BEYONDbones

It’s Family Space Day at the George on Saturday: Take your family to the Moon!

Peggy — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:59:59 +0000

Want to go to space? We can take you. Say hello to the Challenger Learning Center and Family Space Day.

The Challenger Learning Center opened at HMNS in 1988 after the tragic last flight of the space shuttle Challenger. A living, teaching memorial to the crew, the Challenger Center continues to teach children about space and space flight and perpetuate all the things the crew loved.

Originally designed for schools and groups, the Challenger takes up to 40 participants to “space” as they experience real astronaut training during their missions to the Moon or Mars. Groups perform real world problem-solving as they train to become astronauts aboard the Space Station Observer. Children and adults are inspired and experience what it feels like to be an astronaut.

At Family Space Days at the George Observatory Challenger Center, individual family members are able to enjoy this memorable experience, too. Special dates are reserved for families to come down to the George Observatory and feel the adventure of space flight. Space Day missions are run by trained NASA volunteers who add to the authenticity of the event.

And guess what? One of those special dates reserved for you and your family to travel into space is this Sat., May 19!

Families are placed on a team and work together toward accomplishing mission goals. Those goals could include assembling a communication satellite, operating on-board robots, monitoring the life support systems, acting as the doctor on-board or navigating through space in order to land gently on the surface of the Moon. But the sky’s the limit.

Each position is vital to the success of the overall mission. And, of course, every good astronaut training session involves having to solve some problems. One never knows when the Sun will erupt with deadly radiation headed toward the craft or when equipment might fail or there could be random asteroid damage.

“Houston, we have a problem” continues to be the familiar report when things go wrong. Family Space Days make the solutions available to everyone.

Interested? We thought you would be. Tickets for Family Space Day are available online until Friday at 5:00 p.m. for $10 per person.

But there’s more! When families come to Family Space Day, we also have the innovative and immersive “Discovery Dome” — a portable planetarium! — showing We Choose Space. Tickets are available at the gift shop for $3 per person. Telescope tickets are also available for $5 per person at 5:00 p.m. for viewing when it gets dark.

What’s better than a day of discovery with the family? For more information or to purchase tickets, click here!

Introducing Lane, a mummified Triceratops with a new address at 5555 Hermann Park Dr.

Caroline — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:17:09 +0000

As the final countdown to the June 2 opening of our new Hall of Paleontology continues, we’ve introduced you to a few of our new roommates here at HMNS. We’ve shown you Wyrex, a T. rex with some seriously spirited fingers; and Priscilla, a mastodon with a gender identity crisis.

Now it’s time to introduce you to the head honcho, the most impressive specimen we’ve got. Meet Lane, the mummified Triceratops. That’s right, mummified. As in this guy was preserved with large swatches of his skin intact.

That’s dinosaur skin, y’all.

Not only is Lane a rare, all-bone specimen, he will be displayed with a portion of his original skin, a cast of which patrons can touch to get an idea of what dinosaur skin might have felt like if one was brave enough to get that close.

Don’t worry, he’ll have a head when you see him.

In honor of this big announcement, we’re delighted to reveal the third in our series of special T-Rex Trying for HMNS images:

This one’s extra super special, because — as you’ll see when you visit your new Hall of Paleontology — our designers mounted Lane in a fighting pose with a Tyrannosaurus rex, and patrons will actually be able to walk between the two and hedge their own bets on who might’ve come out on top.

For more on Lane, his name and his history, keep checking back at Beyond Bones.

What’s in a name? Prizes, for one thing! VOTE for your favorite moniker and grant the submittor a guided tour of the new paleo hall

Caroline — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:38:48 +0000

You’ve made your nominations, and the academy has deliberated. We even put the top five names you guys submitted for our new T-Rex Trying mascot in crisp ecru envelopes and everything. We hired a calligrapher and borrowed ball gowns! I’ve gotten carried away, haven’t I?

Well this much is true: We’ve selected our favorite five name suggestions, and now it’s up to you to pick the winner.

Our favorite picks were *drumroll please*:

Tex
Huey
Tiny
Amigo
Sam

Whether the names were inspired by our city, our state or our sense of irony, we loved the outpouring of responses we received. So don’t stop now! Log onto the HMNS Facebook page and vote for your favorite; the winner will get a guided tour for four of the new Hall of Paleontology.

Dinosaur dialogue: Watch our own David Temple talk paleo on Great Day San Antonio

Caroline — Sat, 12 May 2012 12:15:41 +0000

We don’t know if you’d heard, but our new Hall of Paleontology is kind of a big deal. It has ~~many leather-bound books, and smells of rich mahogany~~ contains more than 60 brand new mounts, including a few that are ground-breaking in the field of paleontology.

One of those, Wyrex, we’ve already told you about. The other … well, the other you’ll have to wait until Monday to see.

In the meantime, though, to whet your whistle, here’s a segment from Great Day San Antonio featuring our very own Associate Curator of Paleontology, David Temple.

Check him out as he previews what’s in store for visitors to the new paleontology hall.

And don’t forget to check back in on Monday when we’ll reveal the top five picks of our T-Rex Trying naming contest! Will our spokes-dino be called be Elvis? Huey? Talisman? Megan?! You’ll decide (after we narrow it down to our favorites, of course). So check back for the results and then get to voting for your favorites at the HMNS Facebook page.