guided tours.
Spring break will also mean the opening of two brand new areas in the Cosmosphere museum.
The CosmoKids interactive area is designed specifically for the Cosmosphere’s youngest visitors (ages two to six) and will introduce children to STEM principles with hands-on learning activities. Children will be able to design and launch a rocket, climb in an “Orion” style space capsule and build a habitat for another world using stacking building blocks. The redesigned Cosmosphere museum entrance area will feature a brand new X-Plane gallery, where visitors will learn about the program’s important testing and breaking of boundaries that lead to a better understanding of the impact of high altitude and high-speed flight on humans and hardware.
The space will also allow the Cosmosphere to display additional artifacts — including a new full-view of the cockpit of the replica Bell X-1 ‘Glamorous Glennis,’ a display of Kansas Astronaut Joe Engle’s X-15 flight suit, as well as the XLR99 rocket engine from the X-15 program and introduce visitors to the Space Race story told throughout the Cosmosphere museum.