Volume 3, No. 2. January 24, 2002
New Arrivals
It’s
a simulation!
The Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, New York, announces the arrival
of Mars Virtual Voyage, January 18, 2003. Measurements: a 2,500-square-foot
(232-square meter) theater with a queuing gallery, a mission briefing room and
a 30-seat motion platform showing a 5-minute simulator ride. Delivered by SimEx
! Iwerks.
Klingons are not from Mars, though nobody can contest the notion that they may,
even now, have a colony there. Nevertheless, Klingons were the characters of
choice for the grand opening of the Cradle of Aviation Museum’s first major
expansion since opening last May. A volunteer dressed as a Klingon greeted the
25 fourth and fifth graders chosen to be Mars Virtual Voyage’s first
official guests during a press preview last Thursday. For the public opening
on Saturday a dozen “professional Klingons” mingled among the guests,
said Tom Gwynne, vice president for external relations.
“They were very colorful, they were exciting, they did everything we could
ask of them,” Gwynne said of the aliens, which was, primarily, to add local
color. For the children at the press event, the Klingon didn’t make much
of an impression. “The kids took that in stride,” Gwynne said. “They
were like, ‘Well, there’s a Klingon,’ and they marched right
on.” Not to worry: the children came out of the simulator experience raving.
“I think ‘Cool’ was the word I heard several times,” Gwynne
said about eavesdropping on the press interviews. “That’s one measure
of success.”
Another measure is hard numbers. On Saturday the museum saw 1,100 visitors “which
is a good day for us,” Gwynne said. The number was 1,200 on Sunday, and
for Monday, the third day of the three-day weekend, 1,300 people went through
the museum’s doors. “The simulator was the main draw,” Gwynne
said.
The whole complex is designed by SimEx ! Iwerks and starts with a gallery recounting
the history of space travel from Jules Verne’s ideas to the current shuttle
launches. Guests move into a briefing theater where they learn of a human colony
on Mars in danger of being lost after a meteor storm destroyed one of its power
plants. The guests then join two astronauts aboard a shuttle that, braving the
meteor shower, delivers a new generator to the colony. The whole experience,
from queue to completed mission, is 15 minutes.
Despite its science fiction topic and the motion simulator, the museum specifically
sought a simulation that relied more on realism and story line than thrill ride.
“I’ve been on a lot of these different rides, and a lot of them go
into roller coaster-type rides fairly quickly, and it gets repetitive,”
Gwynne said. “This one stays on target with going to Mars and the Mars
mission. And it works very well in our environment because we have a hundred
years of Long Island’s aerospace heritage. For kids, those old planes are
exciting and fun, but it begs the question: all those old guys got to do that,
what do we look forward to? This is a way to introduce that subject.” And
by being more of a true simulation than just a wild ride, Mars Virtual Voyage
sparks the children’s imaginations about their own future aerospace adventures,
he said. “That’s exactly the intent. And it’s working. I think
you can see that in the enthusiasm of the kids coming off.”
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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