Tag Archive for: smithsonian affiliates

Supersonic Challenges: The Installation of the F-5 Fighter Jet

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Special thanks for this guest post to Dr. Jorge Perez-Gallego, Curator of Astronomy and Exhibition Developer, Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science.

Riddle us this: what moves faster than the speed of sound and lives in a gallery?

Give up?

Gulf Stream Aquarium Oculus

Gulf Stream Aquarium Oculus at the Frost Museum of Science. Photo by Ra-Haus.

The answer: a Northrop F-5B Freedom Fighter, on loan to the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science from the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The supersonic light fighter is capable of speeds faster than 1,000 miles per hour and you’ll find it hanging right over your head in the Feathers to the Stars exhibition, located in the Batchelor Foundation and Christine Allen Gallery, in the museum’s North Wing.

Frost Science, which officially opened its doors in Downtown Miami’s Museum Park on May 8, is truly a marvel of both architectural and engineering feats. An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum features a three-level 500,000-gallon cone-shaped Gulf Stream Aquarium teeming with hammerhead sharks and dolphins, anchored by a 31-foot oculus lens that peers into the waters above. The Frost Planetarium, one of the most advanced facilities of its kind anywhere in the world, uses a 16-million-color, 3-D 8K visual system to send visitors hurtling through space and into the depths of the ocean. And with a fascinating roster of interactive exhibitions, it’s easy to spend an entire day exploring and being immersed in the power of science.

Now, about that Northrop—exactly how is an 8,000-pound airplane moved into a gallery? Teamwork. Lots of it. For that, Frost Science enlisted the help of an invaluable group of experts, including first-class airplane movers and riggers. The aircraft was brought into the building in three pieces (the fuselage, the wings and the tail) through a tight opening between the Frost Planetarium and the level three terraces. The intricate task took our crew 10 hours from beginning to end.

Breaking through the sound barrier is a relatively recent feat in human history. On October 14, 1947, Captain Charles “Chuck” Yeager became the first to do so. Manning a rocket engine-powered Bell X-1, Yeager reached Mach 1.06— exceeding the speed of sound in level flight. (At 768 miles per hour, Mach 1 is equal to the speed of sound.)

Feathers to the Stars exhibition at Frost Museum of Science. Photo by Ra-Haus

Because sound waves move at a finite speed, moving sources can catch up with the sound waves they emit as they accelerate. As this happens, sound waves pile up in front of them. If the aircraft is fast enough, it can burst through them causing a sonic boom. The loud noise is a consequence of the change in pressure as the aircraft outruns all the sound waves ahead of itself.

That accomplishment came just over 40 years after Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled, sustained flight of a heavier-than-air powered aircraft on December 17, 1903, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. And just over 20 years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. In less than a lifetime, humans mastered the sky and knocked on the door of space exploration.

Feathers to the Stars will carry you through the amazing story how ancient evolution gave birth to animal flight, and how humans used imagination and engineering to get airborne and explore the infinite possibilities of space. The exhibition also features a rocket engine, a rocket tail piece with jet deflector vanes, and a model of a V-2 missile (the world’s first guided missile) on loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

Ultimately, Feathers to the Stars is a story driven by challenges—and perseverance. Ready for take-off? You can find more information on the exhibition here.

 

kudos Affiliates! for June 2017

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Congrats to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments.

FUNDING

The Pinhead Institute (Telluride, CO) won the first-ever Telluride Foundation Innovation Prize of $50,000 for its Climate Institute idea. The new institute will aim to reduce the area’s carbon footprint by focusing on emissions from the Galloping Goose buses, and eventually, the Telluride Regional Airport.

The Wisconsin Maritime Museum (Manitowoc, WI) has announced a $130,000 bequest from the estate of Robert and Grace Peppard, who were longtime supporters of the museum.

The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology (Newark, OH) received a $2,625 grant from the Granville Community Foundation in support of the ArtWorks! for Life program. ArtWorks! for Life is designed to expand creativity and enhance the quality of life for seniors in the Granville and Newark communities by offering exceptional engaging art programs.

Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent will be the presenting sponsor of Conner Prairie’s (Fishers, IN) newest outdoor nature experience, Treetop Outpost; its series of summer day camps for youth ages 8-12; and Headless Horseman. As presenting sponsor, the hospital will financially support the three museum initiatives for one year and have multiple opportunities to interact with and engage Conner Prairie visitors throughout the year.

