The Hall of Space in Gujarat Science City is a minds-on exhibit capturing the imagination of the visiting public and creating an emotional involvement with the help of working models, computer multi-media, multi-screen panoramic projection, animatronics, motion simulator, event simulator and interactive quiz. The Hall presents the visitors a simulated experience of a journey through the Solar System and a thrilling exposure to the big question on life in outer space - are we alone in this vast Universe?

1) Space Exploration
Since the launching of Sputnik in 1958, human imagination soared high about the outer space within and outside the solar system. Interactive exhibits, video clippings, and computer multimedia present a well-knit story of missions to the neighboring celestial bodies like the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars, and the gas giants like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

 

2) India in Space
Starting from launching of Aryabhata with the help of a foreign launch vehicle, India has come a long way to place her communication satellite with the help of her own Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSL V), or to place her remote sensing satellites with the help of her own Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSL V). Computer multi-media supported by models of lndian satellites and launch vehicles reveal a fascinating story of lndia's self-reliance in communication, television transmission, weather forecasting and remote sensing.

 

3) India's Moon Mission
India will soon send a Chandrayaan, or Vehicle to the Moon. This will orbit round the Moon as an artificial satellite to our only natural satellite and carry out missions of remote sensing on the Moon. Can we find some resources that would help us in terraforming the Moon and ultimately make it possible to establish a colony there? A futuristic exhibit simulating the launching of Chandrayaan, moving to outer orbits with gravity assist, shooting out in figure 8 configuration, orbiting round the Moon and coming down closure and closure will kindle our imagination.

4) Mission to Mars
In the Hall of Space, a motion simulator takes the visitors to a journey through the solar system looking back at the tiny blue dot, our home planet, from the Oort , Cloud, going out of the solar system and experiencing the whirlpool motion near a black hole and finally returning back and landing on the Mars. Thereafter an event simulator takes the visitors inside a Mars capsule wherein they perform experiments which one day the scientists will perform on the Martian soil in search of oxygen, water, fossils or some form of life, now existing or extinct in the distant past.

5) Solar System Interactive
An excellent performance of animatronics, in which Mia Fuski and his robot assistant will introduce the entire solar system, to the audience, in a theatrical environment. Not only the commonly known planets and their satellites, but other members of the solar family, including the asteroids, meteors, newly emerging bodies in Kuiper's Belt, and visitors from the Oort Cloud, all take part in the demonstration in a story format on the pre-conditions of life. Here is the place you learn why Pluto has recently been demoted to the status of a dwarf planet.

 

6) Life in Outer Space
Are we alone in this vast Universe? A seven-screen panoramic projection answers this big question. The projection analyses the prerequisites of life and explains how recent space probes have drawn a blank on other planets and satellites in the solar system. It goes on analyzing the possibilities of finding life in outer space in the Milky Way or in other galaxies, problems of transportation and communication, the concept of photon rocket and hyperspace and finally pointing out that so far life is found to be an unique experiment of nature which needs to be protected on this planet by all means.

7) Space Communication and Internet:
Hands-on exhibits demonstrate how the limitations of point7to-point communication and ionospheres reflection was overcome by satellite communication, which increased the range and channels of telephone communication, made global television transmission possible, and brought in the-benefits of cellular phone to the reach of the common people. The internet, opened a wide vista of knowledge with a virtual library at our desk, and also gave us ready access to information through e-education, e¬-commerce, e-governance, and so on.

 

8) Space Quiz:
This is a theatre in which persons can take part in an open-house quiz competition. The computer, loaded with a large question bank, throws questions one after another at random and participants will have to press the correct answer button. Persons, first pressing the correct answer button, will score marks, At the end of the game the result would be announced along with all correct answers. All questions may be answered correctly if one has studied the exhibits in the Hall of Space carefully.