The real Sojourner gathered information about the rocks it encountered so scientists at NASA could learn more about Mars. There is also a large exhibit featuring the planets and the NASA missions involved with them. Some artifacts that have actually traveled in space are scattered throughout the Visitor Center. One is the Apollo command module that carried a three-man crew to Skylab, our first space station, in 1973. Another is the space suit that James Lovell wore during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.
Visitors can pose in the astronaut cutout for a souvenir picture of themselves as an astronaut.
Models of the of the various capsules that have taken the astronauts into space, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, which is presently being constructed in space, tell the story of the United States space program. Also on display is a model of a solar array panel similar to the one developed at Glenn that is scheduled to be installed on the International Space Station later this year. Outside the Visitor Center is a full-scale replica of the Centaur rocket configured with a Surveyor spacecraft as the payload. Visitors can participate in interactive displays involving the reduced gravity environment experienced in space. They can discover how much higher a person can jump on Mars than on Earth, perform experiments that show how various elements react to weightlessness and conduct a multimedia simulated launch of an Atlas rocket model.