The Sky is Falling! Now What? Presentation On August 31 At The Museum Of Flight

The Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA will be hosting another event as part of their Home Beyond Earth series. Debris from decades of spaceflights now orbits the Earth, and during a Museum presentation on August 31, 2024 former NASA engineer Linda Dawson is going to tell visitors to the event why this should be cause for concern. Dawson was an Aeronautical Flight Controller on the NASA Space Shuttle Program and a Navigation and Guidance Engineer for the Boeing Space Center in Kent, Washington. She is also the author of two books about spaceflight, and she will be signing books after her program. Dawson’s program about space junk is at 2 p.m. and is free with general admission.

This program is done in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibit, Home Beyond Earth. With a focus on space stations past, present and future, Home Beyond Earth features over fifty artifacts, models, space-flown objects and uniforms. Digital tokens allow visitors to make their own journey through the exhibit and personalize their imagined life in a space station of their choice. The exhibit’s vivid digital projections and over a dozen interactive elements help visitors enjoy and realize the dreams and realities of living and working in a place orbiting our planet. Today’s new era of spaceflight promises space hotels, orbiting cities and industrial jobs on the Moon. Home Beyond Earth shows how far we have come to realize this vision, and helps us ponder a future that may, or may not, be for you.

Founded in 1965, the independent, nonprofit Museum of Flight is one of the largest air and space museums in the world, annually serving over 600,000 visitors. The Museum’s collection includes more than 160 historically significant airplanes and spacecraft, from the first fighter plane (1914) to today’s 787 Dreamliner. Attractions at the 23-acre, 5-building Seattle campus include the original Boeing Company factory, the NASA Space Shuttle Trainer, Air Force One, Concorde, Lockheed Blackbird and Apollo Moon rockets. In addition to the Seattle campus adjacent to King County International Airport, the Museum also has its 3-acre Restoration Center and Reserve Collection at Paine Field in Everett (not currently open to the public).

With a foundation of aviation history, the Museum is also a hub of news and dialogue with leaders in the emerging field of private spaceflight ventures. The Museum’s aviation and space library and archives are the largest on the West Coast. More than 150,000 individuals are served annually by the Museum’s onsite and outreach educational programs. The Museum of Flight is accredited by the American Association of Museums, and is an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.

Angela Decker

Angela Decker, from McPherson, Kansas, discovered her passion for aviation after earning a Master’s in Military History from Norwich University in 2011. Since 2012, she has volunteered with vintage aviation groups, excelling as a social media content creator and coordinator. Angela has coordinated aviation and WWII events, appeared as Rosie the Riveter, and is restoring a Stearman aircraft. She is the Operations Logistics Coordinator at CAF Airbase Georgia and an accountant with a degree in Economics from the University of Georgia. Her son, Caden, shares her love for aviation and history and is studying Digital Media Arts.

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• Museum Digs-In with Aviation Archeology Symposium On October 13