On the Road: National Space Centre at Camp Bestival

It was a grey, rainy afternoon in Dorset as our Education van pulled into the grounds of Camp Bestival, along with hundreds of other artists and traders. None of us were quite sure what to expect from the weekend.

Five days later, on an equally grey day, our team of six was packing up. But in between we had three gloriously sunny days filled with rocket building, mission patch designing, countless conversations about space, and three interactive performances of our Universal Orchestra. What a truly fun experience!

Camp Bestival is a family-friendly festival held in the stunning grounds of Lulworth Castle on the south coast. This year the theme was Outer Space, which was enough to lure us away from Leicestershire for a few days. How wonderful to bring science into a mainstream festival and celebrate this space buzz that the UK has been feeling ever since Tim Peake launched in December 2015.

We jumped at the opportunity to put the National Space Centre on the road and reach a different audience. And how big that audience was! It’s estimated that 35,000 people turned up to Camp Bestival this year.

Here are our weekend highlights:

Ask Us About Space

The best part of the weekend was all the diverse, thoughtful, exciting conversations about space. So many people – young and old – peppered us with their space questions and we loved it! We answered some questions on our rocket chalk board, and many more in spontaneous conversations while building rockets and designing mission patches.

My favourite question was from a young lad who wanted to know how long it would take to get to Neptune if you were traveling at Mach 2 (ie twice the speed of sound). What an amazingly specific question! I had to break out the calculator and dimensional analysis for this one, using the speed of sound (340 meters a second) and the distance to Neptune (2.7 billion miles at its closest). Turns out it will take about 201 years.

I also loved talking about what’s in a black hole, how the rings of Saturn formed, aliens in the universe, and fun mnemonics for the order planets.

Aim for the Moon – Rocket Building and Launching

Our ever-popular rocket launcher was in action again this weekend. Visitors built their own paper rocket complete with nose cone, fins, and custom ‘paint’ design, then competed to launch their rocket to the Moon.

The aim was to land in a new part of the Moon, separate from the Apollo landings. Only a handful of people managed to get their rocket through the hole in the Moon each day and it all came down to precise aim and a true-flying rocket build.

Design Your Own Mission Patch

Every astronaut that goes into space needs a mission patch. Something to reflect their mission goals, crew mates, and activities in space. The first mission patch was worn by the first woman in space, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, although it was hidden from view, and they’ve been a hallmark ever since. Tim Peake’s Principia mission patch was designed in a competition won by a 13-year-old and features a Soyuz rocket, a falling apple representing Newton’s laws of motion and gravity, and the Earth from orbit.

We challenged festival goers to design mission patches for their own space mission, and they did so with relish. Our Education presenter, Katie, especially loved seeing the variety of designs and hearing the backstories of each patch.

At the end, we used our badge maker to turn the patches into wearable badges. Some of the younger children loved watching this process even more than the actual colouring!

Universal Orchestra

Our grand finale each day was an interactive performance telling the tale of the creation of the universe, from Big Bang to the formation of the Earth. ‘Universal Orchestra’ was devised by Kierann, our lovely National Space Academy Project Manager and newly-minted Conductor of the Universe.

With a big help from the audience, Kierann re-enacted the formation of the universe through music and song (if you consider dozens of kazoos, slide whistles, and tambourines all going off at once as music). She took us from an exploding point of singularity through the inflation of the universe, matter and antimatter annihilation, and the creation of the first atoms, all the way to the formation of stars, galaxies, and our own Solar System.

Quite the whirlwind tour for a half-hour performance!