The sculptures are of the Apollo 11 moon crew – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins – as well as a separate buttery interpretation of Armstrong in his spacesuit by the lunar module, Eagle. There's also a butter cow and calf standing beside the Apollo 11 patch. This took more than 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) of butter to create.
"Those who remember the moon landing often recall exactly where they were and how they felt, and the 50th anniversary is the perfect time to pay tribute to this amazing event and share that excitement with a new generation," said Jenny Hubble, senior vice president of communications for the American Dairy Association Mideast, in a statement.
The 2019 Ohio State Fair's annual butter display, sponsored by the American Dairy Association Mideast, pays tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing of July 20, 1969..(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
Life-size butter sculptures of the Apollo 11 space crew (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins) are featured in the 2019 annual butter display presented by the American Dairy Association Mideast.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
Full-scale models of the entire Apollo 11 crew, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, are sculpted in butter at the Ohio State Fair.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
The annual butter display at the 2019 Ohio State Fair honors the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing and includes sculptures of Neil Armstrong saluting the American flag next to the lunar module, the full Apollo 11 crew, the official Apollo 11 patch and the traditional butter cow and calf.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
The moment Ohio native Neil Armstrong saluted the flag after planting it on the surface of the moon is commemorated in butter at the Ohio State Fair 50 years after the Apollo 11 mission.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
A larger-than-life sculpture of the official Apollo 11 patch is featured in this year’s butter display at the 2019 Ohio State Fair.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
This 2019 butter calf dons an ear tag (used for identification and record keeping) that honors the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
The traditional butter cow and calf are a mainstay of the annual butter display at the Ohio State Fair. The 2019 display pays tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
Tammy Buerk molds a sculpture of Neil Armstrong using large blocks of butter. The entire display, which is a tribute to the Apollo 11 moon landing, required more than 2,200 pounds of butter.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
One of the lead sculptors, Alex Balz, chisels the fine details on a butter sculpture of astronaut Michael Collins. This year’s annual butter display honoring the first moon landing took about 500 hours to complete, 400 of which were spent in a 46-degree cooler.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
Erin Swearingen smooths the butter on a life-size sculpture of Neil Armstrong.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
Matt Davidson sculpts the iconic American Dairy Association Mideast butter cow. (Image credit: American Dairy Association)
Paul Brooke, one of the lead sculptors for the American Dairy Association Mideast's annual butter display, works on smoothing butter on the 2019 exhibtion honoring the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
Karen Tharp, a graduate student earning her MFA in ceramics at The Ohio State University, assists with the American Dairy Association's 2,200-lb. butter tribute to the Apollo 11 moon landing.(Image credit: American Dairy Association)
She added that the sculpture pays special tribute to Armstrong, who is originally from Wapakoneta, Ohio. "Ohio also has a special connection to that day, as one of our own took the first-ever steps on the surface of the moon," Hubble said.
The butter display is expected to attract 500,000 fairgoers to the Dairy Products Building, where they can also learn about Ohio's role in the dairy industry. In between gazing at the yellow sculptures of the crew, visitors will have a choice of many dairy foods, including ice cream, milkshakes, cheese sandwiches — and of course, milk.
While the butter connection seems at first to be a stretch, Armstrong did buy a dairy farm in Ohio after leaving NASA in 1971, two years after his epic first steps on the moon, according to a 2012 article in The Independent.
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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 specializing in Canadian space news. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller?" (ECW Press, 2022) is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams.
