This will be the first spacecraft of its kind since the Apollo command module.

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Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins served as a top official at the Smithsonian Institution and its National Air and Space Museum.

CNN: After walking on moon, astronauts trod various paths

Standing in our front yard watching a half moon over the Western horizon, I remember wondering whether the crippled Apollo 13 Command Module would ever see splashdown.

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Using those procedures, Swigert and Lovell powered up the command module, and Apollo 13 splashed down safely in the Pacific on April 17, 1970.

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As you can see this is not a place of fantastic design but given that you have access to pictures like the one taken from Apollo 13 just before the side of the command module blew away after an explosion - who needs fantastic design?

BBC: Apollo Lunar Surface Journal

From the seemingly insurmountable problems of getting each stage of the Saturn V to work, to the challenges of making the Command Module safe following the fire that killed the first Apollo astronauts, even the engineers would have told you at times that they didn't think it could be done.

BBC: The magic of Apollo

The weight of the lunar module, on top of the command and service module, was the main reason why the Saturn V rockets that shot Apollo astronauts into space needed to be the tallest, heaviest and most powerful ever flown, a record they still hold.

ECONOMIST: Space lifts

Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Scott took a specially made Bulova stopwatch with him to the moon while inside the Command Module Endeavor and the Lunar Module Falcon.

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