By Charlie Jane Anders

Jul 17, 2009 10:32 AM

14,334

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The Suits That Carried Our Heroes To The Moon

Check out this row of experimental astronaut suits — they look like something out of Tintin. With the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing coming up, the National Air and Space Museum is displaying precious Apollo mission artifacts. Gallery below.

These suits and the exterior tiny space capsule drive home just how uncomfortable and claustrophobic the whole enterprise must have been — and those close-ups of the spacesuit crotch look worse than a Stormtrooper costume. And yet, the whole thing is so bathed in the lambency of heroism that our greatest space-faring achievement still feels only a day old.