Pew Charitable Trusts awarded the Hagley Museum and Library (Wilmington, DE)$500,000 over three years to expand services for businesses and trade associations. The initiative will advance research and public knowledge of American invention and entrepreneurship.

 

LEADERSHIP and STAFF CHANGES 

The Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA) has selected Dr. Lourdes I. Ramos to serve as President and CEO.

Mark Auslander, a sociocultural anthropologist, has been appointed director of the Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI).

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, TX) announced that Linda Abraham-Silver will serve as the museum’s new CEO.

The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission has promoted the education chief, Patrick C. Morrison to historic site administrator at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (Strasburg, PA) to oversee the 42-year-old railroading site.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) announced Kurt Strand as the next President & CEO of the organization.

 

AWARDS

Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) has received national recognition for the revitalization and reinterpretation of the museum’s longest-running exhibit. The American Alliance of Museums honored the museum with an Excellence in Exhibition award. The award recognizes the design, development and implementation of William Conner House, which reopened to the public last year after new interactive and media experiences were installed.

The Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA) announced that their exhibition Transformations, curated by Curator of Collections, Carlos Ortega, has received a 2017 Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement for “A Museum Exhibit on a Limited Budget” from the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA).

Coming up in Affiliateland in June 2017

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Summer is heating up in Affiliateland!

CALIFORNIA
The board of the Smithsonian Latino Center will be meeting at the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles, 6.4-5.

The National Museum of American History will present Let’s Do History professional development workshop in collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, 6.9.

KANSAS
National Air and Space Museum curator Mike Neufeld will give a talk and booksigning on Werner Von Braun at the Cosmosphere  in Hutchinson, 6.8.

Fort Worth Alliance Airport tower

Fort Worth Alliance Airport
Texas, United States
Photo by Carolyn Russo, National Air and Space Museum

INDIANA
Former director of the National Museum of American History Brent Glass will give a talk and booksigning on 50 Great Historical Places at the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis, 6.13.

NEBRASKA
National Museum of Natural History director Kirk Johnson will be the keynote speaker at the Ashfall Fossil Beds Dedication ceremony at the University of Nebraska State Museum  in Lincoln, 6.17.

ILLINOIS
The Dusable Museum of African American History will host the Night of 100 Stars gala and honor Lonnie Bunch, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Chicago, 6.24.

Kudos Affiliates! April 2017 edition

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Congrats to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments.

Funding
Pinhead staff at Innovation Prize event

Pinhead Institute Executive Director Sarah Holbrooke, center, poses with Dr. Adam Chambers, right; Chris Arndt, left; and members of the Telluride Earth Guardians at the Telluride Foundation’s Innovation Prize event Wednesday evening at the Elks Club Lodge. (Courtesy photo)

The Pinhead Institute won the first-ever Telluride Foundation Innovation Prize of $50,000 for its Climate Institute idea. The idea of the Climate Institute came about after Dr. Adam Chambers moved to Telluride and became involved with the organization as a consultant. The new institute will aim to reduce the area’s carbon footprint by initially focusing on emissions from the Galloping Goose buses, but the model can be expanded to focus on larger sources of carbon emissions like the Telluride Regional Airport.

Leadership and Staff Changes 

Co-Chairmen of the Museum of Latin American Art’s Board of Directors, announced that the Museum of Latin American Art has selected Lourdes I. Ramos Ph. D. to serve in the position of President and CEO.

Mark Auslander, a sociocultural anthropologist, has been appointed director of the Michigan State University Museum.

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science announced Linda Abraham-Silver, as the museum’s new CEO.

affiliates in the news-march enews edition

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Here’s a recap of our Affiliate news makers since January 30, 2017. If you have a clipping that highlights a collaboration with the Smithsonian or with a fellow Affiliate, or a clipping that demonstrates leadership in education, innovation, and arts/culture/history/science you would like to have considered for the Affiliate blog, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee

“Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission” (Multiple Affiliates)

Apollo capsule

Dane Penland / National Air and Space Museum/Smithsonian Institution

Apollo 11 capsule going on tour after decades in D.C.
The capsule will begin its tour in Houston in October of this year and spend about five months at each site, ending in Seattle where it will be for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing: July 20, 2019. The capsule also will visit: the Space Center Houston from Oct. 14, 2017, to March 18, 2018; the Saint Louis Science Center from April 14 to Sept. 3, 2018; the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh from Sept. 29, 2018, to Feb. 18, 2019; and The Museum of Flight in Seattle from March 16 to Sept. 2, 2019.

