KSC Open House

On November 25, Kagoshima Space Center at Uchinoura held an open house on the staff’s spontaneous initiative. Although KSC is always open to the public, this time all the buildings were open in order to gain the public’s deeper understanding of the role of the observation center, exhibiting satellite models and panels of space science achievements and future missions brought in from the ISAS headquarters. A full-scale model of HITEN and structures of HALCA, MUSES-C, LUNAR-A, ASTRO-F, ASTRO-EII and SOLAR-B attracted much attention, let alone the M-rocket launching control room and maintenance building. Although we sent posters to the Boards of Education in Ohkuma area asking to deliver them to each school, the communication was poor and we learned a lesson that more active and undivided publicity is essential to attract a number of people. As the annual “Galaxy Marathon” was held at Uchinoura in the morning of the same day, we expected many people would stream in to the Center but the result was disappointing. However, despite the overall underexposure, a total of 638 people participated in the open house listening to the staff’s enthusiastic explanations. A question seminar called “Mini-Mini Space School” was held in the Center’s conference hall, which was well attended and quite successful.

April 15, 2002