National Space Centre

Something a little different, and without trains - a visit to the National Space Centre at Leicester. 

Thanks to Covid restrictions, visitor numbers were low, which made wandering around and looking at stuff much easier. There is certainly plenty to see too. 

As you would expect, there is a lot of stuff to enthuse kids. Buttons to press and fascinating displays explaining the solar system such as Saturn sitting in a bath because it would float in water apparently. For nerdy grown-ups though, there's plenty to read and some interesting artefacts to look at. 

I learnt for example, that I'm too tall to go into space. That Russian capsule above - 6ft across and it accommodates 3 people. Not much chance of me getting in a Mercury capsule either. 

There are several full size (I assume) cut-outs of Tim Peake, who is a good foot shorter than I am. Never mind, I don't fancy all that sitting on an exploding rocket thing anyway...

I was visiting with a friend and young daughter and that meant we got to sit at the craft table, and build a rocket each. 

It's a clever design - colour in your model, then assemble (harder than it looks, folding the cone is tricky) and fire. Yes, you put it on a plastic milk carton, clap to squash the bottle and the air makes the rocket fly. Great fun and something you don't get to do as a 50-something bloke on your own. 

The highlight of the trip is the planetarium, the largest in the UK. Sitting in your seat, the screen fills your view and then we head off for a tour of everything from the Big Bang to evolution of humans. There's some amazing visuals as the creation of planets etc is explained. The tone is aimed at youngsters, but not patronising for adults. Young Phil would have loved it, and old Phil enjoyed it too. 

A terrific day out. The tickets covers you for a year, so I plan to head back and have some nerdy time reading all the captions and looking at things like all the rocket engines on display at some point. 

There are a few more photos over on Flickr. 

And, NO railway? Look what I spotted next door...