Apollo 11 Space Capsule Is Going On Another Mission
In 1970 and 1971, before it came to the Smithsonian, the capsule went on a 50-state tour. This time around, it will be going here: Space Center Houston — Oct. 14, 2017–March 18, 2018; St. Louis Science Center — April 14–Sept. 3, 2018; Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh — Sept. 29, 2018–Feb. 18, 2019; The Museum of Flight, Seattle — March 16–Sept. 2, 2019. Those museums were picked for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they had the capacity to display such a large, heavy object.

Apollo 11 command takes off for 4-city tour through 2019
“It did things that up until then were hardly imaginable, and it stoked tremendous excitement about the possibilities of technology in the future,” Smithsonian Secretary David J. Skorton said about the Apollo 11 mission. The traveling exhibition will allow the museum “to reach out to the much greater number of people in their hometowns, in their communities, so they can share the magic of the Smithsonian.”

NASA’s Apollo 11 Space Capsule Is Taking a Road Trip Across America
Starting this fall, Columbia will be on the move once more—though it won’t be going nearly as far as it did on its maiden voyage. The Apollo 11 space capsule will be embarking on a four-city road trip that’ll criss-cross America over the next two years.

Apollo 11’s crew capsule is going on tour
The traveling exhibit, called “Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission,” will reach four US cities in 2018 and 2019, the lunar mission’s 50th anniversary year. All told, the display will include the space capsule, along with other “one-of-a-kind artifacts.”

‘Destination Moon’: Museums and science centers plan for Apollo 11 exhibit
For Houston, it will be a homecoming; for St. Louis, a product of its past. In Pittsburgh, it will be seen as a symbol of innovation; and in Seattle, an arrival worthy of a celebration.

Apollo 11 module, exhibit headed to Pittsburgh’s Heinz History Center
“It is fitting that the ‘Smithsonian’s home in Pittsburgh’ will host this exhibition, since innovations from Pittsburgh companies such as Westinghouse, Alcoa, North American Rockwell, Union Switch & Signal and others played an important role in putting a man on the moon,” History Center CEO Andy Masich said

Smithsonian space exhibition to come to Heinz History Center
Apollo 11 command module Columbia spent 8 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds in space. It spent 46 years at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. And now it’s being prepped for a 142-day mission in Pittsburgh.

Apollo 11 capsule to go on road trip, visit Seattle’s Museum of Flight
The capsule will begin its tour in Houston in October of this year and spend about five months at each site, ending in Seattle where it will be for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing

Apollo 11 command module is coming to a science center near you
The St. Louis Science Center will host the “Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission” exhibit during the 49th anniversary of the moon landing, on July 20, 2018.

St. Louis Science Center will host Apollo 11 moon landing exhibition in 2018
“It’s historic, it’s nostalgic, it’s American, it’s science and it’s special,” said Bert Vescolani, president and CEO of the science center. “I see this as one of those really cool opportunities that we don’t have very often, where a grandparent can stand in front of an object and tell their grandkids their perspective.”

Apollo 11 capsule going on road trip, including to St. Louis
The Apollo 11 command module, which traveled more than 950,000 miles to take Americans to the moon and back in 1969, is going on a road trip, leaving the Smithsonian for the first time in more than four decades.

Columbia Goes On Tour: 11 Fast Facts On Apollo 11 Command Module
As the only piece of the spaceship that completed the first mission to bring humankind to the moon and return him safely to Earth, Columbia has a rich story to tell eager audiences in Houston on Oct. 14 and St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Seattle afterward.

Apollo 11 command module readies for road trip
This year, one of the most important artifacts of the Space Age, the Columbia command module of the Apollo 11 mission, will leave its home at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum for the first time in almost 50 years. The historic spacecraft will be the centerpiece of an exhibition traveling to top museums across the US that will tell the story of the Space Race and the conquest of the Moon.

