Advertisement
Cité de l'Espace
Planets & Ariane 5 Rocket Friday 8
th May. A public holiday again today – to commemorate the end of WW2 I believe. I spent the day at the Cité de l’Espace, which is only a fifteen-minute walk from where I am staying. I ended up spending all day there until they closed at 6pm!
They have a lot of exhibits, including a replica of the Russian Mir space station, an Ariane 5 rocket, a number of replica satellites and space probes, a replica module from the International Space Station, and a replica Mars Curiosity rover. They also have a range of exhibit halls. I found the most interesting to be the one that showed the history of rockets and space travel, from the earliest Chinese powder rockets to the latest Ariane rockets. My favourite remains the Russian R7 rocket, which launched Sputnik, the first satellite (1957), as well as Yuri Gagarin, first man in space (1961), Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space (1963), and variations of which are still used today. Mind you, the American Saturn V moon rocket comes a close second. They had a video exhibit showing launches from Russian (Baikonur), American (Cape Canaveral), European (Kourou, Guiana) and Chinese launch sites. Some trivia
Les Ailes Anciennes Toulouse
Early 50's Jet Fighter. A380 Assembly building in the background. It doesn't look very big, but it is about 300 metres away! for you - at the recent Winter Olympics in Russia, Valentina Tereshkova was one of the Olympic torchbearers at the stadium, and Alexey Leonov, first man to walk in space (1965), was present as a VIP.
Something I really like about the Science and Technology museums I have visited in France is that they don’t dumb things down…I could have taught pretty much the entire HSC Physics ‘Space’ topic using the exhibits available. They had an excellent display about the lives of the rocket pioneers like Goddard, Korolev and von Braun – a topic straight out of the HSC syllabus!
They also have a planetarium and an IMAX theatre, each of which I attended for an hour’s session. Really a very interesting day, and its location here was one of the reasons I chose Toulouse for my two-week language course.
Saturday 9
th May. When I was at the Airbus Tour last week I picked up a flyer from the Ailes Anciennes Toulouse, basically an enthusiasts’ collection of old aircraft, similar to the old Warbirds museum which used to be at Mildura Airport. Twice a year they open most of the aircraft to allow access to the interiors,
Full-scale Mir Space Station Replica
This is just one arm of it, about one quarter of the complete craft. including sitting in the cockpits of many. Today was one of those two days, so I was very fortunate to be here for that. It is across the road from the huge Airbus A380 assembly building, so meant a sojourn back out to the airport – bus, metro, tram – taking about an hour to get to. Certainly worth it though, with a very interesting morning spent inspecting the planes, inside and out. They had a massive English language guidebook folder for me to borrow, too. It’s well organised, with each aircraft being numbered and having an information panel mounted nearby, which also corresponded to my guidebook. There was a large number of volunteers present, some of whom spoke excellent English, and many of whom were patient with my French. It was sometimes a bit difficult, with a fairly technical vocabulary often involved! Of course, being enthusiasts for what they were showing, they were all very friendly. Quite a lot of people arrived as the day went on, but having gone first thing in the morning, it was fine for me.
They had about 60 or so aircraft altogether, mostly post WW2, and particularly from the early-mid military jet
age. My favourite would be the rather odd-looking Noratlas, a rear-doored paratroop carrier. A very interesting and enjoyable visit.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.122s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.045s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb