One small step…

At first sight, celebrating the conquest of the moon with an exhibition curated by an art historian in an institution dedicated to life on the ocean might seem to be a rocket-fuelled flight of fancy. 

 But The Moon (19 July-January 2020), an exhibition at London’s National Maritime Museum, places one of mankind’s greatest adventures in a context that explores the pull our only natural satellite has had on terrestrial culture and society through the centuries.

“Humanity’s relationship with the moon is a complex story, and the unique mixture of history, science and art here at Greenwich – where we are on a tidal river and have the Royal Observatory on site – gives us a unique opportunity to look at it from those different perspectives,” says the show’s curator, Melanie Vandenbrouck.

The exhibition contains almost 200 out-of-this-world objects, topped by the “Snoopy cap” (the communications gadget that Buzz Aldrin wore under his astronaut’s helmet) and the camera that Michael Collins used to capture images as the crew orbited the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.

The show opens with a look at how people have gazed at the celestial body for thousands of years in an attempt to make sense of the terrestrial world we inhabit. Accompanying objects include a Mesopotamian tablet from the second century, which reveals a belief that lunar eclipses were bad omens, and an English medical pamphlet from 1709, which speculated that the moon was turning people into “lunatics”.

Early longitudinal calculations and ancient Islamic and Chinese calendars show how the moon also had an influence on activities ranging from navigation to determining when to bring in a harvest.

“It is particularly interesting to see just how moonlight has affected human activity and creativity – many of these scientific aids and instruments are richly decorated with representations of gods and goddesses and the effects of light,” says Vandenbrouck.

The second section explores the technology that has been used to aid our understanding of the moon. It begins with the telescopic revolution in the early 17th century, with the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei’s observations and the English scientist Thomas Harriot’s drawings of the moon’s cratered surface.

“These advances caused a paradigm shift in our thinking about our place in the universe,” says Vandenbrouck. “Believing the moon was geological like the Earth led many to begin wondering if we were just one such object of many in the heavens.”

One hundred years on, the artist John Russell – a portrait painter of the rich and famous – spent his evenings peering into a telescope and producing astonishingly accurate, exquisite lunar pictures.

“He used to hang out with astronomers to make sense of what he was seeing, and his pictures are like maps that reveal the different personalities of the moon in a way that was to prove incredibly useful to the scientific world,” says Vandenbrouck.

From there, it’s one small step to the invention of photography and the work of the Welsh-born engineer and amateur selenographer – or lunar cartographer – Hugh Percy Wilkins, who produced giant maps of the moon’s surface complete with names for newly discovered features.

“We are proud to show Wilkins’s 100-inch map, which he created in an observatory he built in his back garden. It was so detailed that Nasa used it in the 1950s and 60s to plot possible landing sites,” says Vandenbrouck, who adds that the exhibition’s third section plots fictional and factual narratives about sending men to the moon.

“It’s fascinating how some science fiction, such as HG Wells’s stories, inspired technological advances and how popular culture and science have been constantly in dialogue,” she says. “Fritz Lang’s 1929 silent sci-fi film Frau im Mond [Woman in the Moon], for example, depicted a countdown launch sequence for the first time and introduced the idea of multistage rockets. That practice was taken up by Nasa for real in the 1950s.”

The final part of the exhibition examines the ethical, spiritual and psychological issues around journeying to another world and imagines expeditions with rather more diverse crews than the 12 white American men who have been there so far, says Vandenbrouck. 

“We can sometimes lose sight of the moon in our floodlit world and its ethereal light no longer dictates our daily activities, but it still casts an almighty spell over everyone.”

Of all the contemporary characterisations, the Museum of the Moon, an artwork by Luke Jerram, is surely the most atmospheric. Lit from within and accompanied by an eerie surround-soundtrack of space static and disjointed messages from ground control, Jerram’s authentic lunar likeness measures seven metres in diameter and features the latest high-resolution Nasa imagery. 

Multiple versions have been touring the world and have been installed over lakes and city squares, in warehouses and arts centres to dramatic effect.

A recent port of call was The Collection museum in Lincoln, where it hung rather ominously in the main gallery, enabling visitors to pose for sci-fi selfies or simply chill out and “moon bathe” on beanbags.

“Whereas it has been suspended from high structures and ceilings in other spaces, such as cathedrals and festival sites, showing the Museum of the Moon in our gallery gave visitors a close encounter and a one-to-one experience,” says The Collection’s exhibitions and interpretation officer, Jenny Gleadell. 

“Hanging from the highest point in the ceiling, the work was only 50cm from the floor and we created an immersive experience by painting the walls dark purple and adding blue lighting.” 

As well as helping to celebrate the moon landings anniversary, Gleadell says the universal appeal of space travel and the spectacular photo opportunities afforded by the piece brought in new visitors. Around 47,000 people visited the exhibition, which was complemented by a programme of lectures and films, a collection of Nasa-related paraphernalia put together by a local space enthusiast and yoga sessions by the light of the silvery sphere.

The Museum of the Moon can be seen this month at One Giant Leap – the festival of augmented-reality technology, film and space workshops at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium in Northern Ireland – and in the Jerwood Gallery at the Natural History Museum in London until 8 September. 

