Powerhouse Museum exhibition gets up close and personal with our space neighbour, the moon

A spectacular full moon has “risen” inside the Powerhouse at Ultimo. But it won’t eclipse the rest of the museum’s exhibition commemorating the first lunar landing.

Curator Dr Sarah Reeves at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, with Luke Jerram's artwork, Museum of the Moon. Picture: supplied

A spectacular full moon has “risen” inside the Powerhouse at Ultimo. But the 7m latex inflatable won’t eclipse the rest of the museum’s exhibition commemorating the first lunar landing 50 years ago on July 21.

The “moon”, suspended in the museum’s Turbine Hall, is by UK artist Luke Jerram and has toured the world since 2016.

Called Museum Of The Moon, it glows from within and is a tour de force of both science and art that perfectly complements the Powerhouse’s Apollo 11 exhibition, says curator Dr Sarah Reeves.

“Museum Of The Moon is a moment of contemplation and awe and wonder within the exhibition,” Dr Reeves says.

“Luke has used the latest high-resolution NASA imagery of the surface, taken by some of the many spacecraft that are orbiting around it and photographing the surface constantly.

“Every centimetre on the surface (of Jerram’s work) is equal to five kilometres on the real moon.”

Jerram called his work Museum Of The Moon because it stimulates the gathering of stories, science and folklore wherever in the world it is presented.

UK artist Luke Jerram’s mesmerising Museum of the Moon, pictured when it was shown at Cork Midsummer Festival. Picture: supplied

The Apollo 11 exhibition will remind visitors of all the brilliant minds that allowed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to step on to that part of the moon, known as the Sea of Tranquillity, all those years ago.

African-American mathematician Katherine Johnson worked for NASA and calculated the launch and landing trajectories so crucial to the Apollo 11 mission.

And NASA’s Margaret Hamilton led the team that developed the on-board flight software for the Apollo space program.

“It was her code that successfully avoided an aborted mission moments before the (moon) landing,” Dr Reeves says.

Another of the curator’s favourite exhibits is the Apollo feed horn which sat on top of the Parkes radio telescope in NSW during the 1969 moon landing.

“It was part of the Parkes telescope that received the moon images and then sent them down to the control room below and on to Sydney for broadcast to Australia and the rest of the world,” Dr Reeves says.

With a multitude of 1960s objects from souvenirs to toys and items of fashion, the Powerhouse exhibition places the moon landing in context from social, political and science perspectives.

There’s a replica of the Friendship 7 spacecraft that carried the first American into orbit.

Another highlight is a virtual reality experience created by the Powerhouse and the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research at the University of NSW.

Using 3D mapping data taken by the Smithsonian Institution in the US, the VR experience replicates the feeling of being in Apollo 11 command module, Columbia.

During the 1969 moon mission, the crew members (the third was Michael Collins) spent most of their time in the Columbia module.

Apollo 11, Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo; from Saturday until January 27, 2020, exhibition ticket included in general admission ($15, free for children aged 16 and under), maas.museum