To boldly go....

I'm ashamed to admit that I laughed when my wife told me that we were going on a family visit to the UK National Space Centre. I wasn't aware that my fellow countrymen had made a particularly substantial contribution to space exploration thus far, and I therefore wasn't sure that there'd be much to see. As it happens I was entirely wrong - there was loads to see, including rockets and bits of rockets, a host of interactive exhibits, and an excellent film show in the 360 degree space theatre on site. Definitely worth a visit, and I'll certainly return at some point.

We had an ulterior motive for our trip that day, however - my wife discovered that the UK Brickish Association would be exhibiting there that day, and knowing my love of LEGO, thought that it would therefore be a particularly good day to visit. What a top wife ! Having attended the Great Western LEGO Show at STEAM a couple of weeks ago, which is the Brickish Association's largest annual display, I was expecting something on a much smaller scale, so was pleasantly surprised by how many models there were to see.

Entitled "Hay Carts to the High Frontier" and covering transportation from prehistoric times to the distant future, the exhibition featured a pleasing mixture of 'official' LEGO sets and great MOCs, and I figured that today's posting would be a great way to give some of my favourites a bit more exposure. Click on the pics to enlarge, and please excuse my amateurish photography.

 

Having raved about Ed Diment's magnificent USS Intrepid MOC on this blog a couple of weeks ago, I was delighted to discover that a number of his other creations were on show. "Concorde" (above) and the "Red Bull Air Racer" (below) were just 2 of his models on view.

Ed and long-time collaborator Ralph Savelsberg were responsible for the huge and awesome "Carl Sagan" space station, and also the "Duesenberg" and "Pink Cadillac" (all shown below)

Peter Reid, meanwhile, was showing off some of his amazing Neo Classic Space creations, inspired by the Space sets of the late 1970s and early 1980s (Set 928 Galaxy Explorer in fact remains one of my favourite ever sets). Shown below is his "Marauder" ship, which I'm afraid my photograph doesn't really do justice to at all - the level of detail and greebling on the surface is truly extraordinary. I really will have to devote some time on this blog to the original classic space sets at some point as they are truly iconic and provide me with some of my fondest childhood LEGO building memories, so watch this space.

Meanwhile, Stuart Crawshaw's colossal "Rocket Base" (below left) didn't look too out of place in the company of some of the actual National Space Centre exhibits (below right)...... Interesting that the (LEGO) rocket was called LL483, another reference to the Classic Space era where the ships also had an "LL" designation (or maybe I'm just over-interpreting) 

The combination of some excellent LEGO creations and the interesting National Space Centre exhibits made for a really good day out. Apologies to all those builders whose superb creations I didn't feature - other MOCs such as Andrew Danieli's magnificent "Ave Caesar" arena and a glorious paddle steamer were also on display, as well as a number of smaller, quirky MOCs such as E.T. and Danger Mouse's flying car. Thanks to all the friendly builders for their hard work, and also for being good sports and tolerating my embarrassing boyish enthusiasm and stupid questions with good grace....