London Science Museum + Blackburn Rovers vs Fulham

For the last weekend of November, I decided to treat myself to a visit to London. First stop was a trip to the London Science Museum.

First up was the Space and Rocketry exhibits. Here we have the J-2 rocket engine, designed by Werner Von Braun at Huntsville Alabama. This engine went on to power the 2nd stage of the Saturn V moon rocket. Five of these engines were used in unison to power the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen-powered stage. Also shown here is Bill Anders space suit, worn aboard Apollo 8. Bill Anders (along with Jim Lovell and Frank Borman) orbited the moon in December 1968. In doing so, they became the first ever humans to leave the Earth's gravitational pull, the first humans ever to orbit another celestial body, and the first humans ever to see who Earth in its entirety. They also became the first ever humans to see 'Earthrise'... and are most remembered for their live TV broadcast back to earth for Christmas 1968 during which they read the opening of the book of Genesis during and Earth rise.













Also on display was the Whittle gas-turbine Jet engine (the world's first), and the Merlin V12 engine, which powered the Spitfire during WW2.



The funny looking contraption is the 'Flying Bedstead', an aircraft powered by a vertically-mounted jet engine with reaction control rockets located at the extremities, designed to simulation the behaviour of the lunar module in Earth's gravity. The commanders of the Apollo mission used this to practise. Neil Armstrong famously crashed and managed to eject safely a few months before he landed on the moon.

Also on display was a scale model of Von Braun's V2 rocket which was used by the Germans during WW2.

The piece de la resistance was the Apollo 10 command module. This spacecraft orbited the moon in early 1969 as a dress rehearsal for the Apollo 11 landing. The astronauts were John Young, Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan. The Apollo 10 Lunar Module descended to within 15 km of the Earth's surface as the final test run of the Lunar-Orbit Rendevous method before the actual landing was attempted a few months later on the Apollo 11 mission.

According to the 2001 Guinness World Records Apollo 10 has the record for the highest speed attained by a manned vehicle: 39,897 km/h (11.08 km/s or 24,791 mph). The speed record was set during the return from the Moon on 26 May 1969. That is why the command module has such a charred appearance, as the ablative heat shield had to dissipate all that energy.



















Also on display was a 1999 McLaren F1 car driven by Mika Hakkinen during the German Grand Prix. He famously crashed out of the lead due to a rear tyre failure.



After that it was onto the aviation exhibit.. feating loads of real-life planes hanging from the rafters. The silver plane is a Hawker P.1127, the protoype for the Harrier Jet, the world's first in-service V/STOL aircraft (Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing)... all made possible due to its unique thrust vectoring engine.



Here are a couple of famous warbirds, the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire.

Finally, a unique plane, the Messerschmidt Me 163 Komet, the world's first (and only) rocket-powered operational fighter.










I also found an interesting exhibit in the Computing section. This is an example of Hewlett Packard's first programmable pocket calculator. I believe that my dad still has the same version at home.

At the end, Bruce, Heather and I spent about two hours at the museum and we only saw about half of it, but we had to leave in order to meet up with Laura and Marius in Fulham for the big game.

Blackburn managed to come from behind twice to secure a 2-2 draw. I didn't take any pictures inside the ground, so these are from Marius!