Becoming a Space Geek: Designing for Space Shuttle Atlantis
– By Amanda Yates, lead designer, brand experience
10, 9, 8… The energy in the air is contagious, everyone is chanting in unison: 7, 6, 5… Though the launch pad is just a silhouette on the horizon, it feels close. The astronauts’ chatter, piped through the loudspeaker above your head, is intense. It makes it all seem too real, and it’s almost like you’re hanging there with them, running through checklists, heart pounding. 4, 3, 2, 1…
Time slows down. Everyone holds their breath. First, the smoke billows out in beautiful plumes for what seems like a full minute. Then the light is indescribably bright. The shuttle lifts off the pad and begins its seemingly slow ascent upward. You don’t so much hear as feel the wave of sound. You’re suddenly reminded that people are inside that tiny orbiter, bravely blasting towards the heavens—and you start to cry, like everyone else, at this beautiful marvel. The shuttle breaks through the low-hanging clouds and away from sight, the plume just hangs in the sky. Everyone is cheering like crazy. You’re overwhelmed with feelings of great achievement and pride. Pride that we—as a nation, a people—can send people into space, can make the rejection of gravity, atmosphere and earthly limitations commonplace. On launch day, you truly appreciate the audacity of it all.
Last July, I attended the final launch of the orbiter Atlantis and of the Shuttle Program, STS-135. I was there for two reasons. One, I had just started working on the PGAV design team for the Space Shuttle Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, and I knew that seeing a launch would be instrumental to my understanding of the public’s experience of the shuttle program. Two, somewhere in the course of working on the project, I had become a full-out, certifiable space geek, and refused to miss that launch for the world.
I can wax poetic about everything from the number of people in space right now (9) to the number of thermal protection tiles on the orbiter (24,182 for Atlantis, though it varies from orbiter to orbiter). I’ve gained an understanding of rocket engines and orbital mechanics. And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.
Passion for the subject matter is not only beneficial for the project, it’s absolutely essential to the work we do at PGAV. As destination designers and storytellers, we have to be willing to become immersed in the narrative. Not just the main characters, but the details and supporting stories.
For the home of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, we knew we had amazing source material: three decades of missions, amazing imagery of earth and orbit, thrilling stories about the perils of space exploration. We had the real-deal, space-flown orbiter Atlantis, the same orbiter I had watched break through the clouds during the final launch.
So with books and highlighters in hand, we dug in. We cataloged stories, images, facts, charts, and diagrams to establish an intricate content database that even NASA would be proud of. We interviewed shuttle astronauts, technicians, and mechanics. We memorized acronyms and began using them ourselves. We nerded out over the latest Chris Hadfield tweet. We dreamed, drew, redesigned, rethought. How do you explain the orbiter’s S-turn maneuver and sharp angle of descent to a kindergartner? Turn it into an experience where they get to be the orbiter.
We created a layered graphic system to deliver important STEM messages to a range of audiences, from high school to grade school. As self-proclaimed space geeks, we couldn’t resist layering in a series of interesting tangential tidbits that we deemed “Space Geek Facts.”
From the iconic rockets (the ET/SRBs) that mark the entrance down to the attraction’s logo and identity, every part of the design of the Space Shuttle Atlantis celebrates the revolutionary vehicle that was launched like a rocket, orbited the earth like a spacecraft, and landed like a glider.
A total of 167 exhibits help to tell these and other amazing stories of the Shuttle program. Displayed at the center of it all— as if on orbit, at a tilt of 43.21 degrees—is Atlantis herself, looking as breathtaking as she did on launch day, and ready to inspire the next generation of space explorers.
I am so proud to have been a part of this team. Space Shuttle Atlantis opens this weekend at Kennedy Space Center—go see it for yourself, and by all means, nerd out!
