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Mars: The Next Giant Leap

Carnegie Science Center

Project Services

  • Concept development
  • User interface design
  • Software development
  • Graphic/visual design
  • Illustration
  • Animation
  • CMS development
Carnegie Science Center’s 7500 sf permanent gallery, Mars: The Next Giant Leap, sends visitors on a 300-million-mile journey to discover how space exploration and the latest thinking about how to sustain life on another planet can improve our lives on Earth today. Seven highly-integrated and interactive media experiences reveal the visions, challenges, and solutions of a Martian society, highlighting what it takes to create an equitable future no matter what planet we live on.

 

A 10-foot high projected mural of the Martian landscape features animations inspired by archival scientific papers, illustrations, news reports, and fiction. Further into the gallery, visitors encounter Planet Lab. From two touch stations, they play out hypothetical geological scenarios on Mars and Earth and watch the results animate across a 27-foot wide panoramic view of the planets from space.

Over 600 sf of the gallery are dedicated to a scale model of a Martian colony that evolves as visitors interact with it. Visitors vote on societal issues along an interactive rail that gives a window into the colony’s culture, concerns, and structure. Based on visitor input, new buildings are added to the model over time. Monitors embedded in cliffsides and surface dwellings augment the colony’s interior life with beautifully-detailed, updatable animations. A custom CMS allows the museum to update visitor experience as the colony progresses, reflecting the ever-evolving future of humans and Mars.

 

 

 

Partners:
Luci Creative
Electrosonic
Ravenswood Studio

Photos courtesy David Whitemyer