Venus as seen through telescopes at the Public Observatory on April 25, 2012.

Venus and Mercury,  the only two planets which orbit closer to the Sun than the Earth, can be seen in crescent phase when they start to pass between the Sun and the Earth.  The only source of illumination is the Sun, so when Venus is between the Sun and the Earth, we see mostly the dark night side and only a sliver of the daylit side.

Phases of Venus. Image Credit: NASA

When Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun (its new phase), it is invisible because we are looking at its nighttime side.  Venus is no more than a few degrees away from the Sun at this point, so anyone attempting to observe Venus when it is new or a slim crescent should be careful to not point their telescope at the Sun, even for an instant.  Permanent eye damage could result from such an accident.

Does Venus go directly between the Earth and the Sun and cast its shadow on the Earth?  Usually not.  The orbit of Venus is tipped 3.3° with respect to Earth’s, so when Venus passes through its new phase, it usually goes above or below the Sun.  Sometimes, however, the orbits line up.  When Venus crosses directly between the Sun and the Earth, it blocks only 0.1% of the Sun’s light. The drop in overall sunlight is not noticeable, but when viewed through a telescope (safely!), the silhouette of Venus appears as a dark dot in front of the bright Sun.  This event is called a transit.

The 2004 transit of Venus, observed by NASA's TRACE satellite. The faint halo on the lower left edge of Venus is sunlight shining through its atmosphere.

Transits of Venus occur at regular intervals, but they are rare.  They come in pairs eight years apart, and more than a century passes between pairs of transits.  There was a transit in 2004, and the second one in that pair occurs on June 5-6, 2012.  The next transit will not happen until 2117.  For nearly all of us, this is our last chance to see this event.

The transit can only be viewed by safely observing the Sun.  During the 6-hour transit, Venus will be silhouetted against the disk of the Sun.  Looking at the Sun with the naked eye can hurt the eyes, and pointing a telescope without a safe solar filter at the Sun will cause immediate telescope damage or permanent eye damage.

Here at the Public Observatory in Washington, DC, the transit will start shortly after 6 pm on June 5, 2012. The dome of the Observatory will already be in the shadow of the National Air and Space Museum building, so if the weather is clear, we will set up safe solar telescopes just outside the Museum’s entrance facing the National Mall.  We will follow the transit until the Sun gets too low in the sky to observe.  Sunset is at 8:31 PM that day, and we will see less than half of the transit from Washington, DC.  We will also stream a live image to the Web, and tweet updates at @SIObservatory. The event is paired with a free presentation by Museum staff about the history and science of transits of Venus, a free lecture inside the Museum on detecting the transits of planets in front of other stars and, later, nighttime observing in and around the Observatory.

Visitors using a safe solar telescope outside the Museum in Washington, DC.

Check with your local observatory or astronomy club for a public transit viewing event near you (whether it is visible depends on your location in the world), or check the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s map.  There are ways to observe the Sun safely at home if using proper equipment.  You can use eclipse glasses to safely observe the Sun, though the dot of Venus against the unmagnified Sun is at the limit of the eye’s resolution.  Finally, NASA is planning to stream the event live from the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawai’i, which is very likely to have good weather.  The entire transit will be visible from that location.

On June 5, 2012, solar telescopes around the world and in space will point to the Sun, marking another beat in the centuries-long dance of the planets.  Wherever you are in the world, whether your skies are clear or cloudy, it’s not an event to miss!

Geneviève de Messieres is an astronomy educator at the National Air and Space Museum.

Credit: Mirror News

Nevertheless, air accidents do happen, and the ones that hold the most fascination are the ones that involve celebrities. People the world over are captivated—even obsessed with celebrity for all kinds of reasons, and this is true especially in America. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History (New York: Oxford UP, 1986), by Leo Braudy, University Professor and Professor of English at University of Southern California, tracks the course of fame in Western society. Braudy begins with Charles Lindbergh and Ernest Hemingway, and then goes back to Alexander the Great and forward to what he terms “The Democratization of Fame.” Since The Frenzy of Renown, there has been abundant scholarship on what is known as celebrity culture; i.e., the multifaceted context that surrounds celebrity; i.e., the culture of consumerism, the media, social mobility, and the desire to have one’s shining, or even inglorious, moment on the stage. Celebrity death is fascinating: it is often untimely or unfortunate or tragic because the person in question dies young, either as a result of suicide, a drug overdose or murder. Celebrity aerial death is perhaps the most compelling kind of celebrity death because it involves some of these elements, and it represents the ultimate symbolic fall from grace.

