Monthly Archive for February, 2010

Diversity in Air and Space

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on February 26, 2010 in Behind The Scenes and News & Events.
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Greetings, from the Astronomy Intern here at the National Air and Space Museum!

I will admit that despite being the Astronomy Intern, I am not a science person by background.  In fact, my experience is in world literature, history, and multicultural advocating.  So what am I doing here, you ask?

Well, for professional reasons, my plan as a budding museum educator is to promote the further diversification of the museum field by learning how to draw in a stronger minority presence.  I chose to intern here at the National Air and Space Museum to see how particularly challenging it is for science museums to weave a cultural thread into their programming.

For more personal reasons, I wanted to rekindle an old love for astronomy.  I was once that kid who would post myself in the street late at night and stare resolutely up at the sky in search of Comet Hyakutake.  I never found it, but I have fond memories of recruiting my family to stand in the streets and stare up with me.

It is in the spirit of these ambitions and memories that I am thrilled to report that the Museum offers an array of family-oriented, culturally diverse experiences.  For instance, the series of upcoming Heritage Family Days are definite celebrations of multiple perspectives in the history of aviation and space.

African American Pioneers in Aviation Family Day

Special guests at the Family Day, including the first all-female, all-African American commercial flight crew, Space Shuttle astronaut, Leland Melvin, and former NASA astronaut and first African American woman in space, Dr. Mae Jemison.

Just this past Saturday, February 20, we held African American Pioneers Family Day.  We enjoyed quite a successful turnout as thousands came to partake in some aviation and space-related arts and crafts, and also to see historic figures speak live:

  • The Tuskegee Airmen: the first squadron of African American pilots in WWII
  • The Atlantic Southeast Airlines Crew: the first all-female, African American flight crew
  • Dr. Mae Jemison: former NASA astronaut and first African American woman in space
  • Leland Melvin: NASA astronaut and educator who recently returned from his thrilling trip to space

Aside from being an all-around good time, the Family Day also conveyed truly empowering messages.  Particularly poignant was Dr. Jemison’s tale of how she was determined to break the mold that was cast upon her as an African-American woman.  I also loved that Leland Melvin took time out of his presentation to personally address the school group of 3rd and 4th graders I was hosting for the day.  Because of such dynamic, inspiring individuals, the face of science and aviation has continued to become ever more multifaceted.

Explore the Universe Family Day

Explore the Universe Family Day

Stay tuned because there’s even more exciting programs in Family Days to come. Currently, part of my role as an intern is to assist in planning events for April’s Family Day: Explore the Universe.  Our goal is to represent as many cultures across the globe as possible and educate visitors on how different people have interpreted the skies.  It’s sure to be a smile-inducing, eye-opening, and mind-bending experience!

So keep checking back in for the dates of these fun events.  We have such great ideas brewing, and I hope to see many of your fresh – and diverse– faces here at the National Air and Space Museum.

Sharleen Eusebio is an intern in the National Air and Space Museum’s Education Division.

Shuttle-Era Shopping Spree

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on February 11, 2010 in Behind The Scenes, Highlights from the Collection, Research and space.
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Space shuttle Discovery approaches International Space Station during STS-120 mission. Photo courtesy NASA.

Being snowbound at home for a long weekend presented a perfect opportunity to go shopping online – for Space Shuttle artifacts!

A few days ago, NASA announced the second round of surplus property to be released from the Shuttle program when it ends later this year. Interested museums and educational institutions are eligible to browse a NASA-GSA website and request items for their collections and exhibits. The objects are free to a good home, but there will be shipping and handling charges. In the first round announced last fall, the Museum snagged several items on our wish list.

As Space Shuttle curator, I am coordinating the National Air and Space Museum’s collecting effort with several colleagues in the space history division primarily, though some items also draw the attention of colleagues in the aeronautics and archives divisions. Together we are seeking Shuttle-era artifacts that inform the intellectual basis of the national collection or match the long-established categories of objects within the collection. We are the Museum’s “personal shoppers.”

What is the intellectual foundation for the space history collection? As historians, we are engaged in an ongoing effort to understand the meaning of spaceflight in American history and culture, the technologies and institutions and people that make it possible, the successes and failures, and even the mundane routines of living and working in space. We seek material objects that enable us to document, display, and preserve our nation’s human spaceflight experience and to explore its significance in our research and exhibitions.

Already part of the National Collection: a Star Tracker that flew on 16 Space Shuttle missions, including Columbia's maiden voyage, and space food (scrambled eggs) that flew on STS-27. Just some examples of the types of Shuttle-era objects the Museum collects.

Our collections are organized in categories, rather like the biologists’ class-genus-species taxonomy.  We have broad programmatic categories (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle, Space Station) and broad technical categories (crew equipment, rockets, spacecraft, etc.)  Specific artifacts are organized into such pigeonholes as avionics, clothing, computers, food, spacesuits, and tools.

So what was I shopping for online?  The conveniently alphabetized list of 653 object types started with Accelerometers and 13 long pages later ended with Wing Leading Edge batteries, with scores of sensors and transducers in between – the kind of stuff one might expect to see on a warehouse shelf but not in an exhibit.  But scrolling on, I spotted some real treasures, most of them flown in space:

  • a cycle-ergometer for crew exercise
  • an in-flight maintenance kit of 147 tools
  • some computers and camera equipment
  • parts of an extravehicular activity spacesuit (no complete suits are being released)
  • an Apollo 8 audio tape – wonder what that’s all about!
  • even a Shuttle emesis bag (to add to our impressive collection of airline barf bags)

Most of these items illuminate the realities of living and working in space.

I spent more time on this online “window shopping” than I’ve ever spent browsing in a shopping mall, but it was a very thoughtful exercise to look at each item and evaluate its significance. What is each object’s story? Is it worth preserving in the national collection? Why? How does it fit within, or stretch, our intellectual themes and artifact categories?

I will put these items in the Museum’s shopping cart and submit our request to NASA, along with a justification for each item. So far, we curators have selected and justified about 65 items after discussing their merits for the collection. Individually they may seem like a motley assortment, just as what you put in your grocery cart is a jumble. But each one has a place and a purpose in the Museum. Step by step, opportunity by opportunity, we are building a coherent collection of artifacts to document and preserve the history of human spaceflight in the Shuttle era.

Valerie Neal is in her 20th year as the Shuttle-era human spaceflight curator in the National Air and Space Museum’s Space History Division.