TIME & EXPLORATION
EARTH, SEA & SPACE
APRIL - DECEMBER 2009
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TIME & EXPLORATION EARTH, SEA & SPACE APRIL - DECEMBER 2009
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Time & Exploration: Earth, Sea & Space will highlight the importance of time and timekeeping to the fields of exploration and navigation. Trade, sea power, and exploration have always depended on effective navigation. Early navigators turned to the skies and nature to find their way on the surface of the earth. Modern navigators have once again turned to the skies, for different reasons, to pinpoint their location on earth. Explorers of all ages need to be able to accurately navigate and document the locations of their discoveries. Technological advancements have affected methods for doing so over the ages. This exhibit will present navigational instruments and stories from the world’s explorers, both modern and historical, and investigate how navigation has changed over time and the importance of time in determining one’s location. Objects for this exhibit will include astrolabes, marine chronometers, compasses, sextants, surveying equipment, chronometers, GPS devices, etc. |
 Space Shuttle Endeavor |
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This exhibit is being presented in partnership with:
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Here is a preview of some of the objects that will be on exhibit:
Watch worn by Space Shuttle Endeavor astronaut Gerhard Thiele on shuttle mission STS-99 in 2000. (2000.9) |
The numbers around the face indicate Mars time, and the three subsidiary dials show Martian date, earth time, and earth date. (79.95.1) |
Skeleton clock with orrery. Orrery driven by an 8-day half hour striking clock. Orrery uses silvered brass ring dial with months. (96.33) |
Thomas Earnshaw Marine Chronometer, circa 1790. (BS27.163) |
Objects on exhibit will also include navigational objects and timekeepers from the age of sail exploration, timekeepers and surverying devices used to explore and map the Earth's land masses, timekeeping and navigational devices used in space exploration and a Moon Rock on loan from NASA!
Other museums loaning objects for the exhibit include: National Air & Space Museum, Mariners' Museum of Newport News, Virginia, New-York Historical Society, American Philosophical Society Museum in Philadelphia, as well as objects on loan from NASA and private collectors.
If you are interested in sponsoring this exhibit, or have an object you believe may fit the exhibit's theme, please send us an email.
