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This is LTA (Lunar Test Article) 3, essentially a sheet-metal mockup of an Apollo Lunar Module built by NASA for weight, balance and structural tests to prepare for the moon landings. It's parked out back of the Franklin Institute, one of our favorite haunts during my years in Philadelphia.

Now, for years it was reported that the Module sitting at the Franklin Institute was LM-14, a spaceworthy Lunar Module originally intended to go to the Copernicus crater as part of the Apollo 20 mission. This would have suited me, if true, since the Command Module originally slated for Apollo 20 now sits at the Great Lakes Science Center here in Cleveland. I've crawled inside it. If I could get the Institute to allow me to visit the interior of this Lunar Module, then I would achieve the unusual feat of having stood in both ends of the canceled Apollo 20 moon mission.

It took some wheedling, but I was successful. As part of the reporting for this graphic, I was granted permission to join a couple of docents and follow in the footsteps of the 12 men who have walked on the moon, ascending that famous ladder and squeezing my way into a Lunar Module.

Once I was inside, however, it didn't take me long to realize that this was definitely not a flight article. It was strictly a mockup, and could never have been anything but a mockup.

With the, er, help of the NASA history office (who seemed to feel they had better things to do than help an annoyingly persistent reporter track down the provenance of decaying 3rd-rate Apollo hardware), I eventually was able to identify the craft as LTA-3 - a revelation that took the Franklin Institute's people by surprise as well.

The rumors persist that parts of this thing really are from LM-14. And that ascent stage, while it can't have been from a flight article, had to come from somewhere — because the Kansas City Cosmosphere makes a good case that they have the ascent stage of the real LTA-3. And while my dreams of completing the Apollo 20 Grand Tour have gone up in smoke, I console myself with having made a fascinating trip through the musty attic of Apollo history.

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• The Apollo 11 command module Columbia;
• LM-2, one of only three unused, flight-ready Apollo Lunar Modules in the world;
• No fewer than four A7L spacesuits that actually walked on the moon, including the first (Neil Armstrong's) and the last (Eugene Cernan's);
• One of only two surviving examples in the world of the Macchi C.202 Folgore, a WW2 Italian fighter that looks like something out of a Hayao Miyazaki film come to life;

… and so many more.

But the trip would never be complete without a visit to the U.S.S. Enterprise shooting prop from the 1960s Star Trek series. It's located in a glass case on the lower level of the gift shop. It was worth the cacaphone and physical assault of misbehaving Spring Break schoolkids to spend a few minutes with the original starship of my youth.

The first one was a couple of years ago for the online version of the Cleveland Plain Dealer's "Johanna: Facing Forward" series. We broke some ground on that presentation, I'm proud of it, anyone who views it will see my work all over it and a win's a win. Still, this was in a strange, fringe category — Best Online Slide Show — and I was one member of a rather large team.

This first-place award was in my category — Information Graphics — and for a portfolio of my work. Not an ensemble and not some fluky single piece. For someone who has respected and coveted the Headliner as I have, it really doesn't get much better than this.

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