What’s the Science Museum’s brand new Space gallery like? I went to find out

Exploring Space is dead! Long live just plain Space!

It is definitely possible to overhype the fact that the Science Museum has just said goodbye to its original space exhibition – which ran for almost 40 years – and replaced it with a new one. 

I was a bit uncertain as to what to exactly expect. Surely the spectacular actual spaceships that were on display before would not be binned? They have not! With a few relatively small tweaks, Space features the same items as Exploring Space did when it closed.

But it’s also worth pointing out that Exploring Space changed considerably over its lifespan, with items like Tim Peake’s space capsule and a spacesuit belonging to the first Brit in space, Helen Sharman, being added way after its 1986 opening.

It is, nonetheless, all change, and having been to Exploring Space a half dozen times, this felt greatly freshened up. The collection has been shunted to the back of the Science Museum – it’s now in the gallery right next to the cafe – and if the term ‘rehang’ is applicable to spacecraft, then this is a rehang. A really good rehang! The spaceships remain the focal point of the exhibition: Peake’s Soyuz capsule and the Apollo 10 command module are now right next to each other, and much closer to the barrier. They’ve also been tilted and elevated so that they have much more presence in the room, and it's easier to see inside these now curiously retrofuturistic pods. The parachute from Peake’s capsule is suspended dramatically from the ceiling, far more striking than before. It's the same stuff, better placed. 

The display information has also changed, with the lives of a diverse series of individuals who’ve made a difference to space exploration now profiled throughout the exhibition, from Black NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson (a star of the film Hidden Figures) to seventh man on the Moon David Scott, who proved objects in a vacuum fall at the same speed by dropping a hammer and a feather at the same time. It’s a nice touch, and gives a bit of a human side to what is largely a collection of hulking cosmic machinery.

My highlight, though, is the wholesale repurposing of the Science on a Sphere video globe, aka that big ball which used to have the moon and Earth projected on it. It’s now the focal point of a circular seating area, and the projections have been expanded to take us on a journey through the solar system and beyond, with accompanying facts voiced by the redoubtable Sharman. There are definitely some ‘greatest hits’ of Solar System general knowledge here – did you know the big spot on Jupiter is a storm bigger than the Earth? Yes I did, thank you Helen – but it’s really spiced up with some deep cuts like guides to Saturn and Jupiter’s weirdest moons, and even an imagining of what a planet some 40 light years away – with one side in permanent darkness, one in permanent light – might look like.

If you saw Exploring Space in its last months, it’s probably down to how into IRL spaceships you or your sprogs are as to whether Space is worth an immediate repeat trip to the Science Museum. But all in all, it’s a definite upgrade, and it’s a must-see if you’re calling in at the museum. There should be more than enough here to keep Londoners and tourists enthralled for another 40 years.

Space is a free gallery at the Science Museum, which is open daily 10am to 6pm. 

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