UW Space Place: More space, new place

Fifteen years ago in a run-down former steak house, a small but determined cadre of astronomers at UW–Madison gave Madison access to the stars.

Visiting that once greasy setting, thousands of school children and Madison residents have over the years acquired a universe of knowledge about the planets, galaxies, and the cosmos. Guests have learned to use backyard telescopes, for instance, to gaze at Saturn’s rings, the Milky Way or the comets periodically sweeping past in vast orbits around the sun.

The public interest in such knowledge eventually outgrew the steak house location’s capacity. Space Place, the outreach and public education arm of the UW–Madison astronomy department, will in June 2005 move from its South Park Street location to a new venue-inside Villager Mall-just a mile down the road.

With an additional 4,000 square feet of space, the Villager Mall location is better suited to manage Madison’s growing number of students and lay citizens who wish to learn, think, and talk about space science and research, says Jim Lattis, director of Space Place.

“We have a lot of exhibits and hands-on lab experiments that we cannot currently display,” explains Lattis. “The new place offers twice the current floor space that will give us a flexibility for large displays, like a museum.”

The move may also bring new visibility, Lattis adds. “Too many Madison residents do not know about Space Place. We hope the new location will promote our educational curriculum,” he says.

“It’s not just about an increase in space, it’s about location, location, location,” agrees Mary Rouse, the assistant vice chancellor and director of the Morgridge Center for Public Service. “Space Place will bring the valued science education resources to an area in South Madison that has a low socioeconomic standing.”

The Morgridge Center and other UW–Madison affiliates spent two years conducting meetings and surveys to gauge community interest in UW–Madison’s educational presence in the South Madison community. “The response was extremely positive,” says Rouse.

Space Place offers hands-on workshops, guest lectures, and space observation sessions for teachers, the general public and around 7,000 school children annually, Lattis says. Group and family activity participants learn basic principles of space science such as gravity, free fall physics, and observing phases of the moon. Guests can also learn about space history, read informational posters and tour exhibits of used space telescopes, X-ray spectrometers and satellites.

A Space Place centerpiece is a back-up twin version of the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO2), “the first space-based telescope that could accurately point to any object in the sky and make scientific observations,” says Lattis. The OAO2 is so big that movers will have to demolish a wall to crane-lift the spacecraft out.

The relocation effort is another reflection of UW–Madison’s ongoing commitment to partner with local community and campus groups, says LaMarr Billups, the UW–Madison chancellor’s special assistant for community relations, who helped gain financial support for the Space Place move.

Additionally, “perks of the relocation include the greater opportunities for science outreach programs in other departments across campus to co-locate,” notes Billups. The new facility provides a large enough space to run multiple programs simultaneously, and a possible combined outreach center could generate new federal funding sources.

Although support from the Office of the Chancellor and NASA go a long way in funding the Space Place move, with benefits come costs, Lattis says. “A growing audience requires a lot more internal expansion with staffing, increased hours of operation, and community advertising,” he says.

Still, Lattis adds: “Science education, and astronomy specifically, has the kind of natural appeal that we don’t have to sell. Our goal is to give people greater access to this education.”