By Robbie Culver, EAA 674064
Some people build replica aircraft. Matt Hissem, EAA 842921, builds replica space capsules. If you are an AirVenture regular, you may have seen a DeLorean driving the campground that looks like it came from the Back to the Future movie series. That is because Matt built it to look that way. But as with all stories, that’s not the really cool part.
Matt grew up inspired by the NASA space programs, watched a space shuttle launch at Kennedy Space Center, and attended Space Camp at the age of 15. Hissem described Space Camp as “Completely awesome! Best time of my life there!” That, “more than Disney World,” led him to watch documentaries and learn about what he saw at the space center. His parents Bill and Debbie clearly fed these dreams, and it shows (Bill and Debbie help out at KidVenture and Bill described it as “a family affair.”) During EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, Matt displays his two hand-built replica spacecraft. Inspiring the next generation of kids, hands on.
Matt does this completely on his own as a hobby. As a welder, he used scrap materials in the finest homebuilt tradition to create life-size replicas of both the Mercury and Gemini space capsules and then brings them to KidVenture to let kids sit in them and make spacecraft noises!
Matt began by building a Mercury capsule in 2009 that is a full-scale replica with the exact dimensions of the original. “I started with Mercury because it was the smallest!” Matt says he “got tired of making models and looking at toys — I wanted the real thing.” It is “built as close to the real thing as possible” and includes seats that match the original shape and size for kids to experience what it was like to be inside one, and an accurate instrument panel.
After that, Matt had no idea what to do with it. Everyone told him to share it with EAA, so he reached out and began taking it to the EAA Aviation Museum’s annual Space Day (and, at press time, he was planning on bringing them back for Space Day 2023). After he did this for a few years, he asked about taking it to AirVenture. KidVenture was an obvious fit.
Each capsule has a TV camera inside it to show what the kids are doing inside with the door closed. The video is shared on the replica mission control console Matt created, where kids are encouraged to push buttons and flip switches instead of getting bored in line and being told “don’t touch anything!”
The Gemini capsule is “the same story” that Matt saw as a good excuse to build the second replica in 2017. Like the Mercury capsule, Gemini is as close to the real thing as Matt could get.
For Matt, it is “just incredible” to share this with the youths that experience it. “There is nothing more exciting than climbing in the real thing. The virtual stuff can only go so far.” Each capsule has audio and vibration simulating a real rocket launch. “This is almost as real as it can be. The excitement that they get when they do this is priceless! It’s just a thrill to share a taste of NASA. A taste of Space Camp, far from Florida or Huntsville, Alabama.”
Matt says he gets compliments from people all over the world that makes it all worth the hard work he puts into creating the replicas. The kids certainly remember it.
Now back to the DeLorean. He purchased the car in 2013 and brought it to AirVenture in 2014. “Growing up that’s the only car I ever wanted.” Camp Sholler was the perfect place to share his creation. “It was such a massive hit!” Matt describes driving it through the campground as “almost like a parade!” He also enjoys parking it by Theater in the Woods with the lights on and gauging people’s reactions.
Parking the car at KidVenture provided a way to draw people to the hangar the capsule replicas are in. Matt has a coworker that worked on the restoration of the original movie car, so he had access to hundreds of up-close photos to use in making his replica as accurate as possible, including the ”Mr. Fusion” reactor on the back from Part 2 of the movie series.
A DeLorean and two replica space capsules. It will be exciting to see what Matt is inspired to create next!