Lucerne museum shows “Life in Space”

The Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne has launched a new space exhibition, which includes information about the Russian space station Mir and many other issues related to life and research in space.

The Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne has launched a new space exhibition, which includes information about the Russian space station Mir and many other issues related to life and research in space.

The exhibition is entitled “Life in Space” and its launch coincided with the 30th anniversary of man’s first landing on the Moon.

Apart from a section devoted to weightlessness and a full-scale model of the European Columbus research station, the museum also offers its visitors an Imax cinema movie about Mir.

“Mission to Mir” was shot during a joint mission by Russian cosmonauts and United States astronauts.

Norman Thagard, one of several astronauts who worked aboard Mir, said watching the movie was the next best thing to actually having been on board the station.

“It was just like that. I enjoyed the movie, but it was also somewhat emotional for me…it reminds you of things you were doing and what you were feeling at the time,” he said, speaking after the first screening of the movie in Switzerland.

Thagard spent 115 days on board Mir and the movie shows the crew working, exercising, eating, sleeping — and generally having a good time together.

“We had trained together for almost a year, so we already knew each other pretty well, and I really felt that we got closer as the flight went along,” he said.

The exhibition is in a part of the museum called Cosmorama, which was inaugurated in 1972. It explains how science and industry benefit from space exploration and displays such items as spacesuits worn in orbit or examples of food rations.

Caviar, incidentally, was included in the cosmonauts’ food kit, while cans of scrambled eggs, tomato ketchup and strawberries were provided for the Americans.


Written by SRI staff.