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Sachin Saravanan, director of projects for SEDS at UCF, speaks during a space history panel on Wednesday at UCF\u2019s Center for Humanities and Digital Research. Saravanan said SEDS at UCF has seen \u201cgrowing interest in space\u201d across fields including biology, economics, policy and the humanities.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Jasmine Awad<\/p>\n
We teach children to dream of becoming astronauts, yet space history is a collective human triumph.<\/p>\n
Three historians from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum aim to highlight the integrative nature of space exploration and its history, as they introduced the new \u201cSpace History Project\u201d in a virtual panel hosted by Students for the Exploration and Development of Space at UCF in Trevor Colbourn Hall on Oct. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UCF Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives and Digital Exploration Center collaborate on the interdisciplinary project to create two exhibits exploring space history.<\/p>\n
Smithsonian historians\u00a0Margaret Weitekamp<\/a>,\u00a0Cathleen Lewis<\/a> and\u00a0Andrew McGee<\/a> discussed how museums can tell the history of spaceflight beyond a list of events and achievements by including the thousands of people who helped make them possible.<\/p>\n Sachin Saravanan, director of projects for SEDS at UCF, said the organization historically served students in engineering disciplines but has seen \u201cgrowing interest in space\u201d across fields including biology, economics, policy and the humanities.<\/p>\n The Smithsonian\u2019s\u00a0National Air and Space Museum<\/a> in Washington, D.C. preserves and displays the world\u2019s largest collection of aircraft and spacecraft, including artifacts that document the history of aviation and spaceflight.<\/p>\n McGee said understanding space history requires looking beyond well-known figures such as astronauts and NASA administrators.<\/p>\n \u201cHistory, when done well, in my opinion, is more than a chronology,\u201d McGee said. \u201cHistory is a rich tapestry.\u201d<\/p>\n McGee said that tapestry includes both the \u201ctop-down stories\u201d of prominent figures and the \u201cbottom-up stories\u201d of seamstresses, laboratory workers and even people watching launches from the beach.<\/p>\n Sachin Saravanan, director of projects for SEDS at UCF, speaks at the podium as attendees listen to a virtual space history panel, Wednesday at UCF\u2019s Center for Humanities and Digital Research. The event featured three historians from the Smithsonian\u2019s National Air and Space Museum and introduced SEDS at UCF\u2019s new interdisciplinary Space History Project.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Jasmine Awad<\/p>\n Telling the full story of spaceflight also means recognizing the tens of thousands of people who contributed to major missions, including those whose work may not have received the same attention as astronauts or engineers. Lewis said engagement from guests is the key factor when shining a spotlight on that group.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re engaging our visitors and readers with the stories of not only the event that is really encapsulated in headlines, but also who thought of the idea, who promoted it, who made it [and] who tinkered it,” Lewis said.<\/p>\n A challenge for historians is balancing which stories to tell and deciding how to make them meaningful to visitors who may enter an exhibit with different levels of knowledge or interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weitekamp said museum visitors don\u2019t always experience an exhibit in the order its creators intended.\u00a0<\/p>\n A visitor may skip the definitions, historical background and other context before walking directly toward something that catches their attention. Weitekamp compared that experience to reading a book out of order.<\/p>\n \u201cYou’re gonna open our book effectively and start in the middle and say, \u2018I\u2019m just going to spend time in chapter four,’\u201d Weitekamp said.<\/p>\n Because some visitors only spend time in chapter four, Weitekamp said each section must work for someone who only stops at one chapter of an exhibit, while still contributing to the larger story for those who explore the entire gallery. That process requires curators to leave some material out.<\/p>\n When developing an exhibit, Weitekamp said historians can begin with several potential artifacts and ways of presenting them before deciding on a central argument that determines what ultimately belongs in the gallery.<\/p>\n \u201cYou take that whole big, fat, gorgeous document full of people, things and ideas and you cut it by about 70%,” Weitekamp said.<\/p>\n UCF history professor\u00a0Amy Foster<\/a>\u00a0said the same attention to the unfamiliar stories beyond the most recognizable ones in spaceflight is part of why involving students from different academic backgrounds matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe space program isn’t just about STEM,\u201d Foster said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n