This is an astronomical history. It is a history of UFOs and mill levies, space suits and space rocks, Laser Floyd and The Star of Bethlehem, Digistar and real stars, and the moon and the planets and all the wonders of the universe. The Hansen Planetarium is 30 years old this month.
Over the past 30 years, says planetarium director Von Del Chamberlain, the cities of Utah have grown bigger, the air has grown dirtier and the lights have grown brighter. Utahns see fewer stars than they did 30 years ago when they look into the nighttime sky.But we still need the inspiration of the starry night, says Chamberlain. Perhaps more than ever. "The planetarium plays an important role in keeping ordinary people in touch with the heavens."
From the archives of the Deseret News as well as the publications department of the planetarium come details of how a small staff, on a small budget, has been inspiring us ordinary Utahns for three decades:
Back before Utah was a state, the Ladies Literary Society of Salt Lake City wanted to build a free public library. They lobbied the Territorial Legislature for a mill levy and eventually persuaded mining millionaire John Packard to donate the land at 15 S. State. The state's first library opened in 1905. It was built of Sanpete County sandstone.
By 1960, the city had outgrown its downtown library and wanted to build another one on 500 South. Board members of the Alta Club and the University Club wanted the State Street property for a parking lot. But Gail Plummer, the chairman of the library board, did not want to see Salt Lake lose yet another historic building. He called Beatrice Hansen, who donated $400,000, in memory of her husband George, to turn the library into a science museum and planeterium.
As a nation, we were enamored with space, in the 1960s. We were in the process of putting a man on the moon. As a city, we dreamed of joining the big leagues with a state-of-the-art planetarium.
Herbert Williams worked for the Spitz Laboratories, manufacturers of the sky projector that the Library Board was about to buy for the new planetarium. Williams told us what we wanted to hear: Our planetarium would be even better than the planetariums in New York, San Francisco and Chicago. "Yours will be unique because it will be able to show the earth as it would be seen from the moon, the sky as from a moving vehicle or from space itself."
Williams predicted 200,000 visitors the first year, not counting high school and college students. And Robert Thomas, a librarian with the old city library, predicted the new facility would be self-supporting through admission charges and contracts with schools. Neither of those predictions came true.
But what did come true was Gail Plummer's dream of turning a library into a planetarium. The building at 15 S. State is still a learning place and has served more than a million visitors, most of them Utahns, who care about science.
In August, 1965, the Deseret News held a question and answer session with the planetarium's new director. The reporter described Mark Littmann as an ambitious young astronomer from St. Louis, Mo.
Littmann defined for Utahns what a planetarium is: "It's an education institution which does not observe the sky directly as its major function, but rather reproduces the sky, reproduces all the motions of the stars and is able to demonstrate concepts which are very hard to draw on the blackboard."
On November 26, 1965, the doors opened for the first performance. The show was the still-popular "Star of Bethlehem."
The Deseret News reported, "The audience jumped backwards in time nearly 2,000 years to look at the sky as it appeared over Bethlehem at the birth of Jesus. The 2,000-year-old mood was sidetracked in the first performance when an electrical failure blew out all the stars in the Northern Hemisphere, but modern technical skill came to the rescue and restored things to their proper places in the heavens."
When Utahns saw their planetarium for the first time, they saw a structure similar to today's planetarium. The dome (unique among planetarium domes because it is not visible from the street) is, in shape, Buckminster Fuller geodesic. (It was built, after all, in the 1960s.) It is 50 feet in diameter and, at its highest point, stands 35 feet above the floor.
Most planetariums have seating in the round and, at any time, half of the sky is at the audience's back. The more traditional seating at the Hansen Planetarium means fewer seats, but each person in the audience has a better view.
The planetarium's original star projector was nicknamed "Jake," and it served the public well for 20 years. By today's standards and compared to the Digistar computer, the 800-pound Jake looks like pure science fiction, with wires and knobs and little gizmos galore. The machine projected 4400 stars through a system of glass lenses and pinholes to project a clear intense image of the sky on a clear dark night.
A year later, in November of 1966, the planetarium welcomed its 100,000th visitor. Six star programs were held in the first year, as well as four classes - ranging from elementary-school to college-level astronomy. There were 11 full-time and 12 part-time employees, and the staff did not increase much during the first decade, even as visitors and programs grew steadily.
Littmann estimated it took 1,500 hours of labor to produce one star show. But the cost for materials was always less than $500, he said. He credited the improvisational skills of the technicians.
