Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

Getting a workout on the Moon

In his own words: Apollo 12 Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean talks back to Mission Control in this air-to-ground voice transcription . . .

"You know the funny thing about moving around on the lunar surface, you put on this pressurized suit we wear, and you try to do it on Earth, with even close to the weight you have on your back on the Moon and get tired very rapidly from the walking, and you don't have to walk over, you know, let's say 200 or 300 yards, and you're ready for a rest. But, on the Moon, in the light gravity with the same suit on and the same weight, your legs never seem to get tired. I guess when you run up the side of a steep slope, you could do it, but just running around on level ground, you assume some kind of normal pace, and you're able to go for long distances without your legs getting tired.

The suit doesn't always want to bend like you want to bend. For example, it bends pretty well in the knee, and it bends pretty well in the ankles, but it doesn't want to bend up near the thigh, the top of the thigh. So what happens is you tend to run with straight legs, land flat-footed, and then push off on your toes. And you think to yourself, 'Well, I'm going to tire out my calves pretty soon because I'm not used to this sort of thing,' but apparently the force it takes to push off on your toes on the Moon is much less than you just have when you walk or run on Earth, so your legs just don't seem to tire . . ."

Original NASA transcripts like this have helped us gain an understanding of just what it feels like to wear a spacesuit. We're reading plenty of them, pulling together information for our upcoming Suited for Space exhibition, about the history and evolution of spacesuits. The national tour of the exhibition begins in March 2011.

"Sk8 Tuff" and other truisms learned at the Smithsonian

If you talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk, right? But if we're talking about Ramp It Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America, the upcoming exhibition that's sure to lure both surf and skate enthusiasts, then NMAI exhibition curator Betsy Gordon has got the right idea:

 
 Betsy taking the quick route to the fax machine.

And in true collaborative skater spirit, Betsy was so generous as to gift the SITES Ramp It Up exhibition team (incidentally, all women) with a specially-signed deck of our own:

   
"To the mighty gals of SITES, Sk8 tuff! Betsy"

Oh, and did we mention that the exhibition was recently mentioned in Thrasher magazine?

 

 

Ready, set, INSTALL!

As a Project Director for traveling exhibitions, I don't often get to see my shows while they're on the road, much less have a hand in installing them.  So it's a real treat for me when one of our exhibitions goes on view at a Washington, DC, venue.  I knew that The White House Garden 
would look great in the expansive space of its current home, the White House Visitor Center, and lucky for me, our fantastic registrars were happy to have an extra set of hands to help with the installation.

The crates were waiting for us in the morning. (They'd already been sniffed down by a K-9 team. You never know what you're going to get when working in DC federal buildings). And our team of five was ready to go. We first unpacked all the crates, laying the components out on the floor, and then got to work putting together the metal structure (those base plates are HEAVY, let me tell you!)  When the structure was finished, we hung the fabric panels and added the finishing touch . . . overhead lattice with a bit of greenery to give it a "garden" feel.

We had barely put the last piece in place before visitors were already crowding around--both to view the exhibition, and to take in the behind-the-scenes installation work the public rarely gets to see. Since I was new to the installation process too, I'll share a few lessons learned: always wear sneakers when installing an exhibition (thankfully, my sandaled toes weren't squashed by those base plates!), have an assortment of extra tools handy, and don't tighten the screws TOO much (since you'll probably be the one who has to UNscrew them when the exhibition closes!)

To see a photo album of start-to-finish installation shots, visit our Facebook page.