SPACE MUSEUM
We arranged a journey to a space museum near Moscow. John loves space travel and was really excited about it. I didn’t think I would like it that much, but it was a great experience.
Spotlight on Russia visits the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics
The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics contains an incredible record of Russia’s history of space travel.
There are many things to see and do at the museum. You can touch the capsule in which Yuri Gagarin became the world’s first cosmonaut in 1961, and you can see the Voskhod 2 spacecraft that Aleksei Leonov left behind when he made the first spacewalk in 1965. You can also view a space kitchen, a space shower and even a space toilet!
If you want to know what it’s like to be in space, then this is your chance to find out. You can enter a replica of the Mir Space Station and sit in the crew commander’s or the flight engineer’s chair. When you enter the descent module of the Soyuz spacecraft, you can operate many of the important control handles. You will feel just like a real cosmonaut, floating in space, ready for re−entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Wow! Going round the space museum was really fun and it shows how far space travel has come in the last 60 years. Maybe in another 60 years’ time we’ll be writing for Spotlight on the Moon!
DISCUSS
• What do you think it is like to travel in space? Share your thoughts with your partner.
• What other interesting things about space would you like to see?
ACTIVITY
• What will people do in space in 1,000 years? Tell the class.