We went to a planetarium meeting this past week. There are several each year in various parts of the world, and this one was in Florida in Cape Canaveral. As you might expect, the talk of the meeting was all about planetarium presentations and techniques, along with a good smattering of other topics. We also had a chance to see a Delta rocket launch, carrying a satellite into space. I do like seeing launches!

One of our guest speakers this past week (and our speaker list included people from KSC and JPL, as well), was Phil Plait, known to many as the Bad Astronomer. His website (Bad Astronomy) is a great place to read about astronomy, space science, and the crazy theories and ideas that people come up with and claim as “science.” Phil’s an old friend and I thoroughly enjoyed his talk on Friday night. If you ever get a chance to hear him, make the time.

I left the meeting wondering what our next steps in space will be. Interestingly the history of planetariums in the U.S. is tied quite closely to the rise of the Space Age. These unique round rooms are changing though, just as our space exploration is morphing into something possibly unrecognizable. Shrinking funding hampers the vision we need to continue space exploration at levels once promised by our first achievements in space. The same thing happens to planetariums, which are also morphing before our eyes. Sure, we’re still going to space, sort of. We’re exploring Mars with robots and learning amazing things with Hubble Space Telescope (although with the possible loss of the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the “who knows if we’ll ever send the last servicing mission to HST” attitude among some mission planners, it’s hard to tell what HST’s future is now, even though it is still equipped with other working instruments.)

And sure, we’re still building planetariums, sort of. But many are closing down, just as NASA is having to choose between funding science and building out the space stations. No easy choices, there, either. New theaters are coming equipped with fulldome video, which forces many other, new choices on planetarium professionals. It’s a changing world, and this week’s meetings brought the changes in two of my interests—planetarium facilities and the U.S. space agency—into sharp focus.