50 Years and Beyond 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival After-Event Report August 30, 2008
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NASA: 50 Years and Beyond 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival After-Event Report August 30, 2008 August 30 Office of Communications Planning TO: Distribution FROM: Smithsonian Folklife Festival NASA Project Manager SUBJECT: After-Event Report Dear NASA Colleagues: The 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival was an incredible opportunity for the men and women of NASA to share their passion and commitment to the agency’s mission of innovation, inspiration and discovery. It was my privilege to lead such an outstanding and dedicated group of the NASA family in this once-in-a-lifetime achievement. To that end, please enjoy reading this After-Event Report. Included are the team members, project management processes, and a representative sampling of the accolades received from both internal participants and external visitors. Over 1,022,000 visitors attended the Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, and it is extremely gratifying to me that so many NASA employees, contractors and industry partners gave of their time to tell the story of the importance of what we do and the extraordinary impact of our work. All facets of the NASA family were represented at the Festival - all Mission Directorates, all the Centers, and many of our partner organizations. While the entire team contributed to the Festival’s success, Ed Goldstein and Dan Woodard deserve our utmost gratitude. Thank you for helping make this Festival one of our premier 50th Anniversary events. Kristen Erickson Project Manager Table of Contents Overview……………………………………………………………………………………1 Event Management……….………………………………………………………………..11 Top Level Schedule………………………………………………………………………..15 NASA Site Plan……………………………………………………………………………16 Exhibits…………………………………………………………………………………….18 Media and External Web Activity…………………………………………………………21 Evaluation Results………………………………………………………………………....23 Lessons Learned……………………………………………………………………….......24 Conclusions and Recommendations……………………………………………………….25 Appendices Appendix A – Space Act Agreement…………………………………………........27 Appendix B – NASA Folklife POCs…………………………………..………......34 Appendix C – Deputy Administrator’s Letter…………………….………..……...36 Appendix D – Media………………………………………………………..……...37 Appendix E – Narrative Stage Speakers……………………………………….......68 Appendix F – NASA Participants and Staffers…………………………………….78 Appendix G – Smithsonian Visitor Survey Results………………………………..96 Overview “The origin of the festival came from my philosophy of bringing the museum out of its glass cases and into real life.” S. Dillon Ripley, Smithsonian Secretary Emeritus More than one million people visited the 42nd Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival featuring the cultures of NASA, Bhutan and Texas. The Festival was held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. June 25-29 and July 2-6, 2008. The Festival is produced by the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, a research and educational unit of the Smithsonian Institution promoting the understanding and continuity of diverse, contemporary grassroots cultures in the United States and around the world. The Festival is organized into programs featuring a nation, region, state or theme. To date the Festival has featured cultures from more than 100 nations, every region of the United States, scores of ethnic communities, more than 100 American Indian groups, and over 70 different occupations. NASA’s presence at the 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival was conceived and implemented to showcase the role that the agency’s men and women have played in American technology, science and culture, as well as the role that they will continue to play in shaping our future. The NASA program at the Festival included interactive demonstrations of unique skills and knowledge, narrative oral history sessions, hands-on educational activities for children and their families, and exhibits that explored the spirit of inspiration, innovation and discovery that is embodied by the Agency and its personnel. Over 900 employees representing every NASA Center and Mission Directorate and many of the Sgency’s contractors were present at the Festival, either staffing exhibit tents or speaking on the narrative stages. The primary focus of the Festival experience was the personal interaction with a cross-section of NASA’s civil service, contractor and grantee employees, including astronauts, scientists, engineers, technicians, managers and educators. On June 24, the day before the Festival opened, the first of several NASA-sponsored collateral events associated with the Festival was conducted: a screening of the Disney movie WALL-E at the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Opening remarks were provided by representatives from NASA, Disney and the Newseum. NASA’s Deputy Administrator Shana Dale and Johnson Space Center Director Michael Coats were featured speakers at the Festival’s June 25 Opening Ceremonies on the National Mall, along with Smithsonian officials and the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry and the Prince of Bhutan, Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuk. 1 Kicking off the Festival: NASA Deputy Administrator, the Honorable Shana Dale shares lunch with the Prince of Bhutan and Christian Samper, the Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. NASA was also featured during the Festival’s opening ceremonies through a taped message from in-flight Astronaut Greg Chamithoff, representing the crew of the International Space Station: Hi, I’m Greg Chamitoff, Flight Engineer and NASA science officer of the Expedition 17 mission aboard the International Space Station. Greetings to those celebrating the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall! In our 50th year, NASA is proud to participate in this wonderful event highlighting the people, places and cultures of the world we astronauts pass over. I hope Festival visitors will learn more about NASA’s bold missions; the Agency’s positive impact on global society; and about the talented men and women who make research outposts in space possible. I also hope they learn more about the state of Texas and nation of Bhutan, which from space are truly beautiful places. Have a great celebration, and be sure to watch our space station activities throughout the Festival live on the NASA Folklife Jumbotron. The evening of June 25, a special concert of Gustav Holst's The Planets by the Space Philharmonic (a part of the National Symphony Orchestra) led by Maestro Emil De Cou was held in the National Museum of the American Indian, with narration provided by former Astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison. The concert included imagery from NASA and featured the playing of the new Wall-E theme song. These special events set the stage for a great week of sharing NASA's culture, mission and inspiration with tens of thousands of visitors on the Mall. 2 The Festival exhibits and narrative stages were opened at noon on June 25, immediately following the opening ceremonies. NASA’s site on the National Mall consisted of two large football sized areas: one in a treed plot bounded by Jefferson Drive SW on the south th and 14 Street on the west and an adjacent open plot in the middle of the Mall, south of the National Museum of American History. The Washington Monument, one block west of the NASA site, provided a steady flow of visitor traffic, as did the Smithsonian metro stop to the east. 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival site plan: NASA, Bhutan and Texas. NASA’s open plot area consisted of the following exhibit elements: the Exploration Narrative Stage, a two-sided Jumbotron featuring live downlink from the International Space Station on one side and animation of NASA’s future Constellation Program on the second side, tents representing future missions, aeronautics, the ISS, human spaceflight and propulsion, inflatable representations of the Lunar Habitat, an X-34 aircraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), and the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), and full or partial scale mockups of the Ares I interstage, the Ares I rocket, and the Space Shuttle. The treed plot included the Galaxy Narrative Stage and tents devoted to earth sciences, space sciences, robotics, NASA derived technologies, and space food and nutrition. This plot also housed tents for collecting oral histories, space art demonstrations and educational activities (kids space). While the tents in each of the plots were populated with unique NASA ground and flight hardware and props representative of the tents’ themes, the NASA employees who staffed the tents were the key to the Festival’s success. Many NASA participants expressed appreciation for being included in the event. MSFC astrophysicist and Chandra project scientist Dr. Martin Weisskopf said, “I was there Saturday and Sunday. Exhausting but exhilarating. A great experience, but now I am hoarse. I would do it again in a heartbeat.” 3 Crowds quickly gathered around NASA employees and their models and hardware. JPL’s Todd Barber, lead propulsion engineer for Cassini and space sciences Folklife participant, commented on the Cassini-Huygens webpage: … My time on the Mall passed far too quickly staffing the small but exquisitely detailed 1/10th scale model of the Cassini/Huygens spacecraft. Cassini personnel shared one of the space science booths with the Mars Exploration Rovers, the MESSENGER mission to Mercury, and an aerogel exhibit. Talk about competition! However, in my typical fashion of acting more like a circus barker than an engineer, I drew in as many visitors as possible to hear tales of our robotic emissary, exploring the Saturnian system for four years and counting. It was