To the Moon and Back

Years 1 and 2 arrived at the National Space Centre in Leicester and were greeted by the space centre staff who said that there were 240 steps up to the top of the tower! On arriving at the top the children discovered a timeline of space travel with all the missions to the moon. There was a living room decorated how living rooms would have looked in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. There was even a piece of moon rock which Apollo 17 brought back with them.

They were able to look over the balcony and see a huge Russian rocket before going back down in the lift and stopping on the middle floor, where there was a private room with an interactive table and TV screens explaining the Space Race between Russia and the USA; Russia went into space first, but USA were first to land on the moon. There was also the rather sad fact, that the first dog Laika (Barker in Russian) never made it back down to earth on her mission, but died from heat exhaustion in the rocket.

After lunch the pupils explored the main area downstairs looking at facts about different planets. If there was a bath big enough Saturn would float! They also learnt that Uranus has massive diamonds on it, due to the methane and ice forming together and that Jupiter has 67 moons!

Then there was a show in the planetarium about how the earth moves round the sun to create seasons and days and how long this all takes as well as the Greek mythology story of how some of the constellations were formed.