With the success of this weekend’s SpaceX Nasa Mission, it seems another generation of children who hope to become astronauts is on the cards. Yet for institutions like the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum a different challenge faces them back on earth – how best to engage with children when tactile exhibits are no longer possible.
The museum’s most popular exhibit prior to lockdown – the flight simulator, which requires children to use joysticks, VR googles and seatbelts, shared by hundreds of tourists in any given week, are no longer deemed sanitary amid the Covid-19 outbreak.
Ellen Stofan, director of the Air and Space Museum notes that: “I’m personally very reluctant to touch things in public right now,” she continues: “And if we can’t find a way to do it safely, we’re not going to do it at all.”
The problem is my no means exclusive to the Air and Space Museum, with museums across the country facing similar issues. Exhibits designed specifically to allow for physical engagement, previously extremely successful teaching tools for children, are now either abandoned or rethought entirely. A popular solution is antiviral coatings for touch screens.
For institutions such as the New-York Historical Society, who invested $80 million in their 2011 renovation on touch screen stations, the future seems particularly bleak. They are planning on purchasing styluses for visitors in the interim period.
The desperate need for new or re-understood technology comes at a time when revenue for museums is at its lowest in memory.
Louise Mirrer, chief executive of the historical society, summaries the predicament best of all: “All of the things we have to do to keep visitors healthy and safe are going to cost money.
“But we won’t be able to operate otherwise.”
