At the National Air and Space Museum, a team including the exhibition curator, a conservator, a designer, and an object mount maker collaborated on bringing one special object to the Museum floor for the first time. After his Apollo 17 moonwalk, Gene Cernan returned his Oxygen Purge System cover to Earth, and NASA sealed it in a package just weeks after the mission’s completion. For decades, it sat untouched and virtually unknown in Museum storage until it was rediscovered in 2013 and became a candidate for the new Outside the Spacecraft: Fifty Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity exhibition.

This What’s New in Aerospace? program will not only tell the story of the inclusion of the object in the exhibition, but also look at how Museum conservator Lisa Young examined and prepared the object for display using microscopic examination of the materials. The exhibition’s curator, Jennifer Levasseur, and a representative from the United Technologies Corporation will also talk about the design and construction of life support systems for work outside the spacecraft.

This program is made possible through the generous support of Boeing.