Top of the World
The Technik Museum Speyer has its origins in the Technik Museum Sinsheim. When the expansion possibilities in Sinsheim were almost exhausted at the beginning of the 1990s, the unique opportunity arose to build a second museum, the Technik Museum Speyer, in the center of Speyer on the site of the former Pfalz aircraft factory. The “Liller Hall”, a listed industrial hall from 1913, was initially used as an exhibition hall. Today, vintage cars, motorcycles, airplanes and historic fire engines are on display in particular. The museum currently has more than 25,000 m2 of covered hall space and 150,000 m2 of outdoor space.
The current highlight of the museum's history is the acquisition of a Russian BURAN space glider, the counterpart to the American space shuttle. The transport of the Russian shuttle in the spring of 2008 from Bahrain across the open sea to Rotterdam and from there on a pontoon up the Rhine to Speyer was a media event of the highest rank. In order to be able to present the shuttle to museum visitors in an appropriate way, a new hall was specially built on the museum grounds in Speyer. The building is 85 meters long, 75 meters wide and up to 22 meters high. The total exhibition area on three levels is approx. 9,000 m2. Outside of Russia and America, the BURAN in Speyer is the only space glider that can be viewed in a museum.
In June 2013, another highlight was added to the space exhibition with the exhibition area "The Moon". The history of the moon landings is presented here on a replica moon surface. In addition to detailed information boards, you can see, among other things, faithful replicas of the Apollo 11 lunar module "EAGLE", the moon car "Lunar Roving Vehicle" (LRV), which was used in the Apollo 15 - 17 moon landings, as well as space suits as used by Eugene A "Gene" Cernan, Apollo 17 Commander (CDR), and Harrison H. "Jack" Schmitt, Apollo 17 Lunar Module Pilot (LMP). The absolute highlight of the exhibit, however, is a piece of moon rock found on August 1, 1971 by astronauts Dave Scott and Jim Irwin, at Station 4 of the second Apollo 15 excursion. was knocked off a basalt boulder in the Hadley Apennine landing area. The Technik Museum Speyer is the only institution in Germany that exhibits an original moonstone in a detailed setting and with well-founded information.
The IMAX DOME cinema in the Technik Museum Speyer The IMAX DOME cinema, which opened in the Technik Museum Speyer in 1997, is the only film theater of this type in Germany. In contrast to other cinemas, the film in the IMAX DOME is not projected onto a flat screen, but onto a huge dome. The films shown on an hourly basis are optimally adapted to this technology. They guarantee a film experience that no other cinema can offer. The dome of the IMAX DOME has a base diameter of 24 meters and an area of approximately 1000 m2. To ensure that the images remain razor-sharp despite the huge screen, IMAX uses a particularly large film format that is 14 times larger than the usual 35 mm cinema film. A gigantic 6-channel sound system with 22,000 watts of power and a sub-bass system ensures an appropriate sound experience.
