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 Moving Beyond Earth: Innovations in Space
The Lemelson Center's New Perspectives Symposium
November 18-19, 2011
Friday, Nov. 18; 8:00 - 9:30 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 19; 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
National Air and Space Museum, 6th St. and Independence Ave., S.W. |
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News and Related Content
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Symposium Book Sales and Signings
If you're coming to the symposium, don't forget to stop by the NASM museum store and pick up your own copy from the wide selection of books written by this year's symposium atendees. For a full schedule, click here...
November 10, 2011
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 Travelling Light
Originally published by Lemelson Center Director, Art Molella, October, 2011, in the Lemelson Center's E-Newsletter, "Prototype"
Next month, the Lemelson Center's annual symposium, held this year in collaboration with the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, will celebrate fifty years of human spaceflight. One thing we will certainly be hearing about is just how hard it is to lift these bulky vehicles off the planet and keep them up there. In the face of such limitations, you have to ask, will humans--as opposed to robot devices--ever make it beyond Earth and the Moon in any meaningful way? How realistic is the possibility of visiting the solar system and beyond firsthand, perhaps even positioning ourselves to colonize other planets?
Continue reading...
October 31, 2011
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 Celestial Navigation and Space Travel
Originally published by Lemelson Center Director, Art Molella, June, 2011, in the Lemelson Center's E-Newsletter, "Prototype"
With the rising cost of fuel and the impossible demands on our time these days, we are constantly looking for shortcuts. That puts us in the company of history's most famous seeker of shortcuts, Christopher Columbus, who sailed west to reap the bounties of Asia. Key to his audacious plan to reach the "Indies" was the spherical shape of Earth, which, contrary to insidious schoolbook myth, almost everyone at the time accepted...
Continue reading...
October 26, 2011
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 Squishy Junk in Tubes
Originally published by Lemelson Center Senior Historian Joyce Bedi, March 2, 2011, in the National Museum of American History's, Oh Say Can You See? blog
One morning, shortly after the school day started, my classmates and I gathered around my school’s small black-and-white television to view history in the making. It was May 5, 1961, and I remember being transfixed by a grainy, darting image of the Freedom 7 capsule carrying Alan Shepard, the first American in space, back home to Earth. I was in the first grade and like a lot of kids of my generation, I decided right then that becoming an astronaut would be the coolest thing EVER.
Except for the food. In those early days, it seemed like an astronaut’s diet consisted primarily of squishy gray gunk in tubes. Yuck.
Continue reading...
October 11, 2011
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An updated, full schedule can now be found on the Moving Beyond Earth schedule page. Information on session topics, panelists and moderators can be found here along with info on the family day activities!
September 27, 2011
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 Friday Night Film Screening: Orphans of Apollo
On Friday, November 18, the Lemelson Center's New Perspectives symposium kicks off with a special screening of the 2008 documentary film, Orphans of Apollo. The film tells the true story of MirCorp, a group of audacious space entrepreneurs who succeeded briefly in commandeering and operating the Russian space station Mir as a business venture, thereby launching the commercial space industry. To view the movie trailer, visit http://www.orphansofapollo.com/.
Following the film, a moderated discussion will be led by Roger Launius, Senior Curator in the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum.
The event is free, but tickets are required and can be obtained via the National Air and Space Museum's ticket request page.
September 21, 2011
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 Podcast: NASA Food Scientist Vickie Kloeris
(Interview From January, 2011)
NASA food scientist Vickie Kloeris develops healthy, tasty meals for astronauts. And read about Vickie's "Top Ten Worst Space Foods."
September 14, 2011
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 2011 New Perspectives Symposium November 18-19 at the National Air and Space Museum
The 2011 New Perspectives on Invention and Innovation symposium, Moving Beyond Earth: Innovations in Space, marks the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight and explores the role of invention and technology in space exploration and space history.
The weekend program features a documentary film screening and panel discussion; symposium sessions examining the cutting-edge innovations that have enabled us to leave the planet, work in space, and explore the cosmos; and an array of family-friendly, space-themed educational activities.
September 12, 2011
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