Nov 7 1978
From The Space Library
A new gallery, "Exploring the Planets," opened Nov. 7 at the National Air and Space Museum, the Washington Star reported. Melvin Zisfein, acting museum director, said the gallery was "jammed full of information and contains more facts and figures and concepts than any other gallery in the museum. Yet the information is easy to digest. We tried hard to make sure you didn't need a degree in astronomy to understand it." Keeping up with new information on the solar system (the gallery would be updated continuously) was one of the challenges. The gallery, designed by Lucius Lomas, had succeeded in teaching without neglecting imaginative features visitors had come to expect at the museum. Visitors could make a "Descent to Venus" in a simulated cockpit of an interplanetary spaceship circa 2150. A "Flight over Mars" from an altitude of 100 000 to 200 000ft (actually relief maps of the Martian landscape sculpted on to rotating cylinders and viewed through special windows) was based on photos taken from Mariner 9 and Vikings 1 and 2. A full scale replica of the Voyager spacecraft was the largest single object in the gallery. The relative sizes of Jupiter and 21 other planetary bodies was conveyed in a corner by brightly colored spheres made to scale: Jupiter was loft in diameter; Ceres, the largest asteroid, I inch; the earth, l ft. Six computer terminals offered "Space Academy exams" where visitors could test their knowledge of the solar system. (W Star, Nov 7/78, F 3)
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