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)
“[A] Dada exhibition. Another one! What’s the matter with everyone wanting to make a museum piece out of Dada? Dada was a bomb ... can you imagine anyone, around half a century after a bomb explodes, wanting to collect the pieces, sticking it together and displaying it?”
—Max Ernst (1891–1976)