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Through the Centuries
More than 3 500 years ago the Chinese mapped the heavens, paving the way for today's sophisticated space exploration. And at Hong Kong's Space Museum, opened in 1980 at a cost of $60 million, the odyssey through space spans the centuries- old Chinese discoveries of the universe and the historic voyage of the American space shuttle Columbia. The 8 000-square-metre museum the first stage of a massive cultural complex project planned by the Urban Council on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront consists of a 316-seat Space Theatre, a large exhibition hall, a Hall of Solar Sciences, lecture hall and an astronomy bookshop. The Space Theatre, with a 23-metre dome-shaped screen, is among the largest in the world. Its sophis- ticated equipment includes a multi-lens Planetarium projector, a 70 mm Omnimax projector and some 300 special effects pro- jectors. The Hall of Solar Sciences, which opened early in 1981, features a solar tele- scope on the roof of the museum. The sun can be observed directly or recorded on film and videotaped for screening in the hall below. Part of the exhibition hall is devoted to Chinese astrology - diagrams of the galaxy, its observation of the 1054 AD supernova, a water clock and a model of the Peking Observatory - all of which is balanced by illustrations and models of the Great Pyramid, Nazca Plain of Peru and Stonehenge. Also displayed is the Mercury space capsule, an astronaut's space suit, moon rock, a set of cameras used by astronauts as well as photographs and models of rocket development and com- munications and weather satellites.
Previous page: A fish-eye look at the galaxy as seen from Earth. Left: Stone- henge, where the moon was first scienti- fically observed in the western world in 1800-1400 BC; symbolic pattern of the birth, life and death of a star; the space shuttle, an historic achievement in 1981.