New England Air Museum's Space Expo

 The New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Conn. will hold its annual SPACE EXPO on Sunday, April 1, 2012.  This is an opportunity to discover New England’s Aerospace Industry and today’s partnerships on space exploration.

More than 20 exhibitors from across New England will participate in the event including Hamilton Sundstrand Division of United Technologies, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Aldrich Astronomical Society, McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, the CATO Rocketry Club, NASA, One Giant Leap, Arunah Hill Natural Science Center and the Talcott Mountain Science Center. 

Most of the activities will be hands-on. Visitors can meet an astronaut, try on a real space suit, pilot a space craft simulator, touch a meteorite, learn about the atmosphere of Mars, build a rocket, taste space ice cream and much more.

Former NASA Astronaut Rick Searfoss will make two presentations- one at 11:30 a.m. and the other at 2:30 p.m. He is a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions and is currently a commercial test astronaut for the XCOR Aerospace Company.

Visitors will also get to meet some of the engineers who helped to save the Apollo 13 mission.  Rebecca Cross, author of I AM A SPACE SHUTTLE, will be providing free signed copies of her children’s picture book.