Gateway to Space, the exhibition bringing man's adventure in space to the Udine Exhibition Centre for the first time in Europe, closed with record numbers: over 50000 visitors in four months.
The public admired the amazing collection of memorabilia, reproductions of rockets, space stations, clothing and accessories, meteorite particles and much more from the Nasa Space & Rocket Centrea unique opportunity to feel part of the most incredible journey ever undertaken by man, the conquest of the Moon.
It was a very successful event, already exceeding 30,000 people at the beginning of August, which convinced the organisers to postpone the closing of the exhibition.
Lots of people chose to visit Gateway to Space throughout the past month, many of them even over the August bank holiday weekend, including from outside the region and from neighbouring Austria, Slovenia and Croatia.
And no wonder, given the sensational nature of the exhibits, a comprehensive excursus starting with the first imaginary visions of Jules Verne, who wrote the book 'From the Earth to the Moon' in 1865, and moving on to Wernher von Braun, a German scientist and engineer naturalised in the United States, who is considered to be the progenitor of the American space programme. The exhibition continued with a section devoted to the space race, on both the American and Soviet sides, where the different approaches of the two superpowers at the time were also explored. The heart of the exhibition was then in the large central hall, where magnificent and absolutely fascinating pieces could be admired up close.
This section featured elements of the Sojuz spacecraft and the Soviet-backed Mir space station, elements of the International Space Station, with the Destiny laboratory that the public was able to walk through, the faithful reproduction of the Saturn V lunar rocket, used to launch the conquest to the Moon, and the cockpit of the Space Shuttle. Gateway to Space is a journey from the past to the future, with an in-depth look at the Orion project and the presence of the module designed to one day take man to Mars. Among the latest arrivals is also the Lunar Rover Vehicle, the electric vehicle used by the astronauts of the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions to move easily on the lunar soil. The success of Gateway to Space is also due to the strong interactive component of the exhibition, a perfect example of "edutainment", capable of educating and entertaining. Thanks to the four types of simulators, visitors were able to experience different situations of space travel: piloting an F18 fighter jet, landing a Space Shuttle, experiencing the disorientation of a whirlwind re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere with the Multi AxisTrainer, and finally experiencing a flight in a lunar capsule, in zero gravity with the 5 Degrees of Freedom. Gateway to Space - A Memorable Adventure was brought to Europe for the first time by Barley Arts and Azalea Promotion, in collaboration with Udine and Gorizia Fiere.
