by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Just as it did at Cape Canaveral, the crowd in the Bryan-Gooding Planetarium at the Museum of Science & History cheered at 11:29 a.m. Friday when the space shuttle Atlantis lifted off to begin the final flight of the 30-year shuttle program.
More than 200 people were in the planetarium, the auditorium on the first floor was filled to capacity and those who couldn’t find a seat watched the launch on a big-screen television in the second-floor exhibit area.
Some of the spectators were old enough to remember when astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, 1961. Others in the audience were barely born two months ago when the next-to-last shuttle was launched.
“Maybe this experience will instill in them a love of science and space,” said MOSH Communications Manager Kristi Taylor, noting the large number of young shuttle finale witnesses in the planetarium.
Postponed by three minutes because of a technical issue, the NASA TV HD telecast of the launch was projected on the planetarium’s 60-foot dome through the Konica Minolta Super Media Globe II.
The optical system has four times the definition of HDTV and is the centerpiece of the $1 million renovation of the planetarium that debuted Nov. 11.
Taylor said MOSH’s planetarium is one of only two Super Globe II facilities in the country and the 60-foot dome makes it the largest in the world.
For more information about programs in the Bryan-Gooding Planetarium – and details about MOSH’s 45th birthday party Saturday for Tonca, the museum’s resident snapping turtle – visit www.themosh.org.
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