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Virtual STO: The Space Place
SPACE TODAY ONLINE OPENS AN EXHIBITION IN SECOND LIFE |
The Space Place, a major exhibition of human history in space and astronomy, has been opened by Space Today Online in the Taