(Above) Tin robot toys made in Japan for the American market during the "golden age" of space toys in the 1950s and 1960s
Exhibition: Space Age: Exploration, Design and Popular Culture, South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, South Shields, until May 16 2010, then New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, June 5 – October 10 2010
In the 1950s, the tense excitement of the space race had a suitably astronomical impact on popular culture, bringing Ziggy Stardust and Star Wars to the world.
Perhaps less widely acknowledged is the effect it also had on home design, shown here through fabric designs, lunar wallpaper, lava lamps and a Pastilli chair by Eero Aarnio which looks like something Dr Spock would curl up in for an impromptu dissection of the Sunday papers.
Lunar Rocket furnishing fabric used to make curatins in children's bedroom by Eddie Squires for Warner and Sons Ltd (1970). Screen printed cotton
A touring exhibition from the Victoria and Albert's Museum of Childhood, the show also contains a sprawl of more than 300 oddities and curiosities charting the cult of sci-fi and space, from the earliest astronomy in 2000BC to Neil Armstrong's lunar landing, NASA's plans to put humans on Mars and large meteorites you can get your hands on.
Finnish designer Eero Aarnio's award-winning 1968 Pastilli chair, made from egg-yolk yellow moulded fibreglass, has featured in various science fiction films
Just in case an original Cosmonaut Suit belonging to Russia's Yuri Gidzenko wasn't enough, there's also an Indo-Persian celestial globe showing stars and constellations, a model of SpaceShipOne (designed specifically to take tourists to space), packets of NASA space food and a gravity-defying Fisher Space Pen, but the everyday inventions produced by space research and exploration also get a look in, such as the Tempur foam pillow and Eagle Eyes sunglasses.
Made on lithographed tin plate, the Japanese Astro 8 Flying Saucer toy was popular in the 1950s
Small screen space delights include merchandise from Space 1999, Doctor Who, Thunderbirds and Star Trek, original lithograph advert posters for comics and films and a 120-piece deluge of Star Wars paraphernalia.
All images © Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood collections
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