15 years „Apollo and Beyond“
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On 11 November, we celebrated the 15th anniversary of our "Apollo and Beyond" area - Europe's largest exhibition on manned space travel with the Soviet space shuttle Buran prototype OK-GLI. We received active support for the supporting programme from two well-known personalities: ESA astronauts Ulf Merbold and Matthias Maurer. We have already welcomed both space travellers to Speyer on several occasions.

On this day, the gentlemen celebrated their own personal anniversaries. Ulf Merbold, astronaut of the first generation, flew the "Spacelab" exhibited in the museum on its maiden flight 40 years ago, while Matthias Maurer, astronaut of the third generation, launched his ISS mission exactly two years to the day before the event in Speyer. On this Saturday, both gave exciting talks about their varied space missions.

Beforehand, Matthias Maurer opened the exhibition area dedicated to him in the space hall. The ESA astronaut gave us 22 exhibits from his mission in space. From now on, two photomontages with the SpaceX Crew-3 patch and ISS-66 patch flown on them, a thermal mini headband (a headband used as part of an experiment in space), special SpaceX full-body underwear worn during launch and landing, three different tinned meals with recipes from Saarland and Maurer's Christmas sock labelled "Matthias" are on display in the museum. All of the exhibits mentioned have "flown", i.e. they have been in space.