One of the exhibits in the London  Science Museum is the command module from Apollo 10. It is quite fascinating to see it in person rather than in black and white on a television screen.  The scorch marks caused when re-entering the earth’s atmosphere are distinctly visible.

Apollo 10, carrying astronauts Thomas Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan, was launched in May 1969 on a lunar orbital mission as the dress rehearsal for the actual Apollo 11 landing. Stafford and Cernan descended in the Lunar Module to within 14 kilometres of the surface of the Moon, the closest approach until Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin in Apollo 11 landed on the surface two months later. The craft, which had the call sign ‘Charlie Brown’, travelled approximately 500,000 miles (800,000 km) during the eight-day mission and exceeded 24,790 mph (39,887 km/h) on its return to Earth, faster than any other crewed vehicle before or since.

Housed in a different part of the museum is a full sized replica of the Apollo 11 lunar module that landed the first humans on the moon in July 1969:

The Eagle has landed – Apollo 11 was the first mission to land people on the moon. It’s lunar module, nicknamed, Eagle transported Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon’s surface while Michael Collins piloted the command module in lunar orbit.

This full-sized replica of the lunar module shows the lower ‘descent’ stage, with a rocket engine (just visible underneath) that slowed the module to a safe landing, plus storage space for experimental equipment to use on the moon. The upper ‘ascent’ stage included the crew’s cabin and another rocket engine that blasted it off from the top of the descent stage when the mission was over. The descent stage was left behind on the moon.*

*Information from a signboard next to the lunar module