September 25, 2003

Gemini-era 'white room' moves to museum

By Eric Garwood
FLORIDA TODAY

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A who's who of space history has walked through the white room from Launch Complex 19.

Armstrong, Cernan, Borman, Schirra, Grissom. All of them, and more, were ushered through the 56-foot-tall structure into two-man Gemini capsules in the mid-1960s.

Workers ready white room for move to museum at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Image © 2003, George Bortle, for FLORIDA TODAY.

On Wednesday, the restored 46-ton structure was itself moved -- about 1,800 feet -- from a restoration area to the display area of the Air Force Space and Missile Museum at Cape Canaveral Air Station.

With cranes and crawlers doing the heavy lifting, the trip took about 20 minutes at roughly 5 mph, director Emily Perry said.

"There's still some work to be done, but it's there for people to see," she said, adding other museum presentations remain to be finished on the white room's history and significance to the Space Race of the 1960s.

The red structure -- it's white on the inside -- once stood alongside Gemini rockets, providing an environmentally white area for astronauts to pass through on their way into space. The five-story high hulk also was outfitted with a crane to hoist capsules atop their booster rockets.

After Complex 19 was deactivated in 1967, the white room fell into disrepair with remainder of the pad area. In 1998, the museum operators requested the white room from state historic authorities on the condition it would be restored.

The five-year effort to replace windows, doors, wiring, hazardous components, sandblast, wash, prime and paint is is complete.

Keeping it in pristine condition will require care, Perry said. The museum sits not far from the beach in the same corrosive environment that crumbled the launch complex in the first place.

"This is really too big to put inside," Perry said. "It may be a maintenance issue in the future, but at least we have it."

Getting to the museum isn't as easy as it once was.

Located in a restricted area, the general public can get there only by visiting the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and taking the "Now and Then" tour. Personnel with 45th Space Wing credentials or others with access to the Space Center and air station have it easier and can go there directly.

Group tours can be arranged through Patrick Air Force Base's public affairs office, Perry said.