Esperance Museum and Skylab Display

The Esperance Museum holds an eclectic collection that includes some of the most unexpected space hardware you'll encounter anywhere. When NASA's Skylab space station re-entered the atmosphere in 1979, its debris path crossed Western Australia, and Esperance residents collected substantial pieces from the surrounding farmland and coastline. The museum displays a titanium pressure sphere, a hatch mechanism, and other fragments that came down near the town — physical relics of one of the stranger moments in the history of space exploration.

The museum also covers the natural and human history of the Esperance region, including the Recherche Archipelago, the local fishing and farming industries, and the Indigenous history of the Nyungar people. It's a small-town regional museum done well — specific, well-curated, and locally rooted. Entry is affordable. The Skylab display alone makes it worth an hour.

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A story
When Skylab re-entered the atmosphere in July 1979, NASA predicted it would land in the ocean — but it came down over Western Australia instead, scattering debris across a 5,000km trail from the Indian Ocean to South Australia. Esperance collected chunks of titanium pressure spheres, a oxygen tank, and other wreckage that rained down nearby. The local council later issued NASA a $400 fine for littering. NASA did not pay it. In 2009 a US radio DJ raised the money through a fundraiser and paid the fine on NASA's behalf, 30 years late.