Somerset Space Walk

Youngman came up with the idea for the Space Walk, and Hill assisted by calculating the respective positions and sizes of the planets.

Funding for the project came from the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS), the initial advertising leaflet was paid for by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and there was also a small grant from Sustrans, who fund art installations along cyclepaths, to deal with maintenance requirements in the years before Somerset County Council took on that responsibility.

The solid sphere was cast by Pip Youngman and Trevor Hill in the grounds of what was the SWEB storage yard adjacent to the Obridge Viaduct in Taunton.

The models of the largest gas giants, Saturn and Jupiter, are moulded as part of the top face of the concrete pillars.

Each pillar doubles-up as a milepost: the distance to Bridgwater and Taunton is cast in the concrete at ground level – below a depiction of the British Waterways 'bridge' logo – although the sculptures are sited according to the spacings needed for the model, and not at kilometre increments for the convenience of boaters.

On the same scale as the other models, the nearest star (Proxima Centauri, which is about one-seventh the size of the Sun) would need to be a red ball 37.5 centimetres (14.8 in) in diameter[6] sited 76,000 km (47,000 mi)[7] away (roughly twice the circumference of Earth).

Around 1969, Youngman was approached by the Open University to adapt a mechanical calculator he had designed, originally prototyped in Lego, into a product suitable for school use.