Some 40 years ago, the Schenectady Museum hosted a moon rock the public could come out and see.
Another moon rock will be on display at the museum on Thursday and Friday, July 12 and 13, but this time the museum’s doing one better. Visitors can actually touch this one.
“It’s one of only eight touchable moon rocks in the world,” said Chris Hunter, the museum’s curator of collections and exhibitions. “That’s kind of a new thing for this region.”
The moon rock, which was brought back to Earth aboard Apollo 17, is part of NASA’s Driven to Explore mobile exhibit. Housed in a 30-foot trailer, the exhibit will be parked at museum from noon to 9 p.m. on Thursday and noon to 5 p.m. on Friday. A number of space-related activities and displays will also be offered, and visitors will even have a rare chance to grab a bite to eat at the museum, as several vendors will sell food.
NASA has been touring the exhibit for about two years and contacted the museum about bringing it to Schenectady, Hunter said. The two institutions have a long history, with the Schenectady Museum often displaying NASA photographs.
“We are very excited to have been chosen by NASA as a site for this exhibit,” said Susan Whitaker, the museum’s communication and marketing specialist.
With good reason. The touchable moon rock, believed to be 4 billion years old, was picked up on the last manned mission to the moon in 1972. Visitors will also have a chance to see a prototype of the moon boot used by NASA during the historic Apollo 11 mission, which landed man on the moon for the first time in July of 1969. Momentive, then known as GE Silicones, made the moon boots’ rubber soles, and the Children’s Museum of Science and Technology in Troy has one of the boots, which it is loaning to the Schenectady Museum.
“CMOST is thrilled to participate in the NASA Driven to Explore exhibit by helping to provide special science programming and by loaning the moon boot prototype designed for NASA for the historic Apollo 11 mission from our collection,” CMOST Interim CEO Deborah Onslow said in a statement. “The NASA Driven to Explore exhibit represents a great chance for residents of the Capital Region and beyond to discover and explore science.”
CMOST educators will be on hand over the two days staffing science activity stations and giving talks. They will be joined by representatives from the Henry Hudson Planetarium and the Dudley Observatory, and the Empire State Aerosciences Museum will be on hand with a flight simulator. The museum will also offer special shows in the Suits-Bueche Planetarium. Visitors will be introduced to astronomical phenomena that can be seen in the current night sky.
Special space artifacts will be on display for this event only, joining standing exhibitions of a Mars Rover prototype and photos from the Hubble Space Telescopte. Space-related photographs on loan from Momentive will also be on display.
Hunter said the museum often loses people as lunch and dinnertime approach, but that should change with this exhibit as there will be several food options available. Local vendors Annabelle’s Café, Bette’s Cupcakes, Fast Trax ice cream and kettle corn, Manhattan Exchange and Maria’s Peruvian Delights will all sell food, and special “space ice cream” will be available in the museum gift shop.
Because the trailer will take up a significant portion of the museum parking lot, parking there will be limited to handicapped spaces. Hunter said the museum is grateful to a number of community organizations that are working with it to provide parking: Zion Lutheran Church (153 Nott Terrace); Days Inn (167 Nott Terrace); Holiday Inn (100 Nott Terrace); Union Graduate College (lot entrance off Liberty across from Denny’s); St. John the Evangelist Church (lot behind church on Eastern Parkway, just east of Nott Terrace); and College Park Hall on the Union College campus (450 Nott Street, just east of Erie Boulevard). A trolley will run from the Union lot to the museum and back.
Admission to the Driven to Explore exhibit is included in the regular price of tickets, which are $5 for children; $6.25 for seniors, and $7.50 for adults. Planetarium shows, which will be offered between 12:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. July 12 and 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. July 13, cost an extra $2.
For more information, call 382-7890 or visit www.SchenectadyMuseum.org.