 

photo of andromeda galaxy

Sarah Markley’s picture of the Andromeda galaxy was colorized using software provided by the Smithsonian’s Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos program. (Courtesy photo)

Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos (Multiple Affiliates)
Star pupils
Two students from the Telluride Middle/High School will present on their astrophotography work at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., for a two-day National Youth Summit, Feb. 22-23. Seventh-grader Mylo Meyers Ornowski and sixth-grader Sarah Markley were selected to attend the summit because of their dedication to the Smithsonian Institution’s Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos program, which is run by the Pinhead Institute, one of 13 Smithsonian affiliates that participated in the initiative.

California African American Museum and High Museum of Art
Naima J. Keith Wins High Museum’s David C. Driskell Prize for African American Art History
California African American Museum deputy director Naima J. Keith has been named the winner of the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Prize, which is awarded annually to a scholar or artist who has made a major contribution to African American art history.

The Rockwell Museum (Corning, New York)
Rockwell Museum Kicks Off Smithsonian Speakers Series
The Rockwell Museum is getting ready for the kickoff of its Smithsonian Speakers Series. This is the first time the Rockwell is holding an event like this, and the goal of this series is to identify leaders in the Smithsonian network while exploring diversity.

Kona Historical Society (Kona, Hawaii)
State Honors Kona Historical Society
Kona Historical Society was presented with a certificate of honor on its 40th anniversary for efforts to preserve local history and share Kona’s culture with residents and visitors.

The Children’s Museum of the Upstate opened a new permanent exhibit, Spark!Lab, sponsored by the Smithsonian, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017. RICHARD SHIRO/Contributor

The Children’s Museum of the Upstate (Greenville, South Carolina)
Spark!Lab Smithsonian opens at TCMU
“Spark!Lab will give children and their parents new ways to explore and discover, ultimately opening their eyes to the possibilities of what they can create and achieve through the process of invention,” said Nancy Halverson, president and CEO of TCMU. “We are incredibly grateful to the Smithsonian and the Lemelson Center for giving Upstate children the opportunity to explore the process of invention through an incredibly unique and special experience.”

Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, Michigan)
Arab American National Museum Invites Immigrants To Document Their Stories
“We’re all Americans, and the Arab American culture is a segment of our population we should get to know and celebrate,…”

Schingoethe Center of Aurora University (Aurora, Illinois)
Aurora University’s Schingoethe Center named a Smithsonian Affiliate
The Smithsonian Institution has granted the Schingoethe Center of Aurora University affiliate status, making possible new opportunities for collaborative exhibits, artifact loans, research and educational programs

Schingoethe Center to feature ‘art of facts: Brian Dettmer’ exhibit
The Schingoethe Center of Aurora University begins its 2017 season with an opening reception for “art of facts: Brian Dettmer,” Tuesday, Feb. 7, 5-6:30 p.m. The reception will be followed by an announcement designating the museum as a Smithsonian Affiliate.

Young astronomers gather at the Smithsonian

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Youth Summit Logo

Young astronomers from across the nation will convene for an out of this world Youth Summit in Washington, D.C., on February 22nd and 23rd. The astro-photographers, ranging in age from 10 to 14 years old, have all participated in the Smithsonian Institution’s Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos program, held at 13 Smithsonian Affiliate organizations over the past year. Participants used an online portal to control real robotic telescopes located at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory sites in Cambridge, MA, and Amado, AZ. Using the same tools, technologies, and techniques as professional astronomers, the youth observed planets, stars, and galaxies; analyzed and enhanced their astronomical images with scientific software; and even designed their own robotic telescope components.

student astronomer

A student astronomer at the Carolinas Aviation Museum. Photo credit: Carolinas Aviation Museum.

While in DC these youth astronomers will share the multi-disciplinary knowledge they have gained from Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos with the public. On Wednesday, February 22nd at 1:00pm, the youth will host a poster presentation at the National Air and Space Museum, featuring the astronomical images they have captured and processed. This poster session will be followed by a live presentation from the students, How to Control a Telescope & Create a Colorful Cosmic Image. 

The Youth Summit also includes events to broaden the students’ understanding of science, technology, and innovation, including programming at the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of Natural History. On Thursday, February 23rd, select participants will interact with a forum of Smithsonian educators to learn about their love of space, and discover how technology can enhance access to Smithsonian learning experiences.

Affiliate Participants:

Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos is supported by the Smithsonian Institution’s Youth Access Grants program managed by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Education and Access. The program is a product of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in partnership with Smithsonian Affiliations, and includes participation in YouthAstroNet, a digital network of youth interested in astronomy funded by the National Science Foundation.