Category Archives: Behind The Scenes

On Assignment for Time and Navigation

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What’s missing when you sit in front of a computer all day? Adventure! Luckily, three
Time and Navigation photography missions took me across the country last year, giving me the chance to escape the office.

My first destination was Beer Bottle Pass in the Mojave Desert. This is where Stanley, the autonomous car, navigated its way to victory during the 2005 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge race. I needed a photo of the pass to cover the 27-­foot wall behind Stanley in the Time and Navigation gallery. I was confident about this trip until I discovered how precarious this pass could be. The fact that Stanley was able to navigate these sheer drop-­offs and steep inclines is remarkable.

Ashley Hornish

Ashley Hornish in the Mojave Desert

After studying Google Earth for several weeks, my husband, Cory, and I were ready to go. We drove our rented Jeep Wrangler to our starting point outside Primm, Nevada. This area had received a record rainfall the previous week so we had to negotiate washed-out areas and large stones. It took us 45 minutes to travel the seven miles to the pass.

Such a large mural requires more than just one photo; I needed a series that I could stitch together into a panorama. As we gradually moved into the pass, I looked for the best composition. Unfortunately, the road conditions got worse as we progressed, so we never made it to the most treacherous areas (fine with me!). Nevertheless, the trip was a success, and I was relieved to make a safe return to Primm.

Ashley Hornish

Ashley Hornish in the Time and Navigation exhibition. Behind her are Stanley and the mural she photographed in the Mojave Desert.

Since Cory and I were “in the neighborhood,” we arranged a visit to the Goldstone Deep Space Network complex. Located about 35 miles north of Barstow on the Ft. Irwin Military Base, the NASA Deep Space Network is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for exploring the universe.

I wanted to photograph an old hydrogen maser at the Mars 70­-meter antenna. Now a backup, this maser was the primary frequency standard for the racks of Goldstone timing equipment we have on display in Time and Navigation.

Now used as a backup, this hydrogen maser frequency standard was the primary frequency reference for the Goldstone timing equipment on display in the Time and Navigation exhibition.

Visiting Goldstone is no simple task. Hidden away in the middle of the desert, Goldstone is a 45-minute drive from the nearest highway. Disconcerting signs warned of tank crossings and live ammunition areas. After a safety briefing (don’t touch the snakes and don’t drink the water), our guides escorted us to the timing vault of the massive 70-­meter antenna. The best part about the old maser is that it has a small hole at the top that allowed us to view the purple plasma glowing inside the equipment. After a few quick photos, we were allowed to take a brief look into the control room for the Curiosity rover.

I found myself in a very different landscape for my third trip: the middle of a cornfield in Rippey, Iowa. I needed photos of farmer Roy Bardole harvesting his crops using equipment guided by GPS. Museum photographer Dane Penland agreed to accompany me on this adventure, and we headed to the drought­-stricken area hoping there would actually be crops to photograph.

Roy Bardole

Dane Penland photographs farmer Roy Bardole in a harvester near Rippey, Iowa.

Dane and I ended up spending an entire day in the field with Roy and his two sons as they methodically worked their way through the stalks. We took turns riding inside the combine, watching as the enormous machine drove itself down the lengthy rows without wavering. Farming is much more involved than you might imagine, and I was impressed by the Bardoles’ business sense.

Overall this trip was a success: the weather held, the Bardoles’ yield was better than expected, and the motel wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. I even got a special sendoff at the Des Moines airport, home to the Des Moines Air National Guard. As my airplane taxied to the runway, we passed several F­-16s that were awaiting takeoff. As we passed, the pilots waved to us. It was a great way to end my adventure.

Ashley Hornish is a graphic designer in the National Air and Space Museum’s Exhibits Department.

The Abbreviated History of a Scientist (Namely, Myself)

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My first word was JET, since we lived near an Air Force base and experienced sonic booms on a regular basis. My fascination with the heavens took off from there.

Growing up, my family went camping and backpacking a lot, and one of my clearest memories of that time is looking up at a dark, dark sky and pointing out satellites to each other, those little moving points of light that are sometimes so faint I could only see them in my peripheral vision. Far above airplanes, they fly through our sky.

For a ‘day on the job’ in high school, I tagged along with a local pilot, as he taught ground classes that were only slightly beyond my math level at the time, and then taught flight lessons in a small four-seater airplane. Talk about a great incentive for learning more math! Looking down on suburbs and ranches as we flew snug up against the front range of the Rocky Mountains, I fell in love with the idea of flying not as a passenger but as a pilot.

I went to countless planetarium shows growing up, and was encouraged in my interest of Hubble images, showing colorful and fantastically-shaped galaxies far away, and the polar caps of Mars up close. In high school, I went to occasional talks by astronomers, and by the time I got to college, I was ready to hear a lot more! And the pilots of the telescopes and spacecraft we use to study the heavens are engineers…so, I began college as an aerospace engineer.

