Hong Kong Space Museum

The Hong Kong Space Museum, is well worth a visit - and not only on a rainy day. Opened in 1980, with an area of 1400sq.m/1675sq.yds; it cost the equivalent of £20 million/US $36 million. It has one of the world's largest planetariums (with 300 projectors and a Zeiss computer-controlled stellar projector) and a very interesting permanent exhibition on the history of space research.

The Space Museum is part of the Tsim Sha Tsui Cultural Complex (completed in 1990), which also includes the Museum of History and the Museum of Art.

Round the circular Exhibition Hall are panels illustrating the various stages in the development of mankind. Other panels are devoted to new methods of generating energy, in particular solar energy. In another hall is the original of one of the three Mercury space capsules which orbited three times round the earth in 1962. The flights with the Mercury capsules were carried out between May 1962 and May 1963, paving the way for the Gemini program which made possible the landing on the Moon in 1969.

The Space Theatre (Planetarium) puts on regular shows with representations of the stars visible in different latitudes and explanations (in English through headphones) of the birth of new stars and solar systems and eruptions on the Sun.