REVIEW: ASTRONIGHTS AT THE SCIENCE MUSEUM
Mind-blowing Wonders of Science and Space Combine with the Thrill of a Sleepover at this Iconic Museum
Astronights brings to life the mind-blowing wonders of science and space for children (and adults) combined with the thrill of a sleepover at the iconic Science Museum, for an extraordinary family adventure.
I head to Kensington's Science Museum with my seven-year-old daughter for a night of memories - and facts about pooing and weeing in space - that neither of us will ever forget.
The nights are held on key dates each month and unsurprisingly, they are popular and a queue of excited campers snakes around the building - it feels like we’re at the gates to Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, as we wait for the doors to open at 6.45pm.
Arrival
The staff move the queues along quickly - our VIP tickets fast-track us through, and mean that we have airbeds and reserved spaces in the sleeping gallery; free Tempur pillows - a source of great excitement for my daughter - a dedicated VIP usher, special breakfast options - plus very welcome hot drink options for sleepy adults - as well as gifts, like astronaut food and Astronights iron-on badges.
We're arranged into our groups and provided corresponding pin badges - we are Purple Inventors. We’re asked to eat dinner before and bring a bag of snacks for later, which are dropped off and we’re led to our sleeping gallery.
Sleeping areas are set up throughout the sprawling museum. Some doze beneath giant moons and rockets and we sleep in the world’s largest collection of medical galleries, presided over by Marc Quinn's 3.5 metre tall sculpture of Zombie Boy, and surrounded by objects including a rare iron lung, the first stethoscope and first MRI scanner.
“Just getting comfy in my bedroom” my daughter announces, as she cheerfully kicks off her shoes and skips past dissected bums and skeletons to perform an endoscopy down a simulated upper digestive tract - one of many interactive exhibits in our gallery/bedroom.
We find our designated airbeds awaiting us beside an interactive X-Ray simulation, and my daughter’s excitement verges on hysteria, as she leaps from our bed to the hands-on activities in our room.
Astronights Activities
Once we’ve dropped off our bags and set up our beds, we’re taken downstairs to the Making the Modern World Gallery, for our group safety briefing, beneath spitfires, hot air balloons and helicopters.
The crowd is separated into our different groups and dispatched to various activities.
Our Purple Inventors remain, for a child-thrillingly disgusting and engaging workshop about how astronauts wee and poo in space.
My daughter’s face is like Christmas morning when our brilliant “explainer" reveals that astronauts drink their own sweat and wee - no water is wasted in space. She is thrilled when he demonstrates this, by turning a jug of his own wee into water, before glugging it down. With the help of children from our group, he transforms a bowl of food into poo, using bottles of saliva and enzymes.
During the experiment, we are taken on a tour of the digestive process on screen. A highlight for my daughter is being asked to loudly chant “rectum!” before he gives us a graphic rectum tour. And her belly laughs are unbridled when he samples some “poo", and then dramatically reaches for water to clean his mouth, but "accidentally” drinks the jug of pure wee.
All of these facts are forever etched in her brain, from the fizzy drinks ban in space to prevent “bomits” - delightul, wet space burps - to zero gravity poos.
After a pit stop at the cafe for the snacks we dropped off earlier, we’re led to our next activity inside Wonderlab’s futuristic, red spacecaft, containing a 120 seat theatre.