Kind of disappointing, actually. I went - as I always go - for the space science aspect, but found that the earth science displays were much more up-to-date and engaging. (They weren't all about global warming, but it was certainly a presence, and since one of the pay-for-displays was about the subject, I can't help thinking there's an agenda there to brainwash kids into thinking that earth science is more interesting than space. Pity, that.)
Aside from the human evolution room, most of the standing exhibits looked as though they hadn't been changed since my dad was in school. Dioramas and large displays of Indian gods.
We didn't see any of the movies or planetarium shows, but we did see a couple of riveting photo exhibitions, one from the Apollo missions and one from the latest trip to Saturn's rings and moons. Jazzy stuff, all of it.
But the centerpiece was...flat. The big Debt Star Persisphere and Helicline totally fail to inspire. There's a movie inside the perisphere (no, it's not really called that) about the Big Bang, with Maya Angelou phonetically working her way through the script, and then...the Helicline, which is supposed to tell you about the history of the universe. But there are too few pictures, too little of anything, really, to hold your interest.
Along the balcony railing is a sense-of-scale exhibit about objects from 10
The Smithsonian had a movie, Powers of 10, which I must have sat through at least 10
Of course, pictures:
Here's the Helicline. See? It's just...bare. Shiny and metallic doesn't mean, "interesting."
Even here, the planets may be to scale, but they're not placed to scale from the sun. That might mean putting Pluto out on the Upper East Side, but they could have done better than Matisse Meets NASA.
This was interesting. Don't park under a meteorite.