The class I remember best from my first year of college is Intro Astronomy, the first term of which dealt with our own Solar System…how did the massive greenhouse atmosphere of Venus get that way, if it started out similar to Earth (as we think it did)? Well, you can think about it like feedback on Jimi Hendrix’s guitar during a performance: when he gets close to one of the speakers, the blasting music vibrates his guitar strings, which causes louder output from the speakers, which again increases the vibration of his guitar strings. This is the analogy that made positive feedback in a climate system (the runaway greenhouse effect) easy to understand for me.

So instead of being interested in airplanes, I found myself interested in spacecraft. And instead wanting to fly them, I found myself wanting to see all the data they returned. My fascination with the heavens took off again. Instead of becoming an engineer, I became a physicist (and sociologist, but that’s another story!), one who studies planets.

I talked about my interest with one of the new faculty in the Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences department, and was taken on as an undergraduate researcher. It’s wild to think back to that time, at how little of what I know now I knew then, of how new I was to the process of doing research. The first thing to really grab me, to pull me in hook, line, and sinker, was attending the 33rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. I was awed by the throng of people at the poster session, where I stood presenting my research, talking loudly over the din. I was impressed by the snappy talks where 50 – 100 people sat listening, taking notes, and whispering commentary to their neighbors. I wanted to be part of that world.

Michelle Selvans

Here I am circa 2002 with my poster, at the 33rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

Now I think of it as ‘this’ world, the world I’m immersed in through my work life. I just returned, along with most of the Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies staff, from the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

It was every bit as engaging as the first one I attended, but for different reasons. Instead of being in awe of the whole spectacle, I feel a sense of belonging. I am now a postdoctoral fellow with an undergraduate mentee who presented work he did with me last summer. I sat down for long talks with researchers I’ve admired for years, to brainstorm ideas for research projects we might work on together. I gave a talk on my research on the origins of tectonic features on Mercury, and a poster on some of the outreach I do in the Museum. I caught up with old friends I went to graduate school with, and new ones I’ve met recently at workshops. I have become a pilot in a sense, the one at the controls of my own work experience.

So here I find myself, a planetary scientist, working with amazing people on fascinating projects. I could have become a pilot or an engineer, but instead I’m a scientist working in a museum that honors all three professions. This is one of those times I count my blessings, and smile!

Michelle Selvans is a planetary scientist in the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies.

Easter Peeps Welcome Discovery!

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Check out this fun Peeps diorama depicting the celebration of Space Shuttle Discovery’s arrival at our Udvar-Hazy Center on April 19, 2012. Museum docent John Bretschneider and education volunteer Katy Bretschneider created the diorama and entered it into the annual Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest. Fans have currently ranked it #27 among the over 650 entries.

Congrats John and Katy on your wonderful creation, we love it!

“Welcome Discovery and Godspeep Enterprise.” Discovery and Enterprise pose nose to nose outside the Udvar-Hazy Center with the U.S. Marine Corps Marching Band, cheering peeps waving posters and American flags, and astronauts in their orange suits.

Close-up of Peeps celebrating Space Shuttle Discovery’s arrival. Notice the detail inside the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar with the Manned Maneuvering Unit and TDRS satellite hanging above Discovery’s new home.

 

Removing Items from the Collection at the National Air and Space Museum

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Visitors to the National Air and Space Museum don’t often get to see the work that goes on behind the scenes. This is especially true in terms of the labor that goes into collecting and caring for our artifacts. Many may wonder where all the air and space stuff (we call them artifacts) comes from. The answer is from a variety of places, including the United States Air Force, NASA, and the general public. These artifacts vary; some are large (aircraft and spacecraft) but many are relatively small (aircraft equipment or military or commercial airline uniforms and insignia, for example, or items of popular culture—air and space toys and games).

SR-71

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.

 

Ray Guns

Four toy ray guns from the Museum’s space popular culture collection.

Museum stewardship demands that we manage our collections carefully. Part of our responsibility is to acquire material based on well-defined criteria and, in similar fashion, we occasionally choose to remove items from the collection (we call it deaccessioning).  To help us sort out what to collect, what to keep, and what to remove, we have a collections rationale—a document that guides these decisions. It is a category-by-category justification of our collecting practices. The collections rationale takes into account such things as an object’s historical significance, rarity, and our ability to care for it. These are updated every five years or so. Periodic reviews of the collection, using the rationale as a guide, may indicate that an object or objects no longer fits the Museum’s collecting objectives and should be deaccessioned. This is a decision that goes through a careful process of review, with the aim of finding a home for the objects at another museum.

Since 2006 we have deaccessioned a number of large objects: a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress went to the Mighty 8th Museum in Savannah, Georgia; a Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress “Swoose” went to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio; a Curtiss C-46F Commando went to the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, New York; a McDonnell KDD-1 Katydid Drone went to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon; a Grumman X-29 full-scale model went to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in East Garden City, New York; two 1/3-scale models of Mercury capsules went to the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamagordo, New Mexico, and the Penn-Harris Planetarium in Mishawaka, Indiana; a Vanguard I mockup went to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. We’ve also deaccessioned a number of smaller artifacts to museums and educational institutions.

