Man’s conquest of space is commemorated in an exhibition at the Brno Technical Museum entitled “They Invited Us All to Space”, which opened on January 25th and will run until February 27th, 2022. Photo credit: Brno Technical Museum.
Brno, Feb 12 (BD) – “They Invited Us All to Space” is based around one of the largest collections of astronaut signatures in the world, which currently includes 572 autographs. “The exhibition reminds us that in the entire space era of mankind, which began with Yuri Gagarin in April 1961, 511 men and 68 women from 38 countries have so far gone into orbit,” said Tomáš Přibyl, curator of the Aviation and Space section of Brno Technical Museum.
“Getting the cosmonauts’ signatures for the collection is a never-ending story: a quarter of a century of work, thousands of letters, endless hours of research, dozens and dozens of trips around the world – and a lot of joy, but also disappointment.” explained Přibyl.
The exhibition is complemented by information panels with records from the conquest of space. Visitors will discover the differences between cosmonauts, astronauts and taikonauts, as well as finding out, for example, which spacecraft are currently in orbit or who is currently circling above our heads on two orbital stations.
Visitors will also see unique models of rockets made of matches, created by the modeller Tomáš Korda and loaned from the Museum of Records and Curiosities in Pelhřimov. There are also handprints of cosmonauts. “There are eleven handprints. Among them, we have here seven first representatives of their countries in space. The first Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Slovak and others,” said Pribyl.
Next Sunday, February 20th, Pribyl will give guided tours at the museum, during which he will present various interesting facts about the conquest of space. “They will be at 11am and 3pm. It is necessary to sign up in advance. There is no limit to the capacity and we are ready to add more times in case of high demand,” he added. The exhibition will run until February 27th, 2022.
