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Newsday has provided a $350,000 grant through the Times Mirror Foundation in support of the Cradle of Aviation Museum's "Mission to the Moon" Exploring Space Gallery.

The special interpretative experience will enable visitors to relive one of the most epic moments in history of the Apollo lunar landing of 1969. Groups of 100 visitors will enter "Mission" through an airlock into a re-created "clean room" setting with a Lunar Module under construction, as if they were at the former Grumman factory on Long Island. In the pristine, white setting of the "clean room," visitors will hear the technicians in white uniforms as they work on scaffolding around the Lunar Module to make preparations for the landing attempt.

The area will then black out, and visitors will be submerged in a fast paced five minute, multi-screen/sound presentation of the events leading up to the LM flights and the worldwide interest, tension, and suspense of July 20, 1969.

The countdown, rocket blast off, and LM descent to the lunar surface will climax with the image disappearing and the audience transported to the lunar landscape. An original LMóits gold and silver surface sparklingówill appear as Neil Armstrong takes his "one small step" to the lunar surface in the black environment of space with the earth visible in the distance.

Newsday is proud to support, through a $350,000 Times Mirror Foundation grant, the 'Mission to the Moon Exploring Space' Gallery at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. It is fitting that Long Island's newspaper contribute to an exhibit that tells the story of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing, a mission in which a Long Island company played such a vital role."

Raymond A. Jansen
Publisher, President & CEO
Newsday