Space . . . the final frontier!
The National Space Centre in Leicester was a great trip as we all learnt many things about space and Earth’s satellites. First, we arrived at the space centre and saw the great view of the rocket from outside the building; it looked cool and was huge. It had a glass chamber around it, and the visitors looked like little ants walking around the different parts of the rocket. We then arrived at the entrance and went inside. We were welcomed by the staff and we all were staring at the cool mini games we could play and the gigantic Earth globe. We were able to play on the games and look around and we saw many satellites which had been in space. We then went to learn about many things about satellites and Earth in a special workshop. We learnt how objects orbit other objects like a satellite (the moon or a man-made satellite) orbits the Earth. We also had to work out where to place the satellite and moon in comparison to a small Earth, and we guessed the moon close enough to where it was supposed to be, but we were totally wrong about the satellite! It needed to be placed so close to the Earth, it was touching.
We were able to look around the gadgets and information, and the coolest of them all was the satellite we could control on a little piece of land which was said to be Mars – not the real Mars! We had to do little missions and collect materials and move the satellite around. But the problem was that everyone was crowding around it, so it took a while to play on it… There was some information about our planet’s closest group of stars and other information about the planets in our solar system. We also visited the planetarium. This was a different experience as we could tilt back on the seats and look up at the circular screen and observe the whole planetarium. It was a weird journey through the movie, as we first saw the bloodstream of human veins, and later a rocket in. We learnt that to be an astronaut, you must train underwater as being in the water is like being in space. Then after training they are sent off to space and while they are in zero gravity, they must train to make sure their muscles don’t waste away. If they don’t exercise when they come back to Earth, they won’t be able to walk. It was an amazing experience and was funny at the end when the cartoon characters were tested to see what would happen in space if you didn’t have oxygen, heaters and a door on the spacecraft.
After the Planetarium we went and looked around the tall rocket which involved climbing 146 steps to see the top of the rocket. There were also some gadgets and games we could play there as well but there was mainly information about rockets. We ate our lunch in the lunch hall and then went to buy things in the shop. I bought a mini 3D picture of our solar system which looks amazing, and there were all sorts of other things like, pens, pencils, posters, pictures, stationery, and even chocolate and sweets. At the end of the day, we had time for one last look before returning to Earth! It was an amazing trip and I would like to visit again.
Darius Ehssan 8N
