Space souvenirs The Space Vault Exhibition Alongside these checklists, the exhibition contains other rare artefacts from the Apollo 13 mission, including: material frantically salvaged from the lunar module Aquarius in the last minutes before it was jettisoned to then burn up in the Earths atmosphere; a portion of the parachutes that The Space Vault Exhibition. Original Soviet-era Strizh pressure suit, developed for the Buran Space Plan programme. Taking a break at home in the background, framed signatures of 16 Apollo astronauts. The Space Vault Exhibition S PAC E contingency procedures written into the Apollo 13 Lunar Module Contingency Checklist. These two historic checklists are brought together in the Space Vault Exhibition, which is a curated display of one of the largest private collections of human space flight artefacts in the UK. In total, 100 artefacts are on show in 12 curated stories of human space flight across the Apollo programme, Soviet space era, US Space Shuttle programme, International Space Station and SpaceX. At the heart of the exhibition is the collection of artefacts from the Apollo 13 mission, including the two checklists. Although true that it was the Apollo 13 flight crew who, under great stress, implemented the read-ups by Charlie Duke and the other capcoms of revised procedures, it was essentially Mission Control, through its calculated approach to decision-making and risk management, that saved the day. It is, therefore, perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say the exhibition contains the checklists that saved Apollo 13. The Space Vault Exhibition. Pages 60-61 of the Lunar Module Systems Evaluation Checklist test of docked-DPS burn procedure. Flown in space. From the collection of Apollo 9 CDR Jim McDivitt landed the crew safely in the Pacific Ocean; and handwritten investigator notes made during the crew debriefing just days after splashdown. In addition, and perhaps one of the strangest artefacts in the exhibition, there is an original memo from the US Atomic Energy Commission. This confirms that a plutonium 238 fuel capsule attached to the lunar module (which was supposed to be on the Moon powering experiments) had stayed intact upon re-entry to Earth as designed, and is probably resting in a deep ocean trench 200 miles south of the Fiji islands. More than 13 Beyond Apollo 13, there is much else in the exhibition of potential interest to the flying fraternity. Newly arrived from auction is an X-ray of Neil Armstrongs spacesuit gloves and an original Soviet-era Strizh pressure suit. This suit was developed for pilots of the Buran space shuttle programme to survive both a rapid cabin depressurisation and ejection from the craft at up to 30km and Mach 3. Also on display are the original test pilot competency evaluations of Buzz Aldrin, including one signed off by Neil Armstrong (which perhaps explains why Buzz is the second man to walk on the Moon). Further, the exhibition contains objects that have spent time on the lunar surface, including CDR Dave Scotts Apollo 15 spacesuit electrical umbilical through which he communicated his first words as he stepped onto the Moons dusty surface. Bringing the exhibition up to date, Cosmonaut Padalkas wristwatch worn on the International Space Station for 185 days and debris from early SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket test launches are also displayed. The Space Vault Exhibition had its inaugural run at the European Space Agency (ESA) last year, on the Harwell Technology Campus near Oxford, and is now on tour across the UK. During its time at the ESA, a number of leading UK space-sector firms on the campus took private tours of the exhibition. As a result, a programme of expert talks has been built around it, covering topics ranging from the prevention 34 THE LOG Spring 25 pp31-35 Apollo 13 V2.indd 34 17/03/2025 14:20