Last year I took a trip to the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London to see Leonardo, Anatomist, an exhibition of the work of Leonardo da Vinci and the largest ever of his studies of the human body.

You can never be sure how you’re going to react to things until they happen, but I was excited and moved to be in the presence of so many original pieces of work by this extraordinary man. The thought that his hands had held the parchments and created the models was mesmerising.

This engagement was possible because we know so much about Leonardo as a person and the interpretation and curation of the exhibition reflected it.

The sense of excitement you get when you make a connection with something authentic is most powerful when that connection is also with another human being and it’s this which can make the difference between a good visitor experience and a great one.

Having authenticity and human engagement at the heart of an attraction creates an energy which ensures it’s success and in this issue we examine two new visitor attractions – the recently opened NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit at the Kennedy Space Station in Florida, US (page 44) and the Mary Rose in Portsmouth UK, the museum which tells the story of the life and times of Henry VIII’s battleship (page 52).

Both these new attractions concern themselves with stories of human endeavour and adventuring – both represented cutting edge technology in the eras from which they came – and both engage the emotions through the stories they tell of the people who were involved and the authenticity of the artefacts which are on display.

At the Kennedy Space Station, the humanising of the story is continued by docents who worked on the construction of the space shuttles and are there to tell their stories – one explained to me that she’d been part of the team that stitched the fabric wadding which lines the engines. The idea that you can sew a space shuttle was fascinating and unexpected. Visits from astronauts are also arranged to enable visitors to meet the people who made it happen.

At the Mary Rose, one focus has been on telling the stories of the people who lived on board the ship and displaying the possessions they had on board with them the fateful day she sank – this approach makes the whole experience so much more than a dry collection of artefacts.

Connecting with people across time and feeling a sense of authenticity are two key differences that transform a visitor experience and elevate it above a dry and dusty collection which gives no idea as to who conceived and made the majority of items on display.

Liz Terry, editor, twitter: @elizterry