But, given the groovy Sixties, Seventies and Eighties paraphernalia on show, it's clear the organisers have a certain demographic in mind.

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"I love the Clangers," says one mum, contentedly watching knitted moon beings whistle at each other on a TV monitor while her children investigate the robot displays and original Space Invaders game in the corner.

"All you do is press a button," says seven-year-old Luca Fraser, disconsolately. Mum is unmoved, engrossed by the soup dragon.

Space Age: Exploration, Design and Popular Culture runs at Weston Park until August 31 and will "explore how space has become part of our lives through popular culture, literature, film, design and merchandising" according to the publicity from the V&A Museum of Childhood, who compiled the exhibition from their own collections and from loans of film and TV material.

There are Star Trek and Star Wars models, tin robots from Japan, Toy Story toys, Dan Dare books, lunar wallpaper and NASA space food alongside a piece of a Mars meteorite and a Russian Cosmonaut suit.

Apart from the toys and TV merchandise, the exhibition also looks at the history of space exploration from ancient Mesopotamia to ideas of future space tourism, and the science of space travel and how space has influenced design and fashion.

The exhibition tells how the space race in the 1950s and 60s influenced futuristic designs for fridges, televisions and furniture and how fashion designers like Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges used new synthetic materials to create high street fashion that more than matched the characters of Star Trek, if not Barbarella.

The children seem impressed by the robots, toys and, in the usual post-modern ironic way, by the astronaut capes and balaclavas in the dressing-up box.

The fashion posters are less credible, however: "That's just made up," says a young observer of a Star Trek-inspired fashion photo of a family waltzing down a city street.

"I recognise Dr Who but I think we're a bit too young for the rest of the stuff here," says nine-year-old Joe Pillinger.

There is a series of talks and tours to accompany the exhibition, including a guided curator's talk and tour today, Friday, 1pm-1.30pm. Several events will be run by Sheffield Astronomical Society.

lWeston Park beat more than 200 contenders for the Guardian award. Four generations of one family put the museum through its paces.

"The last time I went to a museum – many years ago when I was a child – all you could do was look in glass cabinets," says Maureen Marshall, who was a judge with her mother, daughter and three grandchildren. "But at Weston Park there was something for all of us to do, noisy places and peaceful places."