Development & Aid, Education, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

SCIENCE-MEXICO: Kids’ Museum Offers a Passport to the Stars

Diego Cevallos* - Tierramérica

MEXICO CITY, Jan 28 2004 (IPS) - Mexico is a long way from the "space race", but is opening the door for people to leave Earth and the Milky Way for the edge of the known universe, in a virtual voyage that is impossible in any other Latin American country.

The Papalote Children’s Museum in Mexico City will inaugurate the world’s largest digital dome on Feb. 3, with an interactive spectacle that will transport audiences to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, billions of light-years away.

Seated beneath a dome measuring 23 meters in diameter, upon which nine cameras project real images of outer space using 16 million colours, the "travellers" will be able to enter the Orion nebula, the "star factory" closest to Earth, at 1,500 light-years.

The show, "Passport to the Universe", was produced by the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, based in New York, and offers some of the most spectacular images of the cosmos, at distances of up to 15 billion light-years.

These images, from NASA (the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and the European Space Agency, are the result of the most recent discoveries in astrophysics and space exploration, responding to the age-old question: Where did we come from?

"It is a voyage of knowledge about the universe we inhabit and the universe that inhabits us," Berta Mendieta, manager of what has been dubbed the "Domodigital", told Tierramérica.

In a country where space science is only in its embryonic stages, the new projection facility was received with enthusiasm by the scientific community and by private companies, which contributed funds to make the digital dome possible.

The aim of Papalote (a local Mexican expression meaning ‘kite’) is to bring science to the people, and for the past 10 years the museum has been successful in doing so. This is why there is full confidence in the new project, despite its price tag of three million dollars, said the museum’s general director, Marinela Servitje.

Ed Lantz, development manager for the U.S. company Spitz, specialising in digital domes, with 1,200 installed around the world, said the projection technique is based on inverted viewing.

It is a multimedia environment that attempts to create what "a feeling of presence", the feeling that one is actually inside a specific environment, in this case, the universe. "It is an emotional interactive experience," he said.

Mexican astronomers and scientists are amazed by the quality of the images and pleased because the facility will likely spark viewer interest in science and promote investment in technology – areas where Mexico lags behind.

Less than 0.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) goes towards scientific research, and the budget for space research is practically nonexistent.

The Papalote Children’s Museum expects around 624,000 people will pay the five-dollar admission to see "Passport to the Universe" over the course of 2004.

In 2005, another show, also from the American Museum of Natural History, "The Search for Life: Are We Alone?", will be exhibited. It describes the attempts by the world’s scientific community to find signs of life beyond Earth.

The Papalote, which last year celebrated a decade of using science in educating and entertaining children of all ages, has received 10 million visitors, and is one of the world’s top six museums of its type in number of visitors.

Founded and managed as a private entity, the museum is almost completely self-sufficient in financial terms, unlike most institutions around the world that seek to bring the public in contact with science and technology. These usually rely on donations and government funds to survive.

In addition to its Mexico City location, the Papalote has a mobile museum project. With specially-outfitted trucks, the exhibits tour the entire country and also travel to neighbouring Guatemala.

Over the past 10 years, the touring exhibits have educated and entertained an estimated four million children from rural Mexico and Guatemala.

The Papalote Children’s Museum has been praised for its excellence, winning awards from the Mexican government and private foundations, and commendations from UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund).

(* Originally published Jan. 24 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)