'Space (or to give it a more technical term, The Universe) is big. Really Big. It's also full of really surprising things like Babel fish and tea.'
We might not yet have found the Babel fish or, for that matter, the tea, but Douglas Adams was right in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: it is the trivialities of human life in this vast and unfathomable place that help to make it in some way comprehensible.
The Science Museum's newly redeveloped space gallery doesn't tell us whether astronauts drink tea, but it does show us that they drink Coca-Cola, eat scrambled eggs and have rather frightening loo arrangements.
Human stories have an immediate attraction: visitors were photographing each other next to the mock-up of the astronaut, not the X-ray telescope. But the science hasn't been sidelined, and there are some great techie exhibits showcased.
The location of the Exploring Space gallery means it runs the risk of being merely a corridor en route to the technological fleshpot of the Wellcome Wing, but the redeveloped area is spacious, the lighting is dramatic and effective, and it is certainly successful in engaging visitors.
The iconic lunar module, all Blue Peter-style silver foil and sticky tape, is still a real draw, and I watched people divert, linger and then explore the displays further before heading on.
Big questions form the structure of the exhibition, including How far can we go? Can we really live in space? Can we reach for the stars? These questions are used to contextualise and review objects from recent space missions, with the emphasis on the UK's contribution.
The Spacelab 2 X-ray telescope is a fine example. A clunky-looking piece of gear, but housing the most delicate and quite beautiful X-ray masks, it went into space on the Challenger Shuttle in 1985. The way in which it created the first high-energy X-ray images of the centre of our galaxy is clearly and carefully explained.
Once again, it's the human side of the story that brings it to life. We hear about the nail-biting moments and the ups and the downs of the mission through interviews with the University of Birmingham team who designed and built it. These are incorporated into touchscreen interpretation alongside the telescope.
But for me, the star of the show is the full-size model of the Beagle 2 Mars Lander, which has been condemned forever to be the one that didn't make it. Seeing the equipment up close reveals it to be a remarkably elegant piece of engineering, with its oyster-shaped capsule and solar panels designed to open like the petals of a daisy.
Objects like these can often be a struggle to interpret: they are functional pieces of scientific equipment with wires, tubes, circuit boards and the odd bit of Velcro, their names a pantheon of intractable acronyms. Their appearance rarely makes concessions to aesthetics or ease of understanding, even for other scientists.
With these two examples the interpretation generally works well, but several pieces of oddly-shaped metal on display stumped me completely, and I would have liked to see more interpretive links between the text and the exhibits.
The shoebox-sized mass spectrometer in the Beagle 2 Mars Lander is a pretty impressive achievement, so it is a shame you need to know what a mass spectrometer looks like in order to work out which bit it was.
Despite this, the textual interpretation that develops the big questions is clear and thought-provoking. Visitors can delve deeper into some subjects with refreshingly straightforward touchscreens and some great interactives.
My favourite was designing a landing craft: build the heatshield too thin to keep the weight down and it burns up in the methane-rich atmosphere of Titan; scrimp on the parachute and it crash lands on the surface.
Alongside the full-size model of the Huygens Titan probe, this interactive has just enough science, and just enough of the practicalities of working on a space research mission, to be a really effective learning tool.
It's also evident that the interpretation has been written with the intention of encouraging the next generation of space scientists and, indeed, space tourists. We are invited to speculate on what we would make of the experience, and a wall of further questions stimulates debate about the wider themes of space, time, the universe and aliens.
The museum also scores highly with its knowledgeable and entertaining live interpretation. Hearing the story from an astronaut was a popular alternative to reading a label, and he held the attention of 30 or so people, of all ages, for a good half hour.
Space is bafflingly vast, the distances and dimensions involved hard to conceive. An exhibition about space has real potential to wow its audience. I wasn't quite wowed by this one - but then it's not a big-budget high-profile blockbuster. It has more modest ambitions, and achieves them entirely respectably.
The large animation of Earth swarming with hundreds of orbiting satellites, perhaps the one concession to our modern taste for attention-seeking wizardry, is attractive and interesting, but only briefly so. The surrounding technology on display is in many ways more impressive. And on the rather large question of space research budgets the exhibition is remarkably coy.
As the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy continues: 'A race of supreme beings eventually decided to find out the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything.' Of course, the 'supreme beings' are mice, but the story of our own species' efforts to explore what's out there has taken some giant leaps forward in recent years.
Ultimately, this exhibition is optimistic about the future, while its questioning style provokes pertinent and timely thoughts about where space exploration is going.
Liz Hide is the museums development officer at the University of Cambridge
Project data
Cost: £200,000
Main funders: EADS, the British National Space Centre, the Science and Technology Facilities Council
Curators: Doug Millard, Alison Boyle, Rob Skitmore
3D design: Science Museum Design Unit
2D design: Anonymous UK
Lighting: Pegasus
We might not yet have found the Babel fish or, for that matter, the tea, but Douglas Adams was right in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: it is the trivialities of human life in this vast and unfathomable place that help to make it in some way comprehensible.
