A Hologram of the First Woman of Color in Space Debuted on Museum Day

[Judi Lynn]

An installation at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum featuring Mae Jemison highlights diversity in space exploration



In the installation, astronaut Mae Jemison appears as a 3D rendering (above, left) and discusses her career and those of other women involved in the space program. (Brandon Kaiser)

By Max Kutner
smithsonian.com
September 27, 2018

Appearing beneath the space shuttle Enterprise, a life-size hologram of astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison speaks about the contributions women have made to the space program. Via her projected image, Jemison recalls her time as a child, saying, “I followed space exploration closely, but I was always irritated that there were no women front and center. And while people tried to explain to me why, I knew they were wrong.”

Jemison became the first woman of color in space in 1992, an experience she recounts in “Defying Gravity: Women in Space,” an installation at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. In the installation, Jemison appears as a 3D rendering and discusses her career and those of other women involved in the space program. The installation opened on September 22 to coincide with Museum Day, an annual Smithsonian magazine event offering free entry to more than 1,500 museums.

For “Defying Gravity,” visitors wear Microsoft HoloLens mixed-reality headsets and walk around as Jemison narrates. (Disclaimer: Microsoft is a sponsor of Museum Day) Unlike virtual reality, which is closed to the surrounding world, mixed reality adds images to existing surroundings. Holograms appear to illustrate what she says, including a life-size rendering of an astronaut doing a spacewalk, appearing tethered to the real-life Enterprise above the installation.

Among the women Jemison highlights are those who around a century ago worked at Harvard University as “human computers” and calculated the positions of stars; Katherine Johnson, the NASA mathematician whose story appears in the 2016 film Hidden Figures; Patricia Cowings, a psychophysiologist who has helped astronauts readjust after space travel; and astronaut Peggy Whitson, who held the record for most cumulative time in space when she retired from NASA last year.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/hologram-first-woman-color-space-debuted-museum-day-180970417/#zLEcWGCYcemDGgob.99

[eppur_se_muova]

1. VR images, not holograms. Not interchangable concepts.

PS: Who's going to explain that weird skirt ?

[Judi Lynn]

2. No kidding! So odd. Can't begin to grasp what that's all about. n/t