Event name: National Air & Space Museum
Event time and place: 02/23/2025
Upon my arrival at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, I first entered the One World Connected gallery. In this gallery, the main focus of information being presented was related to space travel, air travel, and the power of human connection through these types of travel. More specifically, the process of creating airplane engines, too creating jet engines, all the way to creating satellites was shown. What was very interesting about this was that the gallery had real models of these. I got to observe a real airplane engine that had its shell stripped off, making it possible to look at the complicated components. They even had a satellite on display which was very fun to look at. I also noticed that they used a lot of infographics to display information, which made it very easy to understand these complex topics. I was looking at an infographic of the history of communication from the first email through the ocean, all the way to seeing Earth from space. Having this displayed in a timeline made me realize how close these two events were to each other. Given all of these factors, I would say that this exhibit is aimed at younger people, as all of the information was displayed in a way that was easy to understand. Having pictures and models makes it easy to learn how complicated and impactful these inventions are. What was also very useful was that there were lots of interactive components. There were touchscreen computers that a person could use to explore a concept at their own pace. I found that the interactive components were very useful because they allow you to go through a timeline of history, which thus allows you to get a sense of time through the use of pictures and space.
I next visited the Destination Moon exhibit. In this exhibit, the main ideas being presented were space exploration, reaching the moon, and the technology that got us there. One of the first things that I observed was that our former president JFK, expressed a need for America to reach the moon in ten years, from 1961. I also saw the different types of ships that were used in space. One of those being a command module from a former spaceship. Just next to that was a display about the space suits that were used on some of these older space missions. What was crazy about this exhibit was that they had the actual command module on display, as well as an actual space suit. A lot of the information was displayed using text, which explained the history of the spaceships, as well as how they worked. I would say that this exhibit is also aimed towards younger people. This is due to the fact that there were a lot of physical components on display, which are a lot more interesting to kids compared to text. Also, the text used was easy to understand and it gave interesting information about the items on display. They also had touchscreen devices around the whole exhibit, displaying information about space travel. These were quite helpful, as they helped break down something as complicated as a rocket and made it easier to understand.
I finally visited the Exploring the Planets exhibit. As I walked in, I noticed that this exhibit was presenting information about space exploration, and transmitting information about other planets from space back to Earth. More specifically, this exhibit explained how people on Earth control some type of technology millions of miles away to collect data about other planets and send that information back to Earth. It also explained how we can use features like erosion to determine specific types of elements on a different planet, without necessarily collecting a sample. I also noticed that this exhibit explained how humans had to develop specific technology that would be suitable to land on a different planet that has a far greater gravity compared to Earth. In the middle of the exhibit, there was a room with a 360-degree display that showed a simulation of a rover on Venus. I also got to see a lot of infographics that explained how we can use things like volcanism, plate tectonics, and erosion to determine the types of elements on other planets. Compared to the previous exhibits, this one is targeted at an even younger audience. There were a lot more visuals in this exhibit, making it more appealing to kids. This exhibit also had the most interactive components, as there were many stations where people could go, and have some type of demonstration done by a worker. These demonstrations seemed targeted to kids, due to the language used and the interactive components. The interactive components made it very easy to understand how the process of erosion is used to determine elements on different planets.
Being that astronomy is a difficult subject to understand and portray, I would say that these exhibits did a great job of explaining astronomy. One of the biggest reasons for this is due to the use of physical displays. Getting to see an actual model of a piece of space technology allows people to get a better understanding of how complicated and advanced space exploration is. Space is a very interesting topic, but on its own, just writing about space isn’t very interesting to people, as it's very complicated, and displaying this information without visuals would make it very hard to understand. Also, the exhibits all used digital displays, which are very useful, as astronomical discoveries are being made all the time, so having something that you can easily update, like a computer screen, is so important in these exhibits.