A Smithsonian Institution curator whom I greatly admire once said that collecting objects for a museum is a bit like standing next to a river with a bucket. The curator’s task is to gather examples that explain what is important about something (in this analogy, a river), but the curator can only take what fits in the bucket. How do you capture the essence of something large and complex with a sample that is small enough to be preserved and displayed? This was the task I faced when I received an e-mail from Carol Albert, the co-owner of the Astroland amusement park, a space-themed park founded in Coney Island in 1962 at the height of U.S. excitement about the first American human spaceflights. Because the park was closing, Albert wanted to preserve Astroland’s history. Her initial offer, however, to donate the park’s original 74-foot-long rocket ride proved to be entirely too large. So, in January 2009, I made a trip to Coney Island with Carol, scouting for a (more-bucket-sized) example.