“When is ‘Why Go to the Moon?’ at the Adler Planetarium?” by S.M. O’Connor

The Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum announced “Why Go to the Moon?” will occur at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, July 19, 2019. Roger Launius of Launius Historical Services and Margaret Huettl of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln will be the speakers. “Why Go to the Moon?” is part of the Adler Planetarium’s APOLLO 11 CELEBRATION | JULY 18-20 (“CHOOSE THE MOON WITH THE ADLER”).

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969. A half-century later, five countries have sent spacecraft to the Moon and private companies are increasingly engaging in outer space exploration.

The Adler Planetarium stated, “The advancement of space science, the allure of profiting on lunar resources, and ideas for a permanent human presence on the Moon are raising attention. They also generate controversy and pose challenging questions. Why go to the Moon? Should we go back? Who benefits and who pays for going to the Moon? Join us for a conversation with space historian Roger Launius and historian of colonialism Margaret Huettl and share your questions and thoughts as to the past and future of lunar exploration.”

Roger Launius is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, International Academy of Astronautics, American Astronautical Society, and Royal Aeronautical Society. His previous positions include Associate Director for Collections and Curatorial Affairs at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum and Chief Historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (N.A.S.A.). His recent books include Space Shuttle Legacy: How We Did It and What We Learned, published in 2013; and Historical Analogs for the Stimulation of Space Commerce, published in 2014. He frequently provides expert commentary as a guest in print, broadcast, and electronic media.

Margaret Huettl, according to the Adler Planetarium, “is a scholar of Native American history and North American Wests, and her research examines Indigenous sovereignty and settler colonialism in a transnational context. Her current project, ‘Ojibwe Peoplehood in the North America West, 1854-1954,’ explores Ojibwe or Anishinaabe sovereignty in the United States and Canada during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, centering her research on Anishinaabe ways of knowing. Her research and teaching interests focus on Indigenous histories in North America, with a special interest in ethnohistorical methods and public history.”

Tickets are $10. Click here to purchase tickets. Please note that the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine e-newsletter stated this event begins at 7:00 p.m. but the Adler Planetarium’s Website states it begins at 7:30.

If you purchase an Adler Planetarium Membership from the 14^th to the 31^st of July, and you will receive $11 off if you use the code “APOLLO11.” This offer excludes two-year memberships, Contributors-level memberships, and above.

The Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum is located on the Museum Campus at the northern end of the Chicago Park District’s Burnham Park. The address is 1300 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605.

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The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.