Americans who watched ‘One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind’ on their television sets last July will be able to see close-up the giant spacecraft that carried the first men to set foot on the moon.

The Apollo 11 spacecraft ‘Columbia’ has begun a year-long tour that will take it to the nations’ 50 state capitals and to Washington, D.C., for public display. Before the journey ends in May 1971, the command module will move over 13,565 miles of highway in the continental United States and will travel more than 5,250 additional miles by sea (to Honolulu and Juneau). The round trip to the moon covered 1,096,362 statute miles and took eight days.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration estimates that at least two million people will view the historic spacecraft during the tour.

The Apollo 11 capsule made its memorable journey without a cent of flight insurance. But when this same vehicle was being readied for its ground tour of state capitals, it wouldn’t budge until it was covered by a $10,000,000 insurance policy.

The liability policy, underwritten by Fireman’s Fund American Insurance Companies through M. J. Comas Company, New York City broker, was issued to the Heavy Specialized Carriers Conference, an affiliate of the American Trucking Association selected by NASA to transport the spacecraft.

There is also a $100,000 cargo policy covering the command module and a NASA exhibit.

Designed to achieve maximum efficiency in space at speeds exceeding 24,000 miles per hour, the Apollo 11 capsule will proceed in its mobile display van at a much more leisurely pace. The entire exhibit is being transported in a special Talbot low-boy van trailer drawn by a GMC tractor. The van, 14 feet wide, is wider than the normal legal limit and requires a highway escort.

The convoy, which will always include the tractor-trailer, lead and trail cars, and police vehicles, will move only during daylight hours and not on weekends, holidays or the day before a holiday. Members of the Heavy Specialized Carriers Conference, who are furnishing their best drivers for the tour, are picking up the costs of transporting the exhibit as a public service.

The Apollo 11 display left its ‘pad’ in Glendale, Calif., on April 15 and made its first exhibit stop in Sacramento, April 17. From there it will make its way up and down and across the country, moving to northern capital cities during the warmer months and southern capitals during the winter. Each stop will generally run from four to seven days.

The spacecraft on display is the crew cabin or command module portion of Apollo 11 and the only part returned to Earth. The lunar module ‘Eagle,’ in which Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin made man’s first landing on the moon, is still in lunar orbit. Astronaut Michael Collins, pilot of ‘Columbia,’ orbited the moon while his fellow crew members touched down on the lunar surface.

The cone-shaped spacecraft in the NASA exhibit is packed with electronic ‘black-boxes,’ an inertial guidance system, communications gear and the astronauts’ life support systems, the bulky backpacks they wore on the moon. Manikins in the cabin wear the actual space suits worn by the crew on their historic journey. All components of the spacecraft are original flight hardware.

Visitors will be able to see the effects of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 miles per hour. Apollo 11’s heatshield was originally about two inches thick. The blazing head of re-entry reduced the ceramic protective coating to a one and one-quarter inch thickness.

One of the most fascinating features of the exhibit will be a moon rock sample, carefully guarded against oxidation by an inert gas in its cylindrical container. This part of the display is bolted to the floor of the trailer to prevent theft.

[04-01-03-05-0011 Fireman’s Fund Archives]