Before the planetarium even opened, Robert Thomas was directed by the planetarium board to write a letter to the Salt Lake City Commission to request two mills as taxes to support the planetarium's operating costs. Salt Lake City continued to support the planetarium until the city attorney issued an opinion that the library mill levy should not be spent on a non-library function. In 1978, Salt Lake County took over responsibility for the planetarium.
The planetarium's publication division got its start when Litt-mann called the Palomar Observatory asking to see the original of a slide he had purchased from them. He didn't like the quality of the duplicate they'd sent. An employee of the observatory apologized for the poor work done by their distributor. Littmann said the Hansen Planetarium would be happy to become a production and distribution facility.
Today the planetarium's posters are seen all over the world. The best-seller list includes the Solar System Chart poster (which is continually updated with new information from NASA) and the Full Earth poster, the famous image taken by Apollo 7 that has come to represent Earth Day.
The "Wonders of the Universe" calendar sells well, too. This year 9,000 individuals ordered single copies and an additional 1,500 retailers ordered anywhere from a dozen to several hundred calendars.
Star parties, observations and lectures at Little Mountain began in the early 1970s. At about this time, the planetarium also began its educational outreach program. The AstroVan, bearing demonstrations on everything from Newtonian physics to NASA rocketry, covered the state.
In 1989, the planetarium reached more than 100,000 students. Outreach coordinator Patrick Wiggins talked about visiting the Tintic school district in Utah's west desert. He said, "I want to erase the notion that a scientist is a fuddy-duddy," and get children throughout the state thinking about science as a career. Instructor Jayceen Cravens was thrilled to see young girls thinking about becoming scientists and asking her questions after her presentations.
During the first year of operation, the planetarium board and staff members were discouraged because only five percent of the adults in the Salt Lake Valley visited the new facility. But for at least the past decade, the planetarium has attracted 20 percent of the nearby population, says Von Del Chamberlain. "I don't know if we are number one, but when it comes to per capita attendance we are near the top of the planetarium field."
Chamberlain became the planetarium's second director in 1984, after Mark Littmann resigned. Littmann's resignation was prompted by a dispute with Salt Lake County commissioners. Commissioners wanted the planetarium to become more self-supporting and were critical of Littmann's money management, though they did want to keep him on as artistic director.
From its inception, planetarium planners have tried to figure out how to make the business more profitable. While the shows produced by the Hansen Planetarium have been sold to hundreds of planetariums around the world, most of the customers are small and unable to pay much for the shows.
Many of the Hansen Planetarium productions are underwritten by NASA and/or large corporations. Today, Littmann is remembered not as the man who couldn't make the planetarium profitable, but as the man who first promoted it into international prominence.
Today, publications and laser/rock music shows produce more revenue than do the star shows. As in the past, nearly half the planetarium's operating budget comes from the county mill levy. For the last few years, the county has been providing about $1 million a year and the state, through an educational fund, gives several hundred thousand dollars.
The children of Utah are the ones who benefit most from having a planetarium, Chamberlain says. During the working day, when he feels the need for rejuvenation, he just steps out of his office and looks around. There might be a science demonstration going on. Or a star show might just be letting out. In any case, Chamberlain says, the lobby is full of children who are "buzzing and bubbling."
Ten years ago the planetarium got a reduced rate - from a local company, Evans and Sutherland - on a new computerized projector. A year ago, Digistar II replaced Digistar I. And the laser show technology continues to become technologically more exciting. And a few years ago the planetarium added an interactive component: voting buttons on the sides of the seats.
But amid all the interest in fancier technology, Chamberlain says he also sees a return to the basics. "We've seen a resurgence of late in interest in the old time planetarium-type shows . . . shows about the current night sky."
And nothing could have been more basic - or more fascinating - than the lecture given by Stephen Hawkings as part of the planetarium's 30th anniversary celebration. The British astrophysicist drew a crowd of 9,000 last summer.
Looking to the future, Chamberlain hopes to see a new science center, with IMAX theater and ample parking, and all sorts of interactive demonstrations - as well as a planetarium.
In the meanwhile, the people of Utah need the Hansen Planetarium as much as they did 30 years ago, says Chamberlain. He likes to quote Oscar Wilde: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Celebratory discount
During December, the Hansen Planetarium's 30th anniversary celebration continues with special discounts on admission. Doug Lowe, public relations specialist, invites anyone with a 30th anniversary of any kind - birthday, marriage, high school or college graduation - or anyone who has the number 30 appearing on a driver's license or other official document, to bring in the document or anniversary certificate and receive an admission ticket for only 30 cents.