It will also illuminate proceedings at a weekend of lunar-themed events at the Maumbury Rings neolithic earthwork in Dorset (19 July) and the Bluedot festival of music, science and cosmic culture at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire (18-21 July).

This year’s Bluedot – a four-day jamboree at the world-famous Jodrell Bank Observatory – will celebrate Apollo 11’s golden anniversary with live music and science experiments. There will also be expert talks from the likes of Helen Sharman – the first British astronaut – and the broadcaster and science-history boffin James Burke, robot workshops and pulsar hunts, all in the shadow of the giant Lovell telescope. 

The popular event was the brainchild of the physics professor and one-time wannabe astronaut Teresa Anderson.

“Watching people bounce around playing golf and driving buggies on the lunar surface all those years ago made me want to study physics,” says Anderson, the science-culture director of Bluedot and the director of the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre. “I really wanted to be an astronaut and thought seriously about applying for the same team that Sharman was in, but it wasn’t to be.

“My role here is probably the closest you can come to exploring space while remaining on the planet.”

Anderson believes passionately in inspiring people to make an emotional connection with science, and the site accordingly uses a mixture of fun, facts and figures to spark curiosity, particularly among the 27,000 schoolchildren who visit each year. 

Her team is also working on the First Light project – with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund – which will culminate in a new exhibition space to fully explain Jodrell Bank’s pioneering place in the history of astronomy.

“A new gallery will tell the complete story of the observatory’s role from its rather humble origins in 1945, when it was put together with post-war army surplus gear, through tracking the first Sputnik in space to it becoming, almost by accident, the west’s unofficial eye on the space race,” says Anderson. 

“As a neutral observer, Jodrell Bank tracked the Eagle lander down to the surface 50 years ago and we have the trace that shows Neil Armstrong taking over the controls and landing the module.

“When Buzz Aldrin visited us, we showed him the record of his path to the moon which was a special moment for the control room personnel here.”

Jodrell Bank continues to scan the skies for radio waves emitted by bodies across space, such as exploding stars (supernovae) and the “invisible colours” of discharge from objects falling into black holes. 

“When people visit us, they enter what is essentially a working laboratory, and the visitor centre provides a window into that work,” says Anderson, whose team has planned a range of events to celebrate the moon landing anniversary. 

These include lectures and talks, science picnics and rocket lab activities, displays of moon rock and meteorites and, of course, the Bluedot music festival.

“We deliberately set up Bluedot to act like a music festival but look like a science festival,” she adds. “We see no distinction between the two – they are both a fundamental part of human endeavour.”

Some of mankind’s most significant scientific breakthroughs are among the 2,500 objects housed in the Making the Modern World gallery at the Science Museum in London. There’s Henry Bessemer’s original pilot converter first used to turn iron into steel in 1865, Crick and Watson’s double helix model of DNA from 1953 and the command module “Charlie Brown” from the Apollo 10 orbital mission that served as the dress rehearsal for the first moon landing.

Just along the corridor, however, there’s a display of skill and endeavour that encapsulates the wonder of a watching population in July 1969 – a model of the Apollo Saturn V rocket, assembled at the kitchen table by a 12-year-old lad transfixed by the events unfolding in black and white on the family television set. 

“I remember it being tricky to paint straight lines and I hadn’t then learnt how to use masking tape,” says Doug Millard, the deputy keeper, technologies and engineering at the Science Museum, who followed that first attempt at miniature rocketry with a lunar module covered in a chocolate wrapper to make it look “space ready” and a command module made from balsa wood that he admits wasn’t entirely successful.

Today, Millard patrols that very gallery in his role as the Science Museum’s space curator, but he looks back at the moon missions with a tinge of sadness. “I remember the end of Apollo 17 in 1972 as an unhappy time – the realisation that it was the early conclusion of something special with no indication of when anything remotely similar might happen again,” he says. 

“It was, after all, a space race and there could only be one winner. What seemed like the future back then now feels a little like ancient history. Space exploration was viewed cynically for a while. The huge costs and introduction of words like ‘efficiency’ militated against it being worthwhile and the media resorted to unhelpful cliche.” 

Millard is, however, encouraged by the recent rise of private and entrepreneur-led space projects, along with a renewed interest in all things cosmological thanks to the adventures of the British astronaut Tim Peake and popular punditry from the likes of science broadcaster Brian Cox. But he admits that our relative lack of activity in space is mirrored by the stasis of the museum’s own displays.

“The Apollo section has rarely changed. The gallery is old and needs replacing, but a new one would cost £5m at least,” he says, adding that special events and interventions are scheduled for the museum’s Summer of Space programme to mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

Highlights include the UK debut of the original Apollo 10 command module simulator console – on loan from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC – and an overnight sleepover on 20 July that will enable families to experience an astronaut’s life and take part in a lunar rover driving workshop. 

They can also enjoy Millard’s models, just along the corridor from the real J-2 rocket engine, which once powered astronauts out of Earth’s orbit and is now a symbol of more understated times.

“During Apollo 11, mission control asked, ‘Are we go for TLI?’, which was prosaic language for pressing the button in the command module to instruct that mighty engine to fire up what was known as ‘Trans-Lunar Injection’,” says Millard. “Wouldn’t it have been far more impressive and relevant to say, ‘This is Houston, are we ready go to another world?’”