Space Day at MIT

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Dates:	Thursday, April 18, 2024 - Thursday, April 18, 2024
Hours:	11:00 am - 3:00 pm
Ages:	Kids
In/Outdoor:	Indoor
Cost:	Free see below
Category:	Science & Technology

Join us for a day of talks, demos, and hands on activities, all about Space.

Part of April School Vacation Week and presented In conjunction with Massachusetts Space Week, come for the day, or just for a bit.

Free with Museum admission.

Here's the lineup:

Solar Gazing with MIT Astrogazers

• 11:00am – 2:00pm

Note: this will take place in the MIT Open Space, just outside of the museum

Maker Hub: Space-themed Automata

• 12:30pm – 4:30pm

Explore and experiment with mechanical motion as you create your own space-themed kinetic sculpture!

Along the way, discover how simple mechanisms like cams, linkages, and levers work to generate different types of movement.

Black Hole Echoes: Music from the Cosmos with Joheen Chakraborty

• 1:00pm – 3:30pm

Learn how astrophysicists use echoes of light, in analogy to how bats use echoes of sound, to map out the extreme-gravity environments of warped spacetime near supermassive black holes!

Unsung Heros of Apollo: Panel Discussion

• 1:00pm – 2:30pm

Know what an IRIG or PIPA are?

How about IMU and AGC?

Come hear the pioneers of the MIT/Draper Apollo effort to build the technology that got humans to the moon and back—safely!

Debbie Douglas, director of collections at the MIT Museum and Rebecca Carpenter, Draper Laboratory archivist will moderate a special panel discussion celebrating the famous “I-Lab” team.

In addition to panelists, we have invited surviving “Apollonauts” to join us that day so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to learn the fascinating stories behind those NASA-speak terms of the space program.

Talks by the MIT Astrodynamics, Space Robotics, and Controls Lab

• 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Space Population – A Peek into Future by Di Wu

Rather than a temporary visit from human beings, space has its population.

What you can’t see is the thousands of bits of space objects that circle our planet – remnants of past scientific and technical endeavours as well as working satellites of various size, shape, and function, evidence of five decades spent in space.

What does the increasing presence of space objects in circumterrestrial space hold for safety and sustainability?

What does its evolution hold for human space development?

Where is the future for this space population?

Who’s Following the Rules in Outer Space? with Thomas Roberts

Satellites in outer space provide invaluable resources to communities on the ground—from high-speed brandband internet to tools for detecting a nuclear strike—but operate in an environment outside of any country’s national territory.

To ensure that everyone can access space and benefit from its resources, United Nations member states have agreed to a number of rules that govern their space activities.

Thomas’ talk describes some those rules and shows how practices from traditional astronomy research can help us check how well they're really being followed.

COST

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Free with Museum Admission

WEBSITE

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mitmuseum.mit.edu/programs/space-day

LOCATION

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MIT Museum, 314 Main Street, Gambrill Center, Building E-28, Cambridge, MA, 02142 map