The Science Museum's newly redeveloped space gallery doesn't tell us whether astronauts drink tea, but it does show us that they drink Coca-Cola, eat scrambled eggs and have rather frightening loo arrangements.
Human stories have an immediate attraction: visitors were photographing each other next to the mock-up of the astronaut, not the X-ray telescope. But the science hasn't been sidelined, and there are some great techie exhibits showcased.
The location of the Exploring Space gallery means it runs the risk of being merely a corridor en route to the technological fleshpot of the Wellcome Wing, but the redeveloped area is spacious, the lighting is dramatic and effective, and it is certainly successful in engaging visitors.
The iconic lunar module, all Blue Peter-style silver foil and sticky tape, is still a real draw, and I watched people divert, linger and then explore the displays further before heading on.
Big questions form the structure of the exhibition, including How far can we go? Can we really live in space? Can we reach for the stars? These questions are used to contextualise and review objects from recent space missions, with the emphasis on the UK's contribution.
The Spacelab 2 X-ray telescope is a fine example. A clunky-looking piece of gear, but housing the most delicate and quite beautiful X-ray masks, it went into space on the Challenger Shuttle in 1985. The way in which it created the first high-energy X-ray images of the centre of our galaxy is clearly and carefully explained.
Once again, it's the human side of the story that brings it to life. We hear about the nail-biting moments and the ups and the downs of the mission through interviews with the University of Birmingham team who designed and built it. These are incorporated into touchscreen interpretation alongside the telescope.
But for me, the star of the show is the full-size model of the Beagle 2 Mars Lander, which has been condemned forever to be the one that didn't make it. Seeing the equipment up close reveals it to be a remarkably elegant piece of engineering, with its oyster-shaped capsule and solar panels designed to open like the petals of a daisy.
Objects like these can often be a struggle to interpret: they are functional pieces of scientific equipment with wires, tubes, circuit boards and the odd bit of Velcro, their names a pantheon of intractable acronyms. Their appearance rarely makes concessions to aesthetics or ease of understanding, even for other scientists.
With these two examples the interpretation generally works well, but several pieces of oddly-shaped metal on display stumped me completely, and I would have liked to see more interpretive links between the text and the exhibits.
The shoebox-sized mass spectrometer in the Beagle 2 Mars Lander is a pretty impressive achievement, so it is a shame you need to know what a mass spectrometer looks like in order to work out which bit it was.
Despite this, the textual interpretation that develops the big questions is clear and thought-provoking. Visitors can delve deeper into some subjects with refreshingly straightforward touchscreens and some great interactives.
My favourite was designing a landing craft: build the heatshield too thin to keep the weight down and it burns up in the methane-rich atmosphere of Titan; scrimp on the parachute and it crash lands on the surface.
Alongside the full-size model of the Huygens Titan probe, this interactive has just enough science, and just enough of the practicalities of working on a space research mission, to be a really effective learning tool.
It's also evident that the interpretation has been written with the intention of encouraging the next generation of space scientists and, indeed, space tourists. We are invited to speculate on what we would make of the experience, and a wall of further questions stimulates debate about the wider themes of space, time, the universe and aliens.
The museum also scores highly with its knowledgeable and entertaining live interpretation. Hearing the story from an astronaut was a popular alternative to reading a label, and he held the attention of 30 or so people, of all ages, for a good half hour.
Space is bafflingly vast, the distances and dimensions involved hard to conceive. An exhibition about space has real potential to wow its audience. I wasn't quite wowed by this one - but then it's not a big-budget high-profile blockbuster. It has more modest ambitions, and achieves them entirely respectably.
The large animation of Earth swarming with hundreds of orbiting satellites, perhaps the one concession to our modern taste for attention-seeking wizardry, is attractive and interesting, but only briefly so. The surrounding technology on display is in many ways more impressive. And on the rather large question of space research budgets the exhibition is remarkably coy.
As the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy continues: 'A race of supreme beings eventually decided to find out the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything.' Of course, the 'supreme beings' are mice, but the story of our own species' efforts to explore what's out there has taken some giant leaps forward in recent years.
Ultimately, this exhibition is optimistic about the future, while its questioning style provokes pertinent and timely thoughts about where space exploration is going.
Liz Hide is the museums development officer at the University of Cambridge
Project data
Cost: £200,000
Main funders: EADS, the British National Space Centre, the Science and Technology Facilities Council
Curators: Doug Millard, Alison Boyle, Rob Skitmore
3D design: Science Museum Design Unit
2D design: Anonymous UK
Lighting: Pegasus
