Cosmonauts @ the Science Museum, to March '16

Now the Science Museum has relaxed their photography policy for the above exhibit, I thought it was time for a return visit with the camera. The gallery originally had a complete photography ban, but this has been informally relaxed to a "discrete photography allowed" stance - as far as I could tell this basically translated to no flash or tripods and don't get in the way or lean over the barrier.

Lighting is a bit challenging, and the gallery is actually pretty compact, so composition is not always easy....

For anyone with even a vague interest in the history of space exploration, this is a stunning exhibition with items usually never seem outside Russia. Some items are on show to the public for the first time. Given this, the exhibition has been described as the space geek's equivalent of the 1972 Tutankhamun exhibition at the British Museum....

And what a collection of exhibits they have....

For example, everyone knows that Sputnik burnt up on re-entry, and there are replica models in museums the world over. So another Sputnik 1 model is nothing unusual.... But previously unseen is the engineering model constructed in parallel. This is identical in every way to the model launched in October 1957:



The world's first satellite was originally going to be somewhat larger, but the launch vehicle just wasn't quite powerful enough. So it was finally launched as Sputnik 3, the first object in history to be powered by solar panels. Again, on display is an engineering model (1:3 scale) of the 1.5 tonne monster...



This is complemented by the scale models of the automated lunar landers Luna 9 and Luna 16. Luna 16 was the first successful automated sample return mission in September 1970.



Things move up a gear in terms of complexity with the 1:1 engineering test bed of the automated lunar rover, Lunakhod 1. My understanding is that whilst the model of Lunokhod 2 has been on display before, Lunakhod 1 has not been accessible to the public before this exhibition.

Then it's on to the manned stuff - the mind boggles somewhat at Voskhod 1 - the first 3 man capsule to orbit the earth. Simply, this is a one-man Vostok capsule (as used by Gagarin et al) with three seats shoe-horned inside... The whole thing is probably only 7ft in diameter and was too cosy to permit the cosmonauts to wear space suits,



It's quite sobering to compare this to the Apollo 10 capsule downstairs in the museum, which is considerably bigger.....

Also worth a comparison is Lunniy Korabl - the Russian lunar lander. This is the most complete model in existence and would probably, had the programme completed, have taken Alexi Leonov to the surface of the moon. This is also rarely on public display. With the US lunar lander in the space gallery on the ground floor (albeit a mock-up) this will probably be the only time the US and Russian landers are ever on display in the same place at the same time.



Unlike the US lander, this one uses the same engine for descent and ascent, so failure of the engine would have been catastrophic. One plan considered by the Soviets was to co-ordinate three separate lunar hardware delivieries - land two of these at one time, then if one failed, have an automated Lunokhod already located nearby to ferry the cosmonaut from the failed lander to the reserve module....

However, the exhibition is not all about large items. There are some really nice personal items too. Back in the 1960's the Fisher Pen Company invested around a million dollars developing a pen that would work in zero G, which they could sell to NASA. The Russians? They just sent up boxes of pencils on strings that wouldn't float away....



There belonged to Alexi Leonov and were taken up on Voskhod 2. They were used to create the first ever artwork completed in orbit around the Earth...

This was the same mission famous for the first ever spacewalk...which was predicted by the father of space exploration, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in a 1932 book "Cosmic Journeys". No idea how they got hold of this, but alongside some of his other sketches this is his original, hand drawn sketch from the early 1900's, suggesting how such a feat might, one day, take place....



These are the items that I found most interesting or impressive. Certainly a fantastic collection of stuff and the Science Museum have done a great job getting this all in place....

That great SCOOP, thats for takeing the time to give us the background to the exhibition. Some lovely images as well.

These are a little late but you can share my visit to the exhibition:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cosimoss/albums/72157665903042146