64. Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Atlantis Experience Is Part Museum, Part Themed Attraction Museum Archipelago

The Space Shuttle Atlantis Experience, which opened at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida in 2013 brings visitors “nose to nose” with one of the three remaining Space Shuttle orbiters. The team that built it used principles of themed attraction design to introduce visitors to the orbiter and the rest of the exhibits.


Atlantis is introduced linearly and deliberately: visitors see two movies about the shuttle before the actual orbiter is dramatically revealed behind a screen. The orbiter’s grand entrance was designed by PGAV Destinations, whose portfolio includes theme parks and museums. Diane Lochner, a vice president of the company who was part of the architectural design team, says that without that carefully-planned preparation, visitors wouldn’t have the same powerful emotional reaction to the Shuttle.


In this episode, Lochner is joined by Tom Owen, another vice president at PGAV Destinations to talk about the visitor experience considerations of the Shuttle Atlantis Experience, whether attractions engineered to create a specific emotional response in visitors are appropriate for museum contexts, and the broader trend of museums taking cues from theme park design.


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Transcript
Below is a transcript of Museum Archipelago episode 64. Museum Archipelago is produced for the ear and the only the audio of the episode is canonical. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, refer to the links above.




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We’re going to start today’s episode with a thought experiment. Think of a museum. The first museum you think of. What does it look like?


Hold that thought.


Now think of a theme park?


How different do they look from each other? My guess, is pretty different.


But the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida has aspects of both.


One the one hand, it is a museum—galleries featuring spacecraft, historic launch pads, and a complete Saturn V rocket layed out in an enormous room.


But on the other hand, it is a themed attraction—a destination featuring ride-like simulators, themed concession stands, and the new Space Shuttle Atlantis Experience.


It’s as if the Complex, only a short drive from Orlando, Florida, is competing for visitors against one of the globe’s most effective themed attractions — Walt Disney World.


As it turns out, not everyone everyone mentally separates museums and theme parks so discreetly.



Tom Owen: We have a nuanced view about the relationship between entertainment and education



This is Tom Owen, a vice president of PGAV Destinations who worked on that new Space Shuttle Atlantis Experience at Kennedy Space Center



Tom Owen: Hello. My name is Tom Owen. I’m a Vice President with PGAV Destinations. My background is in theater, scenery and lighting design for theater and so I’ve been able to incorporate that theatrical thinking into my work with museums and zoos and aquariums and theme parks really the entire time I’ve been here.



It’s not surprising that someone who works in both museums and theme parks would see similarities between the two. But I am surprised that Owen doesn’t see the world divided between education and entertainment.



Tom Owen: I think that entertainment is a great way to educate people. If it was just the dry facts, people would get bored and leave. Entertainment doesn’t diminish education. In fact, I think it often times makes it more effective.


Diane Lochner We believe that you ca