Atmosphere

From 1956 to 1993, the GE Re-entry Systems facility was home to thousands of engineers and technicians who solved the problem of vehicles successfully reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. As described by aerospace pioneer Theodore Von Karman, “ Reentry… is perhaps the most difficult problem one can imagine.” Whether it was the first operational reentry vehicle for the Atlas ICBM, the recovery of the first man-made object from orbit, or the first probe to enter Jupiter’s atmosphere, some of the most significant milestones in aerospace were accomplished by those working in this facility.

The Apollo was the vehicle that first transported humans to the moon and safely back to earth. Nine lunar flights were made between 1968 and 1972. The command module, built by North American Aviation (at the time of launch, North American Rockwell Corporation), accommodated three astronauts during the mission. It was the only portion of the Apollo spacecraft system designed to withstand the intense heat of atmospheric re-entry at 25,000 mph and complete the mission intact. This command module at Rockwell flew as Apollo 14 in 1971.