In a Fulldome Show

I just got done watching the Nth render of a fulldome show that we’re producing about the Magellan mission to Venus. It’s called Magellan: Report from Venus, and chronicles the well-known mission that took place in the early 1990s. In fact, Magellan was launched on my birthday in 1989 and mapped the planet using radar techniques until October 11, 1994 (when it was commanded into the thick Venus atmosphere as part of one final atmospheric measurement experiment).

We originally produced the show as a slide-tape presentation because in the early 1990s that was  pretty much the standard for planetariums in visual projection technology. Nowadays, we’ve got these new-fangled fulldome projection systems, and wonder of wonders, we actually had some folks who have fulldome systems who want to see this show come back as a fulldome presentation.

So, we cogitated about it for a while, because most of the images from the mission are rectangular format, which pretty much makes them look like slides. There weren’t any “from the surface” images like you see from other missions (Mars, anybody?), so we decided we’d have to create at least one surface scene to put people in an “exploring Venus” kind of mood.  Mind you, Magellan didn’t land on Venus, it just did a heck of a lot of really interesting radar mapping and atmospheric studies. So, we start out the show on Venus and then take our audience to space, where Magellan spent its time whirling in orbit. The rest of the show is a shower of fantastic radar “images” showing us the wonders of Venus hidden under those clouds.

So, the show is shaping up quite nicely. Mark’s been working hard on some “fulldomey” flybys of the planet, and he’s animated the multi-image appearance of the original slides we used in the show (since we’re trying to be true to the original soundtrack). I think people will be pleased with this “look back” to a very cool mission that showed us some amazing things about Venus and how the processes of volcanism, tectonism (earthquakes, etc.), and impact cratering continue to shape its surface and affect its atmosphere.

This show brings back some other fond memories for me. Not only did we publish it originally in the early 90s, but I also used what I learned about Venus for the show to write an article called Magellan at Venus. I sent that off to a science writing contest sponsored at the time by Hughes Aircraft in conjunction with Griffith Observatory. (Nowadays the contest is still sponsored by Griffith, but in cooperation with Boeing Aircraft.) To my utter surprise and shock, my  article won the Grand Prize in 1992, and forever endeared Griffith to me (and me to Griffith, since 13 years later, I was hired to write their exhibits).

So, it’s with great feelings of admiration I look back on the Magellan mission, gone now for 14 years. I hope that whoever gets our newly fulldomed show about the mission will enjoy the exploration of Venus as much as I did back when I wrote about the mission for the first time in the early 90s.