In 2017, NPR called school planetariums “relics of the space race.” Because that’s what they’ve become. But what about privately owned planetariums, or ones the planetariums schools have continued to invest in? With so many ways for us to see outer space, what is the advantage of the planetarium today? And how can we explain an apparent drop-off in planetarium popularity in the U.S.?

Cheddar Explains

The Rise And Fall Of Planetariums

In 2017 NPR called School Planetariums relics of the space race because that's what they've become. But what about privately-owned planetariums or the school planetariums districts have continued to invest in with so many ways for us to see outer space? What is the advantage of the planetarium today? And how can we explain an apparent drop off in planetary in popularity in the us? Let's start at the beginning. Wait, wait, not that beginning. The earliest known use of a planetarium projector is in 1923 when the German company Carl Zeiss developed the first of several star projector models. There was a planetary presenter out of the fellas planetary in philadelphia and Armand spitz. They had had this absolute piece of art in their dome Zeiss projector, He wanted to make a star projector that was cheaper. He started a company which bears his name And those projectors started out at a few $100 apiece rather than the much more expensive German imports essentially the planetarium is a domed theater usually associated with astronomy and those became especially popular in the 1950s and 60s against the backdrop of the Cold War. In the states. America and the soviet union were competing to be the first to send a human being to space and America felt pretty good about where it stood technologically in the american way the country was sure it was winning, But in October 1957, the Soviet Union takes an apparent lead. It launches Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth America under President Dwight D. Eisenhower sees this and gets worried so in 1958 Eisenhower signs the National Defense Education Act. The Act gave money to schools for the purpose of educating students on subjects like science, math and foreign language areas of study that would theoretically better equip Americans to defend the country. Schools had to use the allocated money for initiatives specified by the Act and on the list of options was a planetarium. NPR reported in 2017 that there were once more than 350 school planetariums in the US. It's never cloudy in the planetarium. So if you're trying to teach students about the nighttime sky outdoors is not always ideal. So the planetarium is a great resource for that. Data on planetarium numbers is hard to come by Daniel Audi in of the planetarium of Nantes in France spends his spare time adding to the worldwide planetariums database. Daniel estimates that the US was home to about 900 planetariums when he started his related research in 2002. Today, he estimates there are approximately 710 operational planetariums in the U. S. And 3500 in the world. As early as the eighties public interest and planetariums had begun to wane. The 1960s really were the heyday of space exploration and its connection to the public here in the us and by the time you got to the later Apollo missions, it was everyday news, even something as cool as space, even something as cool as human exploration of the moon gets old after a while. But to maintain a planetarium and one that has capabilities impressive in 2022 requires investment. But not all school districts get that support from their, their board and so if they don't see any value in it, a lot of those planetariums end up closing their doors unfortunately. But as far as the big planetariums and the main state planetariums, they are still here and they're doing planetarium programming better than they ever have. We associate the phenomenon with space study. But with the advancement of technology, many of today's planetariums have broadened their offerings. I think a lot of the misconception is that we're just showing stars. Once the visual systems, the resolution got better, there was a turnaround where now you can do stuff in a planetarium but you can't do it anywhere else in the movie theater. Movie theater is not fully immersive like this. Today, it is more than just a space science facility and that's because as a canvas for presentation for data visualization for storytelling, planetarium really has no equal