WASHINGTON (AP) – They are bits of space graffiti hidden from the public for decades: a crude calendar, scrawled lunar coordinates and markings warning of a locker containing “smelly waste.”
Apollo 11 astronauts left those scribbles inside the spacecraft that took them on their historic mission to the moon in 1969, but now the public will get to see them for the first time.
National Air and Space Museum officials presented a preview Thursday of a virtual 3-D model that will allow the public a look inside the car-sized Apollo 11 command module. No longer will the public have to try to peer inside through one of the capsule’s small windows or hatch.
The new model will allow anyone to examine the craft’s controls and see writing left by its three astronauts: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. (Aldrin says he’s pretty sure the calendar was Collins’ handiwork.)
Some of the markings left by the astronauts have to do with maneuvers they had to make to reach the moon, information it was easier to have written near the craft’s instruments. Others writings are less technical: “launch day urine bags” reads an inscription on one locker. On another: “smelly waste.”