As regular readers will know, BB is a huge Aviation geek and loves anything and everything related to planes. Space is also one of his interests. So when I kept seeing the NASA adverts, I thought it will be something he will enjoy seeing. So on Boxing Day, in the afternoon we headed to the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands to see the exhibit and also perhaps catch one more if we had time. What I had underestimated was a good portion of Singapore had the same idea as us. Since we didn’t pre book the tickets, we had to stand in a long line (for almost 40 minutes) before we could buy our tickets. Since BB & GG are over 12, we could not buy the family package which is very reasonable but instead brought the Singapore residents and student tickets. The adult tickets were for S$15 each and the student and senior citizen tickets are for S$12 each. You do need to show your proof of residency and student id to get these rates, so keep your identity cards on hand.

The exhibit showcases mankind’s space exploration with more than 200 artifacts from both NASA and the erstwhile Soviet Union from their early space programmes. The first part showcased the Pioneers of space research with articles, newspaper cuttings and artifacts from the first few who dared to breach Earth’s atmosphere and go to the beyond. It also had notations from the earliest scientists like Leonardo Da Vinci and H G Wells who first dreamt of space exploration. 

The next part is all about the challenges of space exploration and also how the early space travelers survived the hostile environments there. There’s also information about the first moon landing and a mockup of the special rover they used. There was also displays of vehicles used as well as 1:10 scale model of Saturn V. We also saw the clothes the astronauts wore as well as the breakdown of what the clothes looked like.
The piece de resistance for BB was the mockup of the cockpit of a space shuttle plus a peek into what the crew’s living quarters looked like. 

There was also a G Force simulator which you can go in by paying S$ 6 per person. We gave that a miss as both GG & BB were not interested. 

Other exhibits included a full scale replicas of the Lunokhod 2, a remote controlled rover built by the Soviets between 1969-1977 and the Appolo Lunar Roving Vehicle, a battery operated four-wheeled rover used on the Moon in the last three missions of the Appolo Programme. There were also the equipment used by the astronauts to collect moon rocks and space dust as well as the food they are while in space. 

Children were not ignored. At every point, there were colouring tables for them using the space theme and also a large planet which tuned into different planets at the touch of a finger and gave you all the information about that planet. That was fun, not just for children, but adults too.

This exhibit runs till 19 March so if there are any readers from Singapore who want to catch the exit ion, you still have time!