Museum of Cosmonautics

This guide to the Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow starts with the titanium obelisk overhead, a gleaming rocket shape that chief engineer Sergei Korolev insisted be built from the same alloy that shields spacecraft from launch heat. It follows the seventeen-year gap between the monument's 1964 unveiling and the museum's opening beneath it, timed deliberately around the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight. Look up at the flame-shaped titanium above you before you head down into the galleries below.