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Scientist stumps for SpaceWorld
SETI astronomer outlines plans for would-be museum at Hangar One

by Elizabeth Lasky

Despite the interminable wrangling over Hangar One's fate, at least one scientist from Mountain View's SETI Institute has kept the dream alive for establishing a modern science museum there.

SETI Institute Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak, of Mountain View, spoke to SETI's Technology and Society Committee on May 30 about the longstanding plans for SpaceWorld, a proposed science museum designed to inspire tomorrow's space explorers.

During the talk, Shostak, a member of the board of the SpaceWorld Foundation, put the plans in an educational context. Unlike existing science museums in the Bay Area, which have a historical focus, the SpaceWorld museum would emphasize the future of space exploration.

Even though "we can predict what's going to happen to the universe," Shostak said, "no center tells kids the future as well as the past."

During his lecture, which took place at the committee's bi-weekly luncheon at the Golden Wok, Shostak compared today's children to the Columbus-era explorers who mapped the globe. "This is the generation that's going to map the solar system," he said. "You read this in the paper in drips and drabs. But if you step back from the individual stories, you'll see we're sending the machines and eventually people to these worlds."

The SpaceWorld Foundation board, which also includes celebrities Sally Ride and James Cameron, is considering two distinct plans: an exhibit at the NASA Ames Visitor Center and a large museum at Hanger One. Both would have a theme of space exploration.

"I think saving Hanger One is good because it's an icon for the South Bay," Shostak said, adding, "The real reason I want to save it is for the reuse. You have all this vertical space, you can do things with it you otherwise couldn't do. Four thousand feet — you could put a space elevator inside."

According to Shostak, a feasibility study conducted by his board says that the SpaceWorld museum would cost $400 million to build and then a tenth of that to maintain every year. It would bring in one million visitors every year, the board estimates, and pay for itself by generating tens of millions of dollars for Mountain View.

"The hanger itself is structurally sound, it's the siding that is the problem," Shostak said, noting that repairs would be expensive.

Shostak believes that a museum large enough to fill Hanger One would have advantages by its size alone: "This is so big you don't get to see it all in one day, so you go back." He said it's common for smaller museums to draw large crowds in their first year but not afterward, which indicates that a bigger museum would be smarter strategically.

"I think there is a minimum-mass argument here, that if it's not big enough it's not going to last."

However, the board of the SpaceWorld Foundation has temporarily shifted its focus to the smaller-scale project. An exhibit at NASA Ames Visitor Center, called "SpaceWorld at NASA," would fill the Space Camp Tent and cost between $3 million and $4 million to build. Shostak expects that project to open within two years.

A full-scale museum at Hanger One, meanwhile, would take four or five years to build. "A big impediment now is seed money," Shostak said, adding, "A lot of companies would donate if they thought this was going to happen."

That, in turn, is impeded by the fact that no one can build anything in Hangar One until it's cleaned up.

E-mail Elizabeth Lasky at elasky@mv-voice.com