PRESS RELEASE
The Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA is hosting another event as part of their Home Beyond Earth Series. Debris from decades of space travel orbits the Earth today, and during a museum presentation on August 31, 2024, former NASA engineer Linda Dawson will explain to event-goers why this should be a concern. Dawson was a flight controller in NASA’s Space Shuttle program and a navigation and guidance engineer at Boeing Space Center in Kent, Washington. She is also the author of two books on space travel and will be signing books after her program. Dawson’s program on space junk begins at 2 p.m. and is included in the general admission price.
This program is carried out in conjunction with the museum exhibition. Home Beyond Earth. With a focus on space stations of the past, present and future, Home Beyond Earth displays over fifty artifacts, models, space objects and uniforms. Using digital tokens, visitors can take their own journey through the exhibition and personalize their imaginary life in a space station of their choice. The exhibition’s vibrant digital projections and over a dozen interactive elements help visitors enjoy and realize the dreams and realities of living and working in a place that orbits our planet. The new era of space travel promises space hotels, orbiting cities and industrial jobs on the moon. Home Beyond Earth shows how far we’ve come in realizing that vision and helps us think about a future that may or may not be there for you.
Founded in 1965, the independent and nonprofit Museum of Flight is one of the largest aerospace museums in the world, receiving over 600,000 visitors annually. The museum’s collection includes more than 160 historically significant aircraft and spacecraft, from the first fighter plane (1914) to today’s 787 Dreamliner. Attractions on the 5-building, 23-acre Seattle campus include the original Boeing Company factory, NASA Space Shuttle Trainer, Air Force One, Concorde, Lockheed Blackbird, and Apollo Moon rockets. In addition to the Seattle campus adjacent to King County International Airport, the museum also has a 3-acre Restoration Center and Reserve Collection at Paine Field in Everett (currently not open to the public).
With its expertise in aviation history, the Museum is also a center for news and dialogue with leaders in the emerging field of private spaceflight enterprise. The Museum’s aerospace library and archives are the largest on the West Coast. More than 150,000 people are served annually by the Museum’s on-site and field education programs. The Museum of Flight is accredited by the American Association of Museums and is a member of the Smithsonian Institution.
