space

The Science Museum has welcomed many astronauts and cosmonauts over the years and each time our visitors have been spellbound. Today, we witnessed the announcement of Briton Tim Peake’s mission to visit the International Space Station, ISS. Peake (who tweets as @astro_timpeake), will join Expedition 46 to the ISS, and will be carried aloft by a Soyuz mission in November 2015. His selection by the European Space Agency was announced to the world’s media in the Science Museum’s IMAX at an event introduced by […]

Have you ever wondered how you clean your teeth in space? It’s not a problem for most of us, but for the six astronauts orbiting above us in the International Space Station, even simple tasks can be challenging in microgravity.

On 7 December 1972, Apollo 17 blasted into orbit. It would be the final mission of the Apollo space programme.

Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner visited the Science Museum today, where he told the museum’s Roger Highfield how, with only 10 minutes of oxygen remaining, he had just a few seconds to enjoy the majestic view of his home.

Last month I went to a conference marking 50 years of the UK in space. Some of the speakers reminded us many of us use space daily without even thinking about it when we watch satellite television or get directions from our GPS. I recently took delivery of a new object for the collection that also uses space – a satellite radio made for WorldSpace. The WorldSpace company was founded in 1990 and used geostationary satellites to broadcast to Asia and Africa. At […]

Astronauts, rockets and multi-coloured stars – visitors to our Launchpad gallery seem to have space on the brain.

Last week we welcomed a group of space pioneers into the Museum to try out our new space trail. Find out what they thought

Artworks, made from meteorites that landed on Earth 6,000 years ago, are on show in the Science Museum until 30 October 2011

Our curator Doug Millard tells us about the time he journeyed from SW7 London to Houston Texas to collect a piece of the Moon.

This summer, from 23 July – 31 August, we’re inviting families to spend their summer holiday in space.

We left him in orbit but now it’s time to come back to Earth. Our own version of Yuri Gagarin is back to finish the story of his historic space flight.

Fifty years ago today Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Our version of the great man is here to blog about that life-changing lift-off…