Hasta La Ideas

While everyone has spent this week all a-gah-gah over the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, finding everything from Jason Kottke‘s live rebroadcasting experiment to Slate’s very funny “If Man Walked on the Moon Today,” there’s some bittersweetness in Wapakoneta, Ohio, the hometown of one of the astronauts involved. The Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum (located there in rural Ohio because it’s Armstrong’s hometown) is seeing record numbers of visitors thanks to the anniversary, all the while worrying that they might be forced to close any day thanks to statewide cuts to the Ohio Historical Society‘s budget, which has provided the funding for the Armstrong museum. Fortunately, before the threat becomes a reality, the museum has been looking for alternatives to keep their doors open in case the worst happens, encouraged recently by this latest boom in visitors, at least for now.