posted 11-19-2004 12:25 AM               

Early spaceflight gallery to open at Cosmosphere

When the Mollett Early Spaceflight Gallery opens to the public in the spring of 2005, visitors to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center will have a rare chance to view spacecraft and spacesuits that began the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Cosmosphere, located in Hutchinson, Kansas, today announced that $750,000 in private donations had allowed construction to begin on the new gallery. Two-thirds of the needed funds were gifted by local residents Clarence and Mary Jane Mollett, for whom the new gallery is named.

posted 06-18-2005 02:15 PM               

Early spaceflight gallery opens at Cosmosphere

Bathed in blue light, a statue of U.S. President John F. Kennedy sits in a rocking chair. Opposite him, red-lit, standing and fist-raised high is a full body bust of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Visitors to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center's Mollett Early Spaceflight Gallery, which opened Saturday (June 18) to the public, pass beneath these two figures as they enter, setting a stage for the Cold War-driven space race they will witness inside.