National Air and Space Museum

Frontier Airlines has Taylor Swift tickets + more travel tidbits

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Ready for the weekend?

Listen to a podcast series about the role of Latino history and culture in aviation and space. Take an airport art tour. And enter Frontier Airlines’ sweepstakes to win a trip to attend a Taylor Swift concert.

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum has launched “AeroEspacial,” a limited series of its “AirSpace” podcast that focuses on stories of Latino history and culture at the heart of aviation and space.

The four-part series is being produced in both English and Spanish and follows the museum’s 5-part “QueerSpace” series, which was released in February 2022.

Here’s the “AeroEspacial” Episode Schedule

  • July 13: In the early 1960s, thousands of unaccompanied children fled Cuba by plane, moving to the United States on visa waivers from the U.S. government. This episode explores the role of aviation in Operation Pedro Pan.
  • July 27: Arecibo Observatory is the pride of Puerto Rico’s science community. Following the devastating collapse of the observatory’s radio telescope, this episode explores the history, science and social importance of Arecibo.
  • Aug. 10: Latino Futurist artists use their mediums to imagine futures unlike the present, using art to create a society that is whole and inclusive in a way reality is not. This episode explores art from Latino creatives at the intersection of space and culture.
  • Aug. 24: In recent expansions of the Star Wars universe, Latino actors and storylines have taken center stage. From Arturito to “Andor,” this episode explores the past and present of Latino representation in Star Wars.

Here’s the QueerSpace podcast list:

Art tour at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport

 Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP) now has a virtual art tour that highlights the airport’s art collection of 17 two-dimensional pieces of art and three-dimensional sculptures, all representing the themes of textiles, technology, and water.

There are QR codes located near each art piece in the terminal that link to an audio description of the work, information about the artists, and the significance of the artwork within the region. The art tour is also accessible via the GSP airport website.

Taylor Swift fan? Frontier Airlines is giving away two tickets

Frontier Airlines has launched a sweepstakes to give away tickets to Taylor Swift’s August 7 The Eras Tour show at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA.

The winner will receive two concert tickets, two roundtrip flights, two nights of lodging, and $500 in spending money.

See Neil Armstrong’s space suit at the ballpark

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At the U.S. Naval Air Material Center in Philadelphia, a player swings a baseball bat in a B.F. Goodrich Mark IV spacesuit. Courtesy Smithsonian Institution

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum has launched “Apollo at the Park,” a project that will place 15 replica statues of Neil Armstrong’s iconic Apollo 11 spacesuit in major league ballparks across country.

National Park in Washington, D.C. got its statue this week.

Here are the rest of the team parks where statues will appear this summer at part of Apollo at the Park.

  • Atlanta Braves
  • Boston Red Sox
  • Chicago Cubs
  • Cleveland Indians
  • Cincinnati Reds
  • Colorado Rockies
  • Detroit Tigers
  • Houston Astros
  • Minnesota Twins
  • New York Yankees
  • Pittsburgh Pirates
  • San Francisco Giants
  • Seattle Mariners
  • Tampa Bay Rays

What’s the connection between space and baseball and that photo above? According to the Smithsonian:

“In the late 1950s, workers at the U.S. Naval Air Material Center in Philadelphia took to a makeshift field in some interesting uniforms — B.F. Goodrich Mark IV spacesuits. The game was staged as a flexibility demonstration for the spacesuit.  The final score of the baseball game is unknown, but the Mark IV would evolve to become the original Project Mercury spacesuit, a definite home run!“

And for stats fans, the National Air & Space Museum offer this:

*A ballpark stadium seat is roughly the same size at the Apollo 11 seat that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins sat in for three days on their journey to the moon.

*The Apollo 11 landing site, Tranquility Base, and the lunar area that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin explored is roughly the size of a baseball diamond.

Get ready for Star Trek’s 50th anniversary

Exhibits, Museums, ,

Star_Trek_Gallery at EMP. Brady Harvey_ EMP Museum

The 50th anniversary of the airing of the first Star Trek episode on TV is coming up on September 8 and there are a wide array of parties and special events lined up to mark the day. I’ve got a round-up of those in the works for CNBC, but in the meantime, here are two Star Trek-themed museum exhibits you can visit right now to get in the mood.

In Seattle, the EMP Museum is hosting Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds, an artifact and prop-filled exhibition that offers a unique view of the show.

Star Trek Costumes _Brady Harvey_EMP Museum

And in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum recently put the restored model of the USS Enterprise used in all the TV episodes back on display.

Star Trek USS Enterprise from National Air and Space Museum

More hidden museum treasures

Museums, ,

In a previous post, I shared a few of the hidden museum treasures I included in a slide show I put together for Bing Travel: fleas in a hazelnut inside a matchbox, a quilt made from Ku Klux Klan masks and a glass Portuguese man of war.  You can see those items here.

Here are few more:

This mounted skull, at Alaska’s Anchorage Museum, was labeled by the donor as the “first known Alaskan atomic victim;” it’s from a walrus supposedly killed when Russians exploded an atomic bomb near Siberia in about 1953. Exhibited briefly at the museum in 1966, the skull was put away over concerns that it was radioactive. When tested in 2000, no radiation was found, but the walrus stays in storage.

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., has more than 1,000 objects in its spacesuit collection, including most of the suits, gloves, boots and helmets worn during the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury missions. Built to withstand space — but not time — many now-fragile spacesuits are kept in storage facilities with special light, temperature and humidity controls. Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit, considered the most important spacesuit ever built, has been in storage since 2006.

At the Denver Art Museum, “Linda,” a popular piece of artwork by John DeAndrea made from plastic materials, emerges from storage for a short time every few years. Kate Moomaw, assistant conservator for modern and contemporary art, says, “Deterioration of plastics typically leads to issues like color change, distortions and increased brittleness … so ‘Linda’s’ time on view is rationed out. … When not on display, ‘Linda’ is kept in dark storage.”

You can see the full slide show here.
I’m working on a book on this same topic – so if you know of museum that has a hidden treasure you’d like to nominate, please drop me a note.

(All photos courtesy of the respective museums.)

NASA: savvy art collector

Air Travel, Art, Exhibits, Space, , , , , ,

Turns out NASA hasn’t been focusing all its energy on poking around in space.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has also been creating a unique and, now, very valuable art collection.

Chirs and Batty Explore Space, by Willam Wegman

Chip and Batty Explore Space, by William Wegman. Courtesy NASA Art Program

 

It started back in 1962 with the creation of the NASA Art Program and ever since then the agency has been inviting well known artists to document the space program.

The work includes paintings, drawings photographs, sculptures and other media by the likes of Annie Leibovitz, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, William Wegman (above) and Jamie Wyeth.

Curious to see what they’ve got? Starting Saturday, May 28, 2011, more than 70 pieces from the collection go on view in Washington, D.C. at the National Air and Space Museum.

Here are a few more samples:
Grissom and Young, by Norman Rockwell

This 1965 painting by Norman Rockwell shows astronauts John Young and Gus Grissom suiting up for the first flight of the Gemini program in March 1965. As in the William Wegman photo above, NASA loaned Norman Rockwell a spacesuit so the work would be as accurate as possible.

Liftoff at 15 seconds by Jack Perlmutter, 1982

Liftoff at 15 seconds by Jack Perlmutter, 1982

Space Shuttle Columbia rises from Kennedy Space Center on its third flight into space, on March 22, 1982.

These and close to 70 other space-related art pieces from NASA’s collection are on display as part of NASA | ART: 50 Years of Exploration at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. May 28 – October 9, 2011.

Thanks, NASA!