Venue: National Space Centre (England)
Address: Exploration Drive, Leicester LE4 5NS
Town: Belgrave, GB

The National Space Centre is a museum and educational resource covering the fields of space science and astronomy, along with a space research programme in partnership with the University of Leicester. It is located on the north side of the city in Belgrave, Leicester, England, next to Space Park Leicester and the River Soar. Many of the exhibits, including upright rockets are housed in a tower with minimal steel supports and a semi-transparent cladding of ETFE 'pillows', which has become one of Leicester's most recognisable landmarks. The National Space Centre contains the United Kingdom's largest planetarium. It is a registered charity with a board of trustees. The initial idea of a space centre as a research facility but with public access, attached to the University of Leicester was first conceived in the 1980s - the idea of Professor Alan Wells, the Director of the University of Leicester's Space Research Centre and Professor Ken Pounds of the university. The plan was not taken further due to lack of funds. The Space Centre as a museum was then put forward in 1995 by Professor Alan Wells; Professor Alan Ponter, the University of Leicester's pro vice-chancellor; and Nigel Siesage, the university's principal assistant registrar. Funding for the project came from the Millennium Commission, who provided 50% of the £52 million capital cost, four major partners; Leicester City Council, the University of Leicester, East Midlands Development Agency and BT; along with contributions from exhibition sponsors, Walkers, the Met Office, Omega, BNSC and Astrium. The first element of the project was the Challenger Learning Centre which opened at Leicester University in December 1999 and moved to the National Space Centre site a year later. It was the first such centre outside North America, where 42 similar centres existed. The centre was split in two, with one half replicating the inside of a spacecraft and the other, mission control. Originally it was to be called the Nation