Cosmonaut's Exhibition - Science Museum

At precisely the time I walked into the Cosmonauts exhibition hall on Friday 15 January 2016, the small steps for me coincided with Tim Peake's giant leap into the cosmos - as Britain's first 'official' astronaut conducted his first space walk, or Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA), from the International Space Station.  A month earlier, Tim Peake launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Russian Sozuz rocket bound for to the International Space Station (ISS), on 15 December 2015, the coverage of which  was beamed live by the BBC from from the Science Museum in London.  This coincided with a major exhibition staged by the Science Museum celebrating Russia's achievements in space.

The Cosmonauts Exhibition opened in September 2015, having been announced at a press conference in May which was attended by Alexei Leonov not long after the 50th anniversary of the anniversary of his space walk - the very first such EVA in March 1965, and Valentina Tereshkova - the first woman in space.

    

I grew up with the excitement of the space race, especially the lunar landings, space shuttle launches as well as Skylab and the Sozuz-Apollo mission.  Like most kids I knew, I was obsessed with space flight and wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.  I had an old cine projector on which I would frequently watch a silent, black and white film of the first lunar expedition.  While us in the West were brought up on NASA's achievements in space during the 1970s, and we talk of Astronauts rather than Cosmonauts, I did have a collection of Brooke Bond tea cards which charted mankind's achievements in space - both American and Russian and was often puzzled at the odd lettering, eg CCCP, on the equipment.

Of course at the time, I had no idea as to the political realities influencing or motivating the superpowers during the space race.  I think I had the naive presumption that space was not primarily a military endeavour, but rather a joint exploration arising from mankind's curiosity.  This view was in part reinforced by the Soyuz-Apollo mission whereby Soviet and American modules docked in orbit (such cooperation occurred at the height of the Cold War).  Alexei Leonov, incidentally, was a member of the Russian crew for that mission.

Although the childhood obsession with space exploration waned over the years, some interest remains; the memories of the excitement of those times remain; long forgotten facts endure - locked deep in memory only to resurface when prompted by some external stimulation such as a well curated exhibition like the one at the Science Museum.

Now, I have probably seen many of the exhibits before in Moscow - at the Space Pavilion in Moscow's exhibition park VDNKh or the Cosmonaut Museum housed in the plinth of the titanium Space Explorer's monument near the VDNKh metro station.  However, this was well over 25 years ago, and the last time I was in the Space Pavilion, in 1993, it had been turned into a second-hand car lot selling US cars - such a disappointment, typical of the plunder of the country and cultural insensitivity by the US in the wild 90s.

Anyway, this was so long ago and I can barely recall the artefacts I have seen exhibitions.  The exhibits in Moscow  were so numerous - row upon row of satellites which had the appearance of the innards of a gas boiler bolted onto diving equipment and looking no more sophisticated - that it was hard to absorb any meaningful information.

This is the beauty of the Science Museum's exhibition.  It is a well curated exhibition, with carefully selected artefacts, presented in an imaginative, attractive, and informative way - it manages to capture the excitement of the early years of the space race and the impact it had on the rest of the world.  Of course, the enthusiasm and the knowledge of the volunteer guides adds to the overall experience.  For me, Cosmonauts did evoke memories, unearth long-forgotten facts, re-acquaint me with the familiar, as well as providing much which was new: Helen Sharman's spacesuit from the 1991 Project Juno mission to the Mir space station (Helen Sharman was the first UK-born person in space whereas Tim Peake is the seventh), Valentina Tereshkova's return module (Tereshkova was the first woman in space), lunar lander, lunar rover, space food, and memorabilia relating to Gagarin's 1961 flight and the world's reaction to it.

From the Science museum blog, one of the volunteers sums it up perfectly: "For me there is paradox at the heart of this exhibition. You look at the hardware and you can’t help wondering at how primitive it all looks, as if it was simply bashed together in a workshop. However, you look closer and you begin to see just how awesome and sophisticated it really is. I am captivated by the personalities and the stories, and when you match the stories with the hardware, you begin to understand what true pioneers these people were."

Exit through the gift shop




Last but not least, there was the gift shop.  I was almost as excited by this as I was the exhibition itself - there was a fantastic array of products for sale: posters, books, t-shirts, badges, hats, fridge magnets, even a replica Sozuz 39 cosmonaut flight suit jacket.

I could have spent a fortune.  I passed on the jacket and the Laika shawl, although I did get a t-shirt and a few other nick nacks.

Yuri Gagarin

Today is the 52nd anniversary of the first manned space flight.  Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin shook the world when it was announced on 12 April 1961 that he had circled the Earth in a spacecraft - Vostok 1.  

After circling the planet, Gagarin became an international superstar and undertook a world tour, which included London which he visited in July 1961, three months after his legendary flight - meeting the Queen and the Prime Minister, Halrold McMillan, as well as members of the Foundry Workers Union during his visit, as he had worked as a foundryman before his career in aeronautics,. 

Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG 15 training jet he was piloting crashed - he was 34 years old.

The statue of him, pictured here, has recently been moved from Admiralty Arch to a permanent home at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London.  On 7 March 2013, there was a ceremony held there to celebrate its new home.


In 2011, for the 50th Anniversary of his flight, a statue of Yuri Gagarin was unveiled in London just off The Mall, next to Admiralty Arch, and features the cosmonaut in his flight suit and standing on a globe. A host of dignitaries were present for the unveiling, including the cosmonaut's daughter, Elena Gagarina.

"The 12th of April 1961 was one of the most remarkable days in history, uniting all people in all countries on all continents," said Gagarina, who is the current director of the Kremlin Museums.

Yelena Gagarina was also present at the unveiling of the statue at its new Greenwich home in March and said “I would like to thank all people living in London for the support of the idea to place the statue in Greenwich park. I hope my father's statue will be evoking only smiles, and I feel very happy today for Yury Gagarin, cosmonaut and man, who was dreaming of the sky, and at the same time always dreaming of home. And finally he found this beautiful home in Greenwich”. 

The figure is a copy of one sited in the town of Lubertsy, just outside Moscow, where Yuri Gagarin trained as a foundry worker in his mid-teens.  The original was made in 1984 to celebrate what would have been the cosmonaut's 50th birthday.