Grumman X-29

A full-scale model of the Grumman X-29 formerly on display in the Beyond the Limits gallery at the Museum in Washington, DC, now belongs to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in East Garden City, New York.

Early in 2012, our Aeronautics Department and Space History Department completed their work on the Museum collections rationales, including a listing of candidate objects for deaccession. Among the candidates from the Aeronautics Department are aircraft, aircraft engines, items of award (plaques, certificates, etc.) and personal equipment (flight clothing, full and partial pressure suits, etc.). Those from the Space History Department include items of human spaceflight, rockets and missiles, guidance, navigation and control, the space sciences, and civilian applications satellites.

We have now made this list of candidate deaccessions available to the museum community.  Initially, this effort will focus on working with the Mutual Concerns of Air and Space Museums, an international consortia of air and space museums, then seek to broaden outreach to the Smithsonian Affiliations program, and the American Association of Museums (AAM) communities. The list of items we plan to deaccession may be viewed on our website. Here members of the museum communities mentioned above will be able to review what we have made available and contact us to acquire these artifacts.

Institutional policy in regard to deaccessioning objects from the Museum’s collection dictates that the artifacts rightfully should go to other museums and educational institutions with a similar mission and goals and not to the general public. As part of our stewardship responsibilities we must see to it that these objects end up in good hands after they leave our control.

Dominic A. Pisano is a curator in the Aeronautics Department of the National Air and Space Museum.

An Artistic Search for Pluto

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How do you illustrate a non-fiction book for kids based on the former ninth planet? Some people still have some pretty strong feelings about Pluto’s demotion: protest signs, student protest speeches, public demonstrations. Cries of unfairness could be heard when news of poor Pluto’s removal from the planetary ranks occurred. It is the intention of this new children’s book to set the story straight or at least attempt to share “Pluto’s side of the story.”

I‘ve worked in the children’s book market as a freelance illustrator for several years in addition to my full-time job with the Museum’s Early Childhood program. My latest book assignment from Abrams Books for Young Readers, Pluto’s Secret: an Icy World’s Tale of Discovery, connected my job as an artist and an educator.

Pluto's Secreet

Pluto’s Secret, An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery, by Margaret A. Weitekamp and David DeVorkin. Illustrated by Diane Kidd.

In publishing, typically the illustrator and the author never meet or exchange ideas. In some cases the author might live across the state or in another country. The approved manuscript is sent to the artist from the publisher. It is then up to the artist to find the visual voice of the text. Fortunately, for this project the authors Margaret Weitekamp and David DeVorkin were my Museum colleagues. In my first sketch, for example, I used my daughter’s old high school algebra homework, which was my interpretation of a possible equation mathematician Percival Lowell might have calculated. David knew right away it was not correct and gave me a copy of an actual Lowell equation which is now in the book. I also needed to re-work my idea of a telescope, which originally looked like one from Dr. Seuss, to one that looked more like Lowell’s telescope.

Telescope

Original draft of the telescope from Pluto’s Secret.

telescope

Revised draft of the telescope, based on David DeVorkin’s comments.

When I work, I use water jars, brushes, water color pads, and tissue paper. I need good lighting and scads of paper towel, and music really helps the flow. Next I usually consider color and composition. In this case, “What color should I make Pluto? Hmmm… Purple? Blue? Meatball brown? Red is taken by Mars.” There is also a lot of activity in space. Things crash into each other, explosions and collisions happen, surfaces have been impacted by objects bumping into them.  Maybe Pluto might have a somewhat bumpy surface with a few craters. What does dirty methane gas look like? An icy world might have a few patches of surface ice. What might life in a Kuiper belt be like? No one really knows exactly, so imagination holds the paint brush.

Pluto

Color sample for Pluto’s Secret, by Diane Kidd

First I sketched out my ideas then sent them to the editor for review and critique, and to Margaret and David for review. Later the publisher sent corrections back marked in red.  The corrected sketches were re-drawn and then re-submitted  to the publisher. Once all the corrected sketches were approved, I worked on re-drawing and painting each image by hand on watercolor paper.

In the past, the procedure of mailing sketches back and forth between the publisher and artist often took weeks to complete. Today sketches can be scanned and sent out and corrections returned within a few days. Once the designer receives the corrected art, he/she can lay out the text copy with finished art work and get a pretty good idea of what the final product will look like. No more mailing tubes or runs to the copy shop in the middle of the night, or trips to the local post office trying to make a deadline.

Nevertheless, I still waited with baited breath for comments from the art editor/publisher/authors as they reviewed the final art work. Did they like it? Did I get the right look? Did they notice that smudge? For me, this is one of the hardest parts of the process, the waiting. Finally, a thumbs up. Everything was approved. It’s a go.

My hope is that young readers and adults alike will have as much fun as I did learning why Pluto is no longer considered a planet and how “he” really feels about it. And I hope you like the book as much as I liked creating the art!

Diane Kidd is manager of the National Air and Space Museum’s Early Childhood Program.

Join us this Friday, March 15, at the Museum in Washington, DC to learn more about Pluto with the authors of Pluto’s Secret. Children can participate in educational activities, and purchase a signed copy of the book.