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  Thirty years ago this coming July, the world watched white-knuckled as three Americans completed one of the most dramatic and dangerous episodes in the history of human exploration.

  Less than a decade after astronaut Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space aboard Freedom 7 (twenty-three days behind Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin) men were actually walking on the moon. America had won the space race and fulfilled a national ambition that President John F. Kennedy had launched in 1961 by beating the Russians to the moon. Suddenly, science fiction had become fact.

  Apollo I I and the succeeding missions to the moon made the United States the world leader in space exploration and symbolized the resolve of our nation in the Cold War competition between the Soviet system and our own.

  The rollercoaster race to the moon and its first exploration by man on July 20 through 2 1, 1969 is the central story of a special, commemorative space exhibition scheduled to open on February I for a three month showing at the Collier County Museum. The exhibit is sponsored by Nations Bank and the Friends of the Museum.

  Created at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, the exhibition combines seven separate traveling displays with actual space suits, equipment and photographs to chronicle America's leap into space and the history of the Apollo manned flight program.

  Exhibit cases highlight Apollo 11, the first mission to the moon, when astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin explored the lunar surface for a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes. The exhibit includes a sample of moon rocks on special loan from the John F. Kennedy Space Center, representative of the 843 pounds of lunar material returned to Earth during the six manned Apollo missions to the moon.

  Space maps and star charts actually used to navigate Apollo 17 on the last voyage to the moon in December 1972 are also featured in the exhibition as well as the scorched forward hatch from the Apollo 12 command module, the Fisher space pen used by Astronaut Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17, a steering rocket engine from the Apollo 16 spacecraft, the lunar scoop used on the moon by Apollo 14 Astronaut Alan Shepard, and other rare artifacts form the collection of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.

  Accompanying displays describe the difficulties and dangers of living and working in space and trace the development of space food from the earliest manned missions to the Space Shuttle. In 1962, John Glenn squeezed pureed food out of toothpaste tubes as he became the first American to orbit the Earth. Later, in 1985, Shuttle crews were eating off food trays and drinking Coke and Pepsi out of specially designed cans.

  Spin-off displays showcase meteorites that crashed to earth long ago, detailed models of the Apollo lunar excursion module and command service module from the Space Center and International Space Hall of Fame, and a full color collection of NASA photographs that provide an around-the-world-tour of Earth as seen from space.

  The race to the moon inspired an entire generation of Americans who grew up with missiles and astronauts and gained a profound respect for men gutsy enough to let themselves be shot into space. The Apollo I and Challenger accidents and the near tragedy of Apollo 13, were vivid reminders of the frightful risks of rocketing humans into space.

  The space age also revolutionized east central Florida in the 1950's and 1960's, transforming sleepy communities from Melbourne to Titusville with an influx of 75,000 engineers, scientists and technicians. Remote and relatively unsettled, Cape Canaveral launched its first missile on July 24, 1950 and was selected as the base for future rocket experiments chiefly because it allowed for launches over water with the Earth's rotation. The first mission control was an old shed used by swimmers to change into their bathing suits. By the time the Apollo program wound down, 12 Americans would walk on the moon after lifting off from Florida.

  Four decades later and 30 years after the first moon walk, America is still connected to space, spending $14 billion a year on its National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Despite the human and financial risk, our fascination with space exploration has opened a new age of scientific discovery and contributed the technology to create products as mundane as scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses and smoother spinning golf balls, to the Hubble Telescope.

  Relive the dream, the pride and the courage that propelled America's space program to success in the 1960's when To The Moon opens at the Collier County Museum on February I through April 30, 1999.