Celebrity air crashes that involve musicians seem to capture the most public attention. These deaths are also reported on in the media and on social media, often in a sensationalist or lurid way. They are an integral part of what singer and composer Joni Mitchell meant when she wrote about “the star maker machinery behind the popular song”; i.e., the idea that the media both create celebrity and destroy it. The death of Rick[y] Nelson, on December 31, 1985, is a case in point. Nelson, who had been a much-publicized teen idol in the 1950s, had gone beyond his celebrity to write and perform more sophisticated rock music. Perhaps because he was considered washed up as a star, Nelson’s crash was blamed by The Washington Post on the freebasing of cocaine aboard the aircraft. Later, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that these charges were false, and that the accident was caused by a faulty heater. The outraged Nelson family went to great lengths to defend Rick Nelson from any wrongdoing. David Nelson, Rick’s older brother, produced a documentary, Rick Nelson: A Brother Remembers, partly to dispel the distasteful notion that his younger brother was a careless drug addict.

The American fascination with the aerial death of rock musicians came about because of the legendary February 3, 1959, Winter Party Dance Tour crash of a Beech Bonanza in a cornfield near Clear Lake, Iowa. This accident, in which Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Jiles Perry “J.P.” Richardson, Jr., aka “The Big Bopper” died, is remembered because it was the first widely-publicized air crash to involve well-known rock musicians and because it was immortalized by Don McLean in his 1971 hit song “American Pie”:

“A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
**The day the music died**

Glenn C. Altschuler, a professor of American Studies at Cornell University, argues in his All Shook Up: How Rock ‘N’ Roll Changed America (Pivotal Moments in American History) (Oxford UP, 2004) that “although the Civil Aeronautics Board blamed pilot error, the crash was not wholly unrelated to the [prevailing] assault on rock ‘n’ roll. If opportunities for these once and future stars had not narrowed in the late ‘50s, they might not have found themselves in the hinterland in winter, traveling from town to town in broken buses and rickety aircraft.” (171)

Altschuler may well be right about the Winter Dance Party tragedy, but even in succeeding eras, with the widespread acceptance of rock music, a number of musicians have died in air accidents involving both commercial and private aircraft:

Credit: Nashville Banner

March 6, 1963—
Patsy Cline, a Country &Western music legend, died at age 30, when her Piper PA 24 Comanche crashed in a forest near Camden, Tennessee, killing her, singers Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and her manager Randy Hughes.

December 10, 1967—
Otis Redding, a major figure in Soul Music and Rhythm and Blues, died at age 26, in a Beechcraft H18 in Lake Monona, Wisconsin.

September 20, 1973—
Jim Croce, rock music singer-songwriter, died at age 30, when his chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed on takeoff from Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana.

October 20, 1977
The Southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd (lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines) died when their Convair CV-300 ran out of fuel and crashed in woods near Gillsburg, Mississippi. Van Zant was 29, Steve Gaines was 28, and Cassie Gaines was 29.

Credit: Winnipeg Free Press

December 31,1985—
Rick[y] Nelson, teen idol rock singer and composer, died at age 45 in a Douglas DC-3, with five members of his Stone Canyon Band and his fiancé Helen Blair, near DeKalb, Texas.

August 27, 1990
Stevie Ray Vaughan, Blues guitarist, died at age 35 in a Bell BHT-206-B helicopter accident near East Troy, Wisconsin.

October 12, 1997—
John Denver, an American singer-songwriter-composer died at age 53, when the Rutan Long EZ experimental aircraft he was flying crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Monterey, California.

August 25, 2001—
Aaliyah, an R&B singer and actress died at age 22 when the Cessna 402B she was traveling in crashed near the Bahamas.

Among other public figures who died in air accidents were—

December 31, 1972—
Roberto Clemente, Major League Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, who died at age 38 when the chartered Douglas DC-7 he was traveling in crashed off the coast of Isla Verde, Puerto Rico. Clemente was on a relief mission to Nicaragua.

