I’ve always loved anything to do with outer space.

I used to love going to the Edmonton Space and Science Center when I was a kid. Does that place still exist? Probably does, but is totally different from what I remember.

I remember walking from the parking lot and seeing the names of the planets embedded in the concrete to show the relative distances of the planets from the sun.

After getting inside we would go to the ground level display cases, where I faintly remember a styrofoam ball floating on a jet of air, and some metal filings on an electromagnet. What was that all about?

Soon we would go to the upper level where the real cool stuff was. We’d walk up that ramp which ran along side the wall, and curved as it went. I remember a big picture of a fiery sun on the wall, which you’d see after turning the corner into the large room from the ramp. It was always dark in that big room.

There was some kind of weight scale which told me how much I’d weigh on Jupiter. I also remember planets hanging from the ceiling on wires. Was the floor slanted too? Hmm.

Then there was that misleadingly “cool” video game where you had to successfully land the Moon-Lander on the Moon. I would legitimately try to land it the first couple of times, until I realized it was impossible to succeed without actually caring. Then I’d just crash it on purpose. I’d see how fast I could crash it, or how many times I could make it zip across the screen, over and over, before I crashed it. Then I’d just get bored and walk away, or stand and watch the kid, who was waiting to play after me, do the exact same thing I just did.

We would then walk down that hall of mirrors. The next room had a life-sized model of the “Canadarm” hanging from the ceiling. I always thought that was a dumb name. And, there was a life-sized frontal picture of the space shuttle on the wall too. Very, very cool.

There were also two theaters. One had that gigantic screen at the front. It was called the Imax. That one was pretty cool. I remember watching movies of the shuttle in orbit and feeling like I was really there.

There was also that other theater which had a strange projector in the middle of the room which would rise up from under the floor. That projector would shine up onto a dome shaped screen all above us.

Once, I went to a Guns ‘N Roses laser show at that theater when I was in high school. Me and a two of my buddies thought it would be really cool to go. The other G n R fans that showed up were just some old biker guys. All six of us were wearing Guns ‘N Roses t-shirts. It was a very low point in my life.

Anyways, the only people who may even be able to relate to this blog post are those who grew up in Edmonton in the ’80’s, and were misguided fans of Guns ‘N Roses in the ’90’s.

To finish off I’ll give you some really awesome photos taken by the Hubble Telescope.