On 18 December, Barcelona science museum CosmoCaixa inaugurates a new exhibition entitled ‘Tintin and the moon’, which not only looks at the intrepid reporter’s trip into space but also marks the 50th anniversary in July 1969 of the first manned landing on the moon.
The museum combines science and comics to look at our enduring desire to explore space, in particular from the point in 1609 when Galileu saw the moon through a telescope that he’d made himself, and what it took for the dream to finally become reality when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin carried out their historic moonwalk.
The exhibition looks in detail at the Apollo 11 mission, and the scientific and technological achievements that made it possible. It also explains what we know to date about the natural satellite, and reveals the differences between going to the moon today and 50 years ago.
The actual trip is compared to Tintin’s lunar journey, which he made over 15 years earlier before Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins (who stayed on board the command module), courtesy of author Hergé.
Tintin started his voyage in the weekly serial Destination Moon, published in 1950, and finally reached his objective in 1953. The latter story was published as a book in 1954, and translated into English in 1959.
When: 18 December until Spring 2019
Where: Cosmocaixa, Isaac Newton, 6
More info: cosmocaixa.es