Graceland unveils new exhibits featuring space and dinosaurs

Elvis Presley’s iconic estate is home to rhinestone jumpsuits and other priceless musical memorabilia, but now you’ll also find astronauts and dinosaurs there, as Memphis’s new Graceland Exhibition Center has opened two short-term hands-on interactive exhibits featuring out of this world and prehistoric experiences.

Journey to Space, open October 11 through January 5, 2020, invites guests on a cosmic adventure as they experience life as an astronaut traveling to, living in and working in outer space. Developed by the Science Museum of Minnesota in partnership with the California Science Center and the partner museums of the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative, this 10,000 square foot exhibit gives visitors a glimpse of the extraordinary systems, tools and technologies developed for human space travel, including the unique challenges and rewards of life on board the International Space Station. The exhibit also features over two dozen hands-on, interactive displays and artifacts from the past fifty years of space explorations, as well as innovations designed to help astronauts make more frequent and longer trips into orbit.

Highlights of the Journey to Space exhibit include full scale, walk-through rotating labs modeled after an International Space Station laboratory; hands-on activities such as “drop towers,” which show how objects behave differently in weightless environments, and water rockets, which explore the physics of a rocket launch; rare artifacts from past space launches such as Neil Armstrong’s gloves, metal shields from spacecrafts, astronaut helmets and more; and video interviews with current and retired astronauts about their life in space.

Open October 25 through January 11, 2020, Expedition: Dinosaur is an exhibit 165 million years in the making, and it allows guest to travel back in time and walk amongst the largest creatures to ever call Earth their home. The exhibit combines life-size, lifelike animatronic dinosaurs with realistic movements and sound with fascinating and educational interactive experiences. The exhibit also celebrates and explores the world of dinosaurs and the hunt for their fossils in the early 20th century. Visitors of all ages can step into the shoes of paleontologists and archeologists through interactive cabinets filled with excavation artifacts and fossils, including the chance to tests their skills extracting dinosaur bones from the earth.

Highlights of the Expedition: Dinosaur exhibit include full-motion robotic dinosaurs with realistic movements and sound effects, including a climbable T-Rex head; an interactive robotic dinosaur egg incubator; interactive archeological dig-site, including simulated dinosaur fossils and digging tools; and a hands-on activities and puzzles that allow guests to discover how dinosaurs lived various environments and prehistoric periods, mix and match dinosaur species, recreate Pangea and more.

Tickets for Graceland’s new Journey to Space and Expedition: Dinosaur exhibits are available now and can be purchased online, the Graceland Ticketing Plaza or by calling 800-238-2000. Educators Guides are available for both exhibits, and group rates are available for field trips or corporate outings.

For more information visit Graceland.com, then check out these videos of other dinosaur- and space-themed exhibits: