Stafford Air and Space Museum

Aerospace museum honouring Apollo astronaut Thomas P. Stafford

Address 3000 Logan Rd, Weatherford

The Stafford Air and Space Museum is the unexpected star of Route 66 in western Oklahoma. It centres on the career of local boy Thomas P. Stafford, who flew four space missions including Apollo 10 — the rehearsal flight that descended within nine miles of the Moon's surface — and the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz handshake mission that ended the space race.

The collection has grown well beyond Stafford's own career. Aircraft on display range from a Wright Flyer reproduction to military jets and a Lockheed SR-71 cockpit trainer. Space hardware includes engines, capsules, suits, and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. Exhibits cover the full arc of 20th-century flight, and the museum is consistently among the best-rated aerospace museums of its size in the country. Allow two to three hours.

things to do museum
A story
Thomas P. Stafford grew up in Weatherford, flew on Gemini 6A, Gemini 9A, Apollo 10, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, and donated the core of his personal collection to his home town's museum. The result is a remarkably substantial aerospace collection for a town of 12,000, including an actual Titan II rocket engine, a flown Apollo command module hatch, and one of the few full-size Soviet Soyuz spacecraft on display in the United States.