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Explore: NASA: A Human Adventure

Blast off to space, the final frontier…. at Marina Bay Sands. (This story first appeared in Issue 1365, Dec 15, 2016.)

Explore: NASA: A Human Adventure

Astronauts at Marina Bay Sands. Photo: NASA/Marina Bay Sands

Jukka Nurminen, curator and producer of NASA: A Human Adventure.

In a galaxy not so far away — at the ArtScience Museum, to be specific — you get to go on an out-of-this-world jaunt to NASA: A Human Adventure exhibition. Mosey through the 1,300 sq metres floor space and scrutinise over 2,000 artifacts (some of which have flown to space and back!) to find out how astronauts lived, breathed, and er, pooped in space the past 60 years. Jukka Nurminen, 37, producer and curator of the exhibition about “the greatest adventure of humankind” that has travelled to cities such as Stockholm, Madrid and Seoul since 2011, gives us some factoids you should know about the exhibition. (Photos: Marina Bay Sands)

  • Get up close to the spacecraft…that you’d only see in movies, like the Apollo 13. Alas, these are replicas. “The real things are in museums in the US and they don’t travel easily, even in the US, and cannot be moved abroad. But these are as close to the real thing as possible. Out of all of these, I’d pick the Gemini and the Apollo [as the highlights], but they’re all fantastic and it’s difficult to choose the best one,” Nurminen explains.

G-Force Astronaut Trainer Simulator at the NASA: Human Adventure exhibition. Photo: Marina Bay Sands

  • Fly like a G-Force: During your 90-minute jaunt (that’s how long Nurminen estimates you should set aside for the exhibition), hop on the G-Force Astronaut Trainer Simulator Ride ($6 per ride) for an exhilarating taste of what it feels like to hurtle out of the Earth’s atmosphere in a space shuttle. It simulates the second of a series of successful US manned suborbital flights in 1961, and you’ll experience forces of up to 2G (astronauts experience up to 6G). Yes, prepare to feel slightly dizzy after the two-minute mini-expedition.

Space suits in Endurance gallery at NASA: A Human Adventure.

  • Zero in on the suits: [The display of space suits is] one of the most unique collections in the world, even in the US. You have the one from the first flight [in the 1950s[ and the actual suits that were space-flown, from Gemini to Apollo. So we’re covering the 1960s all the way to the mid-1970s to part of the 1980s,” says Nurminen.

The Saturn V (scale model of 1 to 10) at the NASA: A Human Adventure exhibition.

  • Rocket science: No matter what Frank Sinatra (or Michael Buble) will have you believe, this is the only rocket that can take you to the moon and back. The Saturn V Moon rocket is the biggest, most powerful launcher ever successfully used in an operation. Of course, what you see is a replica — the real thing measures about 110m and weighs 2,950 metric tons when it’s fully fuelled.

Till Mar 9 at the ArtScience Museum. Tix from Marina Bay Sands box-office and website.

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