Around Town

For Dr Chris Welch, principal lecturer in astronautics and space systems at Kingston University, one exhibit in the Museum of Childhood’s new show ‘Space Age’ has particular personal resonance. ‘The space suit,’ he says. ‘When all is said and done I’d like to be an astronaut. In fact I applied to be an astronaut about 15 years ago and got a reasonable distance through the process – I got to the final 20, but unfortunately didn’t get to go into space; the place [to go the the Mir space station in 1991] went to Helen Charman. So I look at the space suit and think, if things had been different, I’d have worn one of those.’ Feature continues

Not many people take their childhood love of rockets and laserbeam adventure as far as Dr Welch, but as ‘Space Age’ shows, children’s interest in space is as old as the space race itself, which started 50 years ago with the launch of the first Russian sputnik. Alongside the usual robot toys, TV show merchandise and enough ‘Star Wars’ memorabilia to make a collector weep with envy, the exhibition also showcases the cultural artefacts which came under the spell of the ‘final frontier’ – lunar wallpaper designed by Michael Clark in 1964, fabric designs by Eddie Squires, Pierre Cardin’s ‘cosmic’ fashion collections and gadgets like the gravity-defying Fisher Space Pen.

First edition comic

Welch, who is ‘scientist in residence’ at the exhibition, admits that an early interest in the Eagle comic was what inspired him to study space professionally. ‘It’s probably a bit of a cliché but basically Dan Dare made me what I am,’ he says. ‘I’ve even got a copy of a front cover from the Eagle on the wall in my office. And then the moon landing happened when I was about ten years old and that had an effect on me too. Then there was Countdown comic, very much a product of the space age – a mixture of science fiction with a lot of space fact as well. I read a lot of science fiction in my youth.’

Of course the innocent tales of galactic derring-do which characterised the 1950s soon gave way to something altogether raunchier in the 1960s. ‘Dan Dare was very much an RAF officer translated into space,’ says Welch. ‘That was all swept away. I do remember seeing the posters for “Barbarella” when I was a kid and not really being able to see what the link was between this woman and space.’

If each era gets the spacemen it deserves, it’s interesting to ponder the implications of our current sci-fi poster boy, ‘Doctor Who’. For Welch, he’s the perfect scientist-as-hero: ‘He travels through dimensions and space and there’s scope for all manner of rockets and aliens, but he achieves what he does not only through courage but through a prodigious knowledge of every field of science, both real and imaginary. But interestingly, although he’s a hero, “Doctor Who” has its share of scientists as villains as well – there’s the idea of the scientist meddling with things we should really leave alone.’

The Doctor has achieved another great coup: proving that girls can be just as interested as boys in a bit of interstellar adventure. Welch cites the example of his daughter, who has posters of David Tennant on her wall (though whether she would display his picture if he wasn’t quite so hunky is perhaps another question). ‘The first Doctor back in the ’60s was an elderly figure, and each successive Doctor has got younger. I’ve sometimes wondered if the BBC would ever take the step of reincarnating the Doctor as a woman. A female Doctor with male assistants would be quite different.’

The world may not quite be ready to go that far, but one important milestone has been reached in our ongoing giant leap for mankind: access to space for ordinary people. Or at any rate, access for the kind of ordinary people who are extraordinarily wealthy: ‘If you’ve got $100,000 you can go into space with Richard Branson,’ says Welch, who has clearly looked into it. ‘If you’ve got $20 million you can go to the International Space Station, and in about five years time for $100 million they should be able to take you on a trip round the moon.

So there you go. We’re talking fairly silly money, but I’m pleased that space is becoming democratised. In the past it was viewed as the domain only of the scientist and the engineer and because it’s been so difficult to get there no one else has been able to do it. Now we’re seeing it opening up, we’re seeing a lot more private enterprise getting involved, and I think that’s going to make quite a difference in the next
50 years.’

So is he still hankering to don that space suit if he had the chance? ‘Oh yes. If I had the money, I’d do it tomorrow.’

‘Space Age: Exploration, Design and Popular Culture’ is at the V&A Museum of Childhood from Nov 24-Apr 6 2008. Cambridge Heath Rd, E2 (020 8980 2415/www.museumofchildhood) Bethnal Green tube.