ESA Exhibit At Local Mall

Two weekends ago when we were looking for twigs for nesting, we stopped by one of the local malls, the Max Center in Bilbao. From the very entrance, there was a space exploration theme decorating the place which I thought was a little odd. But then in a central hallway I saw a very nice exhibit aimed at small children put on by the European Space Agency (that's like NASA on this side of the pond). They had these two big cylinders, one for showing movies in and another that was closed when I was there, and lots of little kid-sized space suits, all under some huge dangling planets. From what I could tell, the kids would put on the space suits, enter the chamber, and learn about space exploration. Seeing all this pleased me immensely, as I am very much in favor of space exploration as a general goal for our species and to push the envelope of our understanding science. Getting kids interested in space travel is extremely important. Very cool. Go ESA!

An awkward panorama of the area shows the cylinders, planets, space suits, and giant inflatable spaceman. See large.

View inside the "cinema". You can also see some space helmets and globes.

I hope I run into another one of these in about five years.