Logan, Roy, Salt Lake City host NASA Starship 2040 exhibit
Starship 2040, NASA’s traveling space transportation exhibit – designed to
give visitors a look at human space flight as it might exist 40 years from
now – will begin a 12-day visit to the Beehive State Oct. 6, in Logan. The
NASA exhibit also will visit Roy Oct. 10-11 and Salt Lake City Oct. 14-17.
NASA’s traveling space exhibit is a mockup of a futuristic space liner, not
a blueprint for a specific future vehicle. Starship 2040 is a glimpse into a
very possible future – one in which human beings will travel and work in
space as safely, affordably and routinely as we now navigate the skies.
Visitors board the “spaceship” and move through full-sized control,
passenger and engineering compartments. Audio effects – engine noises,
computer and crew voices – add to the realistic ambience of the experience.
Starship 2040 will be open to the public at Utah State University in Logan
Oct. 6-8, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. The exhibit then will visit Hill
Aerospace Museum at Hill Air Force Base in Roy Oct. 10-12, where it will be
open daily from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Starship 2040 will conclude its Utah
tour Oct. 15-18 at the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, where it will be
open daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
“This is a fantastic exhibit,” said Jan Sojka, Utah State physics professor.
“You can’t get any closer to learning what space travel is really like, and
it’s a great opportunity for kids – to get them excited about space.”
Utah State University, the Hill Aerospace Museum and the Clark Planetarium
are members of the Rocky Mountain-NASA Space Grant Consortium, an education
alliance that promotes educational excellence through the pursuit of science
and technology.
Starship 2040 crisscrosses the nation’s highways – bringing NASA’s messages
and mission to schoolchildren, educators and the American public. Visitors
touring the exhibit will learn about NASA programs such as the Orbital Space
Plane – the nation’s next space transportation system for crew rescue and
transfer to and from the International Space Station.
Starship 2040 arrives in Utah after tours in Alaska and Montana, where tens
of thousands of visitors immersed themselves in the sights and sounds of a
working space vehicle.
Created and managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Ala., Starship 2040 is intended to inform and excite visitors of all ages
about future space travel technologies and present-day space research and
development. Particular emphasis is placed on inspiring young people –
tomorrow’s space explorers. NASA seeks to motivate children not only to
dream of a future in space, but to pursue careers in math, science and
engineering – the building blocks of America’s space program.
The Marshall Center is a key leader in NASA technology development efforts
aimed at enabling dramatic improvements in the safety, cost and reliability
of future space transportation systems. For more information, visit:
http://www.Education.nasa.gov/
For more information about the Rocky Mountain-NASA Space Grant Consortium,
visit:
