RICHMOND, Va. -- "One small step for man" has led to one giant leap for the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.
The "Apollo: When We Went to the Moon" exhibition is now on display, spanning four galleries. The exhibit is said to be the largest one the museum has shown in history.
"It's awesome, it's truly inspiring just to see the fun and the energy that this exhibition brings to the museum," said Taylor Fuqua, Manager of PR and Marketing for the museum.
"It's interactive, it's very hands on," she said.
It's a space odyssey you can experience on Earth. The exhibit includes dozens of space-centered artifacts, including a slice of a lunar meteorite you can touch, Apollo mission suits including gloves, bubble helmets, visors, and moon boots, and the nose cone of the Jupiter missile.
The exhibition details the timeline of the U.S.'s involvement in the Space Race, and the social and political environment at the time.
Virginia is no stranger to space exploration.
NASA's Langley Research Center and Wallops Island Flight Center both call the coast of the Commonwealth home.
"The training these astronauts did, it was done at Langley," Fuqua said. "The equipment that they used, the rockets that they built, a lot of that started at Langley."
A special part of the exhibit, called "Virginia to the Moon" is dedicated to Virginia's past and continued role in space exploration, noting the several astronauts that were born in Virginia.
It also details the women behind some of the most prominent space findings, including Katherine G. Johnson, a mathematician from Virginia. Former President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, the nation's highest civilian honor.
"When we hear about space, I feel like oftentimes what gets left out is the women who contributed to getting us to the moon," Fuqua said. "I love that 'Virginia to the Moon' shows you who these women were and what they did."
On April 15, NASA Astronaut Leland Melvin, a Virginia native and University of Richmond graduate, will discuss his experience in space, detailed in his book, "Chasing Space."
The exhibit will be on display through the end of the year.
Tickets to the event April 15 can be found here.
Do you know about a good news story happening in your community? Click hereto email WTVR.com and the CBS 6 News team.
