You will find several science museums in Moscow exhibiting some great works by Russia which impacted the world. But the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics is different from all of them. It is quite a unique place where you can learn about the country’s achievements in space exploration and the early history of one of mankind's greatest ever successes.
In the latter part of a busy day Thursday, I luckily got the chance to manage some time to see the vast showcases while meeting a friend from Bangladesh who came here to be present at a few 2018 Fifa World Cup matches.
The museum is situated under the monument “To the Conquerors of Space”, shaped as a titanium-made rocket with a metal trail, whose total height is 100-odd metre. Established in 1964, this is one of the most famous landmarks in Moscow.
The place is a few kilometres away from Red Square at Prospekt Mira, just beside VDNKh metro station. The museum is also referred to as Memorial Museum of Astronautics, or simply, Space Museum in Moscow.
On this day in 1981, the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics opened its doors to the public. The museum's collection holds approximately 85,000 different items dedicated to space exploration and receives approximately 300,000 visitors annually ? ? @mmksp… https://t.co/AVohUY9dya pic.twitter.com/Ln0yNj7Hf8
— Russia Beyond (@russiabeyond) April 10, 2018
Entering the museum, you will be welcomed by a huge metal sculpture of Yuri Gagarin, the first man to journey into outer space, along with some legendary showpieces of the 1960s. You will certainly feel the excitement seeing the pictures of Gagarin's cheerful reporting after he got ready for the experimental flight.
Seeing the broad smile on his face will make you feel happy. No one, even Gagarin himself, thought back then that the mission would be successful. You can see mementos of those precious moments when the brave man took that flight. The chronicled showcases are displayed beautifully.
You can find the spacesuit Gagarin was wearing, and the ejectable cabin of Vostok, from touching distance.
Every single detail of the Soviets’ and the Russians’ most successful and unsuccessful space events are displayed in the museum. Lots of spacecrafts of the Soviet space programme were seen in perfect shape.
On 10 April 1981 the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics was opened in Moscow - one of the largest space exploration museums with over 85'000 exhibits. The museum itself is located at the base of the iconic Monument to the Conquerors of Space #SpaceExploration #VisitMoscow pic.twitter.com/JXUdndlN0n
— Russia in RSA ?? (@EmbassyofRussia) April 10, 2018
Space has always been the place people want to conquer from an early stage. It was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a modest teacher of physics and maths from a small Russian town of Kaluga, who did a lot of in-depth study, carried out thousands of experiments and created hundreds of models to prove that a rocket could go to space. His formula of jet propulsion made him a pioneer of the astronautic theory.
These things are all there in planned fashion. But there will still be some problems as the texts are mostly in Russian language.
This is a great place to see other significant aircraft models and diagrams. Outcomes of many researches and studies can give you some interesting insights about science.
Walking in the 8,500-sq meters museum, you will surely enjoy the experience of a lifetime.
