St. Albert space fans can touch a chunk of the moon this summer as part of a new exhibit at the Edmonton space science centre.
The Apollo: When We Went to the Moon exhibit opened at the Edmonton Telus World of Science June 10. The travelling exhibit celebrates the history and technological achievement of the Apollo space program and NASA’s plans to return to the moon later this decade.
The exhibit delves into the science and historical context of the Apollo program and its modern-day successor, the Artemis program. Guests can hear “the beep heard round the world” from a scale model of Sputnik, climb aboard a replica lunar rover, and gawk at the gigantic 1:10 scale replica of a Saturn V rocket. (The actual Saturn V rocket was about 36 storeys tall.)
It really transports you back in time to those early days of lunar exploration, said Joshua Kutryk, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency on site to preview the exhibit June 9.
“I look back at Apollo 11 with a sense of awe and bewilderment on how they actually did it, but I sure am happy that they did,” he said.
The Moon then and now
Kutryk led about 60 guests into the exhibit during the June 9 preview, accompanied by lots of dramatic smoke and Also Sprach Zarathustra (better known as that tune from 2001: A Space Odyssey).
Kutryk said being at this opening was a bit like coming home — he had visited what was once the Edmonton Space & Science Centre about 30 years ago as a youth, and said his dream of becoming an astronaut likely took flight as he gazed up in awe at the building’s planetarium.
The Apollo space program was part of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, recalled St. Albert amateur astronomer Murray Paulson, who watched the Apollo 11 moon landing live on television.
“It was the biggest show in town,” he said, and it motivated himself and his peers to get into science and engineering.
The exhibit includes many artifacts from the Apollo program, such as casts of Neil Armstrong’s hands (for glove-fitting) and the official 330-page Apollo 11 instruction manual. Guests at the exhibit can drive remote-controlled rovers, touch a lunar meteorite, and make footsteps on a virtual lunar surface.
The Apollo program led to many technological innovations, such as integrated circuits and freeze-dried food, and ushered in a new era of optimism, Paulson said.
“It was a time of hope … We could go anywhere and do these incredible things.”
Today, astronauts such as Kutryk are preparing to return to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
Kutryk said crews in his office in Houston are now building robots which will construct the proposed Gateway lunar space station. In around 2024, a Canadian astronaut (possibly himself) will zip around the Moon as part of the Artemis II mission.
“It’s going to be the farthest and fastest any human being has gone in the history of history,” Kutryk said.
The Artemis program aims to have people walking on the Moon sometime after 2025, NASA reports.
Kutryk said he hopes guests at this exhibition will leave with an understanding of just how much change the world will see in the next two decades of space exploration.
“We’re certainly going to have humans on the Moon in the next couple of years,” he said, and today’s youths will likely live to see humans on Mars.
“For the young folks here today, I hope they leave with big dreams, looking up.”
The exhibit runs until the end of September. Visit telusworldofscienceedmonton.ca for details.
