Home Planet

Beginnings

Back in 2020, with the help of Severn Trent, Leicester & Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership, Midlands Engine, the Foyle Foundation, The Wolfson Foundation, and the Kirby Laing Foundation, the National Space Centre began to develop a brand new exhibition. Our aim was to replace the Orbiting Earth gallery. Orbiting Earth had been one of the original parts of the National Space Centre – dating back to 2001 – but, to be honest, I never really bonded with it. It felt like a half-gallery. A space that visitors walked through without really getting much from it. Thanks to the support of our funders, we had a chance to change that.

In the beginning, there were only a handful of people working on the project. In fact, for a time, the Head of Exhibitions was working in almost complete isolation. Beginning a project like this during the Covid-19 pandemic was a little tricky. Thankfully, as the months went on, more people joined the project. However, the core idea for our new gallery sits on one person’s shoulders. Kevin Yates – Head of Exhibitions – had the job of coming up with the overall concept. He settled on a single statement, summing up our intentions:

‘The exhibition will explore how satellite data is vital for managing our relationship with the Atmosphere, Oceans, and Land of our home in space.’

The end of the beginning

I began work on the project shortly after Kevin, fortunate in that a good idea was already emerging. The next step was to think about the space we had to build in and how to tell our story.

It’s worth noting that Home Planet – as the gallery would go on to be called – is not simply a climate change story. It was clear to us that environmental issues would be at the heart of the exhibition, but it was important that we kept satellites front and centre too...

The Team

As we started to come up with ideas for how to tell the story, it was time to broaden our team to make the most of the unique skills that we are lucky to have at the National Space Centre.

We designed some basic layouts in 3D modelling software, so that we could show people what was in our minds. We met with representatives from pretty much every department of the Centre, as well as experts from the National Centre of Earth Observation, University of Leicester, Natural Environment Research Council, Airbus, and Severn Trent. As you might imagine, some fantastic ideas came from these conversations.

Speaking to so many people also helped us to make sure that our ideas were sound – were they practically possible? Were they simply mad? Sometimes, yes. But mostly we seemed to be barking up the right tree. In fact, at one point we were thinking of putting an actual tree into the exhibition – but that idea fell by the wayside!

Contractors

Ideas are all very well but, at some point, you actually have to build something! We had a good idea of what we wanted to build, but we needed to get into how exactly to do so. This is where contractors come in.

Working with contractors comes with challenges, but if you find good ones then anything is possible. Our main contractor on the project was The Workhaus, an exhibition design and build company that we worked with previously on the Britain’s Space Race gallery, which opened in 2019.

The Workhaus ripped out our old exhibition and built the structures and theming within the new gallery. Wherever possible, we even recycled parts of the old exhibition to use in the new exhibition. In a first for The Workhaus, we tasked them with creating cloud lighting – giant light-up clouds that are part of the overall immersive storytelling, which required their team to become experts at making clouds ‘more fluffy’.

Trust

Trust was a key factor in another bespoke part of the exhibition – our Earth Marble Run. Not something you can pop down to the shops for, but there are people out there who make such things. Fortunately.

There is a museum in Stratford-upon-Avon called the Mechanical Art & Design Museum – or the MAD Museum, for short. I had a great day out there a few years ago and I would heartily recommend it. Another reason I love it though, is that they have a section on their website that lists the creative types that they use to make all the fancy contraptions that you can see at MAD – including marble runs. Just what we needed, and their catalogue of marble artists led us to Scotland and to David Williams.

David showed us some of his work, capturing our imagination with his wondrous contraptions. He showed us remotely, as travelling to Scotland during the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t really an option!

Once again trusting that we’d found the right person was a big factor. We explained what we wanted our marble run to do, but gave David creative freedom to meet the brief.

In short, we asked him to create one boring marble run and one exciting marble run. If visitors make a positive pledge then they get the exciting run – but choose poorly and you get the boring one.

Behind the Scenes

Whilst the gallery was starting to take shape, a lot of work was going on behind the scenes to create the content that would be used to tell the Home Planet story. Experts at Airbus and the National Centre for Earth Observation helped us to create stories for an interactive that uses incredible satellite imagery to reveal how Earth is changing. Stories like seeing penguin colonies from space and studying their movements by studying their ‘movements’, i.e. looking at where their guano (penguin poo) is. Penguin poo from space, I mean come on, how good is that!

Meanwhile, our Design team took my abysmal concept drawings for infographics and turned them into fantastic animated displays. These infographics – displayed on a giant interactive wall – are designed to surprise people, but are also likely to leave visitors with questions. So we created an interactive that would allow people to have those questions answered by experts. This part of the project involved greenscreen filming with Space Centre staff, a TV presenter, and Earth observation scientists. It also led to the creation of ‘Charlie’ – a fizzy drink bottle that we made a face for to help some of the experts with where to look when talking into the camera. That was an odd moment, to be honest.

Beginning of the End

As the months ticked by – or perhaps that should be, flew by – it was brilliant to see things that we’d only ever imagined starting to take shape.

A key moment for me was seeing the Great Wave artwork begin to arrive on site. Lots of pieces of rubbish, but somehow, once combined, Michelle’s vision was clear for all to see. As Michelle and her team installed the artwork on the wall, the powerful message behind the work became clearer and clearer.

The arrival of the Earth Marble Run in the back of a van was another important day for the project. It was the first real view we’d had. Looking closely, I remember thinking that I still wasn’t actually sure I understood how it worked! My concerns were put to rest a few minutes later though, once we had it running. The little Earth marble travelled on its journey, much to the delight of a handful of onlookers who had stopped their work to witness the contraption running for the first time.

Pride

When a gallery is completed there comes a time when you get to share it with visitors and staff alike. There’s nothing quite like that moment when you first allow people in to experience what’s been made. We watched on with fingers crossed when a representative from Severn Trent made the very first pledge on our Earth Marble Run – thankfully, she selected ‘Yes’ otherwise it could have been a big disappointment for everyone watching!

Sharing the beauty of our Home Planet was a key part of our message, as we want people to take away the idea that Earth is unique and we need to look after it better – and that satellites help us to do that.

To help reinforce this message, the gallery boasts a large interactive projection floor, which cycles through different biospheres. It has been brilliant watching our first few visitors hopping across stepping stones, balancing on logs, and watching fish swim away from them as they splash through a projected woodland stream. I’ve also witnessed children fleeing in panic from an octopus swimming through a coral reef scene – perhaps the projection is a little too realistic!?