July 16, 1999—
John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette, and her sister Lauren Bessette died when the Piper Saratoga, which Kennedy was piloting, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Kennedy was 38, his wife 33, and Lauren Bessette 34.

There is a welter of online information about air safety and aircraft accidents. The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency, is charged with determining the probable cause of transportation accidents and promoting transportation safety. The NTSB does investigations into all kinds of transportation accidents and provides reports on their causes. Among the many sites devoted to air accidents, http://www.airsafe.com/ provides “critical information for the air traveler,” such as items prohibited onboard commercial aircraft, air crashes, baggage advice and airline security.

Dominick A. Pisano is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

To understand how a kites flies, you need to define what a kite is.  A kite is a heavier-than-air object that flies… just like an airplane.  Most kites have three main components: the kite body (which comes in many different shapes and sizes), the bridle (or harness), and the control line (or tether).  The kite body is made up of a framework and outer covering.  The framework is usually made from a lightweight material like wood or plastic.  Paper, fabric, or plastic is then stretched over the framework, turning it into a sort of wing.  The bridle and the control line help the kite flyer control the kite.  In flight, the kite is connected to the kite flyer by the control line, which is connected to the kite by the bridle.  The kite pivots and dives about the point where the bridle connects to the control line.

Kite diagram

The four forces of flight (i.e. Lift, Weight, Drag, and Thrust) affect kites in the same way they affect airplanes, and anything else that flies.  Lift is the upward force that pushes a kite into the air.  Lift is generated by differences in air pressure, which are created by air in motion over the body of the kite.  Kites are shaped and angled so that the air moving over the top moves faster than the air moving over the bottom. Daniel Bernoulli, an 18th century Swiss mathematician, discovered that the pressure of a fluid (like air) decreases as the fluid speeds up.  Since the speed of the air above the kite is greater than the speed of air below, the pressure above is less than the pressure below and the kite is pushed into the air and — Tada — lift!  Weight is the downward force generated by the gravitational attraction of the Earth on the kite.  The force of weight pulls the kite toward the center of the Earth.  Thrust is the forward force that propels a kite in the direction of motion.  An airplane generates thrust with its engines, but a kite must rely on tension from the string and moving air created by the wind or the forward motion of the kite flyer to generate thrust.  Drag is the backward force that acts opposite to the direction of motion.  Drag is caused by the difference in air pressure between the front and back of the kite and the friction of the air moving over the surface of the kite.  To launch a kite into the air the force of lift must be greater than the force of weight.  To keep a kite flying steady the four forces must be in balance.  Lift must be equal to weight and thrust must be equal to drag.

Wind is obviously a big part of kite flying.  But what do you do if you don’t have any wind or you’re trying to fly your kite inside?  Check out the video of this national champion indoor kite flyer from the family day.  There obviously wasn’t any wind inside, so how was he able to fly kites in the middle of the Space Race gallery?  The kite flyers create lift, drag, and thrust with various walking patterns, arm movements, and spinning to make the indoor kite flying experience like a dance.  Whether inside or out it doesn’t matter whether the wind moves over the surface of the kite or the kite is pulled through the air — lift must overcome weight and thrust must overcome drag to keep the kite soaring.

To learn more about the four forces of flight visit the How Things Fly website.  And to learn more about the aerodynamics of kites and experiment with different kites, visit the NASA website.

Michael Hulslander is manager of onsite learning at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Ivanov's Landing - SI 90-5858

In the years before the invention of the flight data recorder, the “black box” that records essential flight data, an aircraft accident investigation could occasionally degenerate into a mere finger-pointing exercise, like this one from Russia during World War I — a group of aviation cadets at the Gatchina Military Flying School near Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) point fingers of scorn at a student pilot identified only as “Ivanov” after his less than perfect landing, fortunately injuring only his dignity. The photograph comes from the collection of Alexander Riaboff (1895-1984) — he’s the finger-pointer at the left — who served in the Russian Army Air Service and was trained at Gatchina. After the Revolution, Riaboff flew in the Red Air Fleet and also with the counterrevolutionary White forces before fleeing in 1920 to Harbin, China. Later, he emigrated with his wife and daughter to the United States and settled in the San Francisco area. Years later, Riaboff wrote up his adventures as a pilot during those tumultuous times, and as edited by National Air and Space Museum curator Von Hardesty, they were published in 1986 as Gatchina Days: Reminiscences of a Russian Pilot.

