National Space Centre in Leicester

[buggi]

Yesterday, I went to the National Space Centre in Leicester. It's a great place to take your kids and very reasonably priced £56 for 5 of us (2 senior citizens, one adult, 2 kids). they have a REAL rocket whoop. my 5 year old nephew (on the simulator) was like "this is AWESOME, are we really in space???" "Hell Yea! we're gonna land on Jupiter's moon" ha ha

but besides the fun... i'm still not convinced, when the Russians were so much closer, that the Americans won the space race and actually landed on the moon.

Discuss.

 

[TVC]

Glad you enjoyed it, I'm always surprised how many people still don't know it's there.

 

[buggi]

my mum has been before and i always wanted to go, so i jumped on the bandwagon when they said they were taking the grandkids. it was very educational, even for adults!

 

[biggs682]

we did it a few years ago and yes well impressed with displays well worth a visit

 

[fossyant]

On the list of stuff. Thanks.

 

[TheDoctor]

The Russians weren't 'so much closer'.
They didn't have a launcher that didn't explode on the pad, which is a bit of a show-stopper. You can have as many landers and trans-lunar injection stages as you like, but if you can't get them out of the ruddy atmosphere then your Moonshot ends there.

 

[guitarpete247]

We've been talking about going for a few years. Trying to get brother to come down here with his kids for an excuse to go. Other than that will have to wait for granddaughters to get interested. They're only 2 and 4 so will need to wait a while.
I was looking at their website only yesterday. They are having a Valentines day special, 3 day event. Look at package 3 .

 

[Kies]

Great place and a stones throw from Fosse Park

 

[totallyfixed]

Great place and a stones throw from Fosse Park

To be fair that would be a hell of a throw. Seriously though, I've never been and only live about 25 miles away, even worse I used to live only 5 or 6 miles away. Now on my list of things to do for 2013, thanks all.

 

[Arch]

Great place and a stones throw from Fosse Park

Best thing to do do Fosse Park is throw stones at it.

You don't mean Abbey Park do you?

We've been talking about going for a few years. Trying to get brother to come down here with his kids for an excuse to go. Other than that will have to wait for granddaughters to get interested. They're only 2 and 4 so will need to wait a while.
I was looking at their website only yesterday. They are having a Valentines day special, 3 day event. Look at package 3 .

Blimey, that's almost tempting for package one.

No need for three, I did the deed last year on the Leap Day.

 

[TVC]

He could mean Bradgate Park. If you haven't been for a while Arch, the new cafe at the Rangers Office in the middle of the park do a good line in home made cakes.
Don't knock Fosse Park - it's got an SCS and Bensons Beds, high rolling stuff.

 

[Arch]

He could mean Bradgate Park. If you haven't been for a while Arch, the new cafe at the Rangers Office in the middle of the park do a good line in home made cakes.
Don't knock Fosse Park - it's got an SCS and Bensons Beds, high rolling stuff.

Ah. not been to the new cafe in the middle of the park. We did make it to the new one at the Newtown Linford car park, back in August when NT was still in his orthopedic boot, and simultaneously suffering from gout, so just getting across the car park was an epic journey for him. I've promised to take him when we can explore better.

 

[Maz]

He could mean Bradgate Park.

He could mean the Space Centre's car park.
Been there a few times, the Space Centre, that is.

 

[Linford]

I've heard of it, but never been there. I guess the closest I've been is probably Mallory Park when I've been up there for track days.
If you are genuinely interested in the space race, one of the books I read a few years ago was published by Haynes (yes, Haynes car manuals).

It was written by a couple of Nasa historians and chronicled rocketry right the way back to its roots. It covered all of the development and tech of all the components in the moon missions, and how they solved all the issues, It also dug around extensively in the Russian attempts to get there IIRC.

Worth every penny

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apollo-11-M...6839/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358192008&sr=8-1

I went to Cape Canaveral in 2009 and 2011, and 1st time around took the tour of the Kennedy space centre which takes you into the hanger where they have one of the Saturn V rockets Absolute monster of a thing it was



One part of it I'd have liked to spent some more time was the rocket garden where they had stuff on show from before that time.

This is one of the Mercury capsules which America put their first men into space in, and it was stuck on top of both the Redstone and Atlas class nuclear missiles for the manned missions, and it acquired the reputation for a capsule which the astronaut wore as it was so tiny.

View attachment 17519

 

[Night Train]

I was saying to Arch, last time we were near there, imagine going to visit the National Space Centre and arriving to find a huge warehouse type building and inside it was just empty space, the storage facility for the nation's spare and unwanted space!

It would be good to go one day though.