The Swiss Transport Museum or Verkehrshaus der Schweiz, in Lucerne, is a museum, opened in July 1959 and exhibiting all forms of transport (including locomotives, automobiles, ships, and aircraft) as well as communications. The museum also maintains a large collection of work by Hans Erni, a local painter and sculptor.
There are several other attractions in the museum besides the collection:
- Planetarium
- IMAX
- Swiss Arena, a 1:20,000 scale aerial photograph of Switzerland
It also houses EURECA, a 4.5 tonne satellite among the few space objects put into space and returned safely;EURECA and its return to Earth was a cooperative effort between several Western European countries and the United States in the 1990s.
A Spacelab Pallet was handed over to the Museum for permanent display on 5 March 2010. The Pallet, nicknamed Elvis, was used during the 8-day STS-46 mission, 31 July - 8 August 1992, when ESA astronaut Claude Nicollier was on board Shuttle Atlantis to deploy ESA's European Retrievable Carrier (Eureca) scientific mission and the joint NASA/Italian Space Agency Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1). The Pallet carried TSS-1 in the Shuttle's cargo bay.
Famous quotes containing the words swiss, transport and/or museum:
“You know there’s only two things more beautiful than a good gun—a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere.”
—Borden Chase [Frank Fowler] (1900–1971)
“One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and ... powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)