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the Archives Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Here is a selection of photographs from yesterday’s fly-over:

The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft takes off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying Space Shuttle Discovery.

Space Shuttle Discovery makes a low pass over a crowd at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.

Space Shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, flies near the U.S. Capitol.

Space Shuttle Discovery, mounted on the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, flies near the Smithsonian Castle.

A young spectator holds a model of space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), as the actual shuttle flies overhead.

Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), making a low pass over spectators in Virginia.

Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) approaches the runway at Washington Dulles International Airport.

Spectators from across the Washington, DC area, NASA employees and Museum staff have contributed thousands of images to the Museum’s Space Shuttle Discovery Flickr group. If you took pictures of Discovery yesterday, please share them with us!

Ivey Doyal is web content manager for the National Air and Space Museum.

Photograph by Carl H. Claudy Sr.; Claudy Glass Plate Negative Collection - SI 95-8465

It’s July 26, 1909, and President William Howard Taft (left) has arrived in his superb White Motor Company Model M Steamer at Fort Myer, just across the Potomac from Washington, to watch the Wright brothers’ preparations for the trial flight of their Military Flyer. On the following day, Orville Wright would make a record flight of over an hour, covering approximately 40 miles.

Sitting next to the President is Senator Jonathan Bourne Jr. of Oregon. Taft’s military aide and good friend, Captain Archibald Willingham Butt, is standing in the car. Born in Augusta, Georgia in 1865, Archie (as everyone called him) Butt began his career as a reporter, then served as first secretary to the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. In 1900, Archie received a commission in the U.S. Army. He served in the Philippines for four years, and as Depot Quartermaster in Washington D.C. he met President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. In 1908, Archie was appointed Roosevelt’s chief military aide, and when Taft succeeded Roosevelt as president in 1909, Archie remained at his post. One of his duties was to stand by when Taft became the first president to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Senators’ game in 1910. In 1911, Butt was promoted to the rank of major.

Loyal to both T.R. and Taft, Archie Butt was caught in the middle of the growing feud that would lead to Roosevelt’s run for the presidency against Taft in 1912. Worn out and in declining health, Archie requested a leave of absence. President Taft granted it, and in the early spring of 1912, Archie left for a six week European tour, accompanied by his longtime companion, Washington artist Francis Davis Millet.

For his return trip, Archie booked passage in first class aboard RMS Titanic for its first Atlantic crossing (ticket number 113050; fare, £26 11s; cabin number B38) and boarded the ship at Southampton on April 10. On the night of the 14th, he dined with Titanic’s captain, Edward J. Smith, and was playing cards when the ship struck an iceberg at 11:40. There are several stories of Archie Butt’s actions before Titanic sank at 2:20 in the morning of April 15 – he was said to have assisted women and children into the lifeboats; one survivor, Irene Harris, contributed a sensational account:

“He became as one in supreme command. You would have thought he was at a White House reception, so cool and calm was he. When the time came he was a man to be feared. In one of the earlier boats fifty women, it seemed, were about to be lowered when a man suddenly panic stricken ran to the stern of it. Maj. Butt shot one arm out caught him by the neck and jerked him backward like a pillow. His head cracked against a rail and he was stunned. ‘Sorry,’ said Maj. Butt, ‘women will be attended to first or I’ll break every damned bone in your body.’… Maj. Butt escorted me to a seat in the bow… he helped me find a space, arranged my clothing about me, stood erect, doffed his hat and smiled and said ‘Good-by.’ And then he stepped back to the deck, already awash. As we rowed away we looked back, and the last I saw of him he was smiling and waving his hand to me.

Major Archibald Butt and his friend Frank Millet both drowned when Titanic went down; Archie’s body was not recovered.

Captain Archibald W. Butt. Library of Congress photograph LC-USZC2-6249

President Taft was grief-stricken when he heard the news. At a memorial service for Archie back in Augusta, he said, “If Archie could have selected a time to die he would have chosen the one God gave him. His life was spent in self–sacrifice, serving others. His forgetfulness of self had become a part of his nature. Everybody who knew him called him Archie. I couldn’t prepare anything in advance to say here. I tried, but couldn’t. He was too near me. He was loyal to my predecessor, Mr. Roosevelt, who selected him to be military aide, and to me he had become as a son or a brother.”

In 1913, Archie’s friends dedicated a fountain to him and to Frank Millet - the Butt-Millet Fountain still stands on the Ellipse, not far from the White House.

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the National Air and Space Museum’s Archives Division

The Education staff has decided to seize a teachable moment.  The new Moving Beyond Earth exhibition will feature a full-scale reproduction space shuttle mid-deck, the shuttle’s living quarters. Visitors will be able to open some of the lockers, look out the portal for a heavenly view, and yes, see a reproduction space toilet, or WCS (waste containment system).

Staff from Guard Lee show staff from the Museum how astronauts use a space toilet.

This past week we unpacked the toilet and had training. Why training? Because we plan to roll it out, turn it on, and present short educational programs. We’re expecting  a lot of interest. We know you’re curious.

Guard Lee staff with the space toilet, or waste containment system.

When we move a lever, the vacuum turns on. In space, astronauts rely on air to do what water does on Earth. Waste is sucked away, compacted, and dried. Of course the whole process is much more complicated than here in Earth. The feet straps (or bar for a standing man) are very important, as are the thigh bars for those sitting. Some models even come with seat belts!  Astronauts do not want to float away while doing their business.

There are male and female funnels, hoses of different sizes, and a can for paper trash. Remember, no flushing takes place. Ensuring a proper seal is crucial and astronauts practice on a toilet with a camera in Houston to perfect their position.

The company that built our WCS cared a great deal about accuracy, down to the NASA logo clearly emblazoned on the side.

And, in case you were wondering, our space shuttle curator Valerie Neal made sure that Space Shuttle Discovery, coming in April to the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, will be as authentic inside as possible. She asked that the real WCS be re-installed.

Tim Grove is Chief of Education for the Museum in Washington, DC.

Best Easter Wishes, 1911 - Krainik Ballooning Collection, NASM 7A 47278

In the early years of the 20th century, one of the ways that enthusiasm for all things aeronautical found expression were in colorful chromolithographic postcards, like this Easter postcard featuring an intrepid, though slightly nervous-looking, rabbit who takes to the sky onboard a festive aerial egg balloon. The card was mailed to one Elinora in Frederick, Maryland by her cousin Louisa in April, 1911. Yes, a lighter-than-air bunny may be a little unlikely, but surely no more than a turkey piloting a biplane.

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the Archives Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Figure 1 - The release of the Hubble Space Telescope as seen from the IMAX payload bay camera on STS-31, April 25, 1990.

Perhaps it comes as no surprise then that as soon as I became the Museum’s curator for space cameras about seven years ago, I distinctly remember asking about the chance IMAX cameras might join our collection. Valerie Neal, our curator for the space shuttle, was my target, and her enthusiasm for that possibility mirrored my own. During her time at the Museum, a number of the films premiered here, and she had gotten to know IMAX co-inventor/director/producer Graeme Ferguson and Toni Myers, another IMAX writer/director/producer. She had already started planting the idea of an eventual donation, suggesting to them at each opportunity that the Museum would be really interested in acquiring one of the cameras when they were no longer needed. I even remember anxiously waiting to hear from her the day after Hubble 3D premiered at the Museum in 2010, hoping she had put in another good word for National Air and Space Museum with Toni or Graeme. Valerie’s hard work paid off, and just a last year, we finalized arrangements to bring not one but two IMAX cameras — the two-dimensional in-cabin and payload bay units — into the National Collection.

Figure 2 - Astronaut Carl Walz with the IMAX in-cabin camera during STS-79, September 1996.

Astronaut Michael Collins, the founding director of the National Air and Space Museum when it opened to the public in 1976, first suggested putting an IMAX camera on the shuttle five years before the first launch. He and Graeme Ferguson, and then Collins’ successor as Museum director Walter Boyne, nurtured the idea along until NASA granted approval in 1983. The partnership between IMAX Corporation, the Museum, NASA, and sponsor Lockheed Corporation was so successful that five more jointly-produced films followed The Dream is Alive. These films effectively brought spaceflight down to Earth as an immersive experience for audiences around the world.

Jennifer Levasseur is a museum specialist in the Division of Space History and curator for the Museum’s collection of space cameras and astronaut personal equipment.

Valerie Neal, also in the Division of Space History, is the space shuttle curator.

Buzz Lightyear at the Launch Pad

Buzz Lightyear joined the pantheon of famous space characters when Toy Story burst onto the scene in 1995 as the first feature-length animated movie ever made.  But Toy Story did more than just innovate with new animation technology.  Its characters were so well-developed, sympathetic, and real that Toy Story earned an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay, recognition for its excellent story-telling.  In fact, John Lasseter, Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer, received a Special Achievement Academy Award for his leadership of the Toy Story team.

John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Pixar Animation Studios and creator of Buzz Lightyear; Lori Garver, NASA deputy administrator and Museum director Jack Dailey hold the space-flown Buzz Lightyear action figure.

Sending Buzz Lightyear into space combined the wide-spread appeal of John Lasseter’s beloved character with the educational inspiration of NASA.  NASA launched the very first “Toys in Space” program aboard the Space Shuttle mission STS 51-D in April 1985.  A second group of toys flew in 1993.  These efforts included simple toys — such as a yo-yo or a ball — that could be used to illustrate science lessons.  For the digital age, NASA and Disney∙Pixar used the flight of Buzz Lightyear not only for on-orbit demonstrations, but also to create online educational games and related worksheets using Buzz Lightyear to get students excited about learning.

Buzz did not simply fly into space tucked into a storage compartment.  While on orbit, NASA astronauts Greg Chamitoff and Mike Fincke conducted science lessons from space with help from Buzz Lightyear.  But Buzz also “had dinner” with the astronauts in the International Space Station.  And it turns out that even astronauts can’t resist playing with a toy!  Having Buzz Lightyear aboard provided some much-needed levity for a space crew whose time was closely scheduled to make the most of their precious time aloft.

When I talked to the people who worked out the agreement for NASA to send Buzz Lightyear to the International Space Station, I was told that the more that they worked together, the more the participants were struck by the similarities between NASA and Disney•Pixar.  Not only were they both large, complex organizations with important centers in central Florida, but also — on both sides of the table — they were people who were absolutely absorbed “by the love and passion of what they do.”  That’s something familiar to us here at the Smithsonian.  That excitement about their missions included a strong commitment to sharing what they did with the next generation.

And indeed, that’s why the National Air and Space Museum wanted to collect artifacts from this educational initiative.  Along with the flown Buzz Lightyear figure, this important donation includes the videos and educational materials produced by Disney and Pixar to inspire the next generation to get excited about science, technology, math, and the space program.  Given that John Lasseter — a pioneer in digital technologies — visited the Museum for the formal donation ceremony for these objects, it’s fitting that these important donations represent the first “born digital” artifacts coming into the collection of the National Air and Space Museum.

John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Pixar Animation Studios and creator of Buzz Lightyear, holds action figure donated to the Museum and points to where it will be on display in the "Moving Beyond Earth" Gallery in the summer of 2012.

The stories that they tell will fit well into a new Museum exhibit, Moving Beyond Earth, which illustrates the Space Shuttle program, the International Space Station, and future human spaceflight.  Pixar’s “Mission Logs” videos will be help educate children and families about rendezvous, re-entry, and space science.  And Buzz Lightyear himself will have a special place in the mockup of the space shuttle’s crew cabin that we’ve built in the exhibit.  Given that Buzz flew into space and back aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, after which the exhibit’s crew compartment is modeled, we hope that he’ll feel right at home.

If you plan to visit the Museum this summer, make sure that you come down the hall to Moving Beyond Earth to say hello to Buzz!

Above: Archived webcast of the ceremonial presentation of Buzz Lightyear to the National Air and Space Museum. Chief creative officer of Pixar John Lasseter presented the action figure to the Museum and took questions from the audience.

Margaret A. Weitekamp is a curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.