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Release: 01-369

Explore the future of space travel
NASA’s Starship 2040 exhibit to touch down in Sacramento Dec. 19-20

NASA’s Starship 2040 won’t make a thunderous descent from the heavens when it comes to downtown Sacramento Dec. 19-20.  This high-tech “spacecraft” hitches a ride inside an Earthbound tractor and trailer rig, after all. 

But space transportation officials from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., are confident the experience will send visitors’ imaginations rocketing straight into orbit.

Housed in a 48-foot trailer, the Starship 2040 exhibit is designed to share NASA’s vision of what commercial spaceflight might be like 40 years from now.  Visitors board the “ship” and move through fully realized control, passenger and engineering compartments.  Audio effects — engine noises, computer and crew voices — add to the realistic ambience of the experience.

Starship 2040 will be in Sacramento for the annual League of California Cities conference at the Sacramento Convention Center.  The exhibit will be parked outside the convention center at 1400 K Street, and is open to the public Dec. 19 from 12-6 p.m. and Dec. 20 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.  Admission is free.  Starship 2040 is handicapped accessible.

While inside the vehicle, visitors gain insight into technologies now being investigated by NASA and its partner organizations to increase the safety and reliability of space transportation systems while dramatically lowering costs — making commercial space travel safe and affordable enough for routine civilian flights just a few decades from now.

All the innovations suggested aboard the exhibit — automated vehicle health monitoring systems, high-energy propulsion drive, navigational aids and emergency and safety systems — are based on concepts and technologies now being studied at NASA Centers and academic and industry partner institutions around the nation.

Starship 2040 has been on the road since February 2001, touring high schools, universities and a variety of public events in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin and Missouri.  Future state tours and appearances are in the works throughout 2002 and beyond.

For more information about the Starship 2040 exhibit and a complete listing of upcoming tour dates, visit:

http://www.starship2040.com

More about NASA Space Transportation Programs                                        

NASA is the nation’s premier agency for development of Space Transportation systems, including future-generation reusable launch vehicles.  Such systems — the keys to a real Starship 2040 — require revolutionary advances in critical aerospace technologies, from thermal, magnetic, chemical and propellantless propulsion systems to new energy sources such as space solar power or antimatter propulsion.  These and other advances are now being studied, developed and tested at NASA field centers and partner institutions all over the nation.  NASA and its partners also seek innovative materials and processes technologies, investigating ways to develop safer, stronger and more durable engines, vehicles, structures and components to handle the immense power of these futuristic propulsion systems. 

The Marshall Center leads all these efforts, aimed at enabling dramatic improvements in the safety, cost and reliability of future space transportation systems.  For more information about NASA Space Transportation Systems, visit:

http://www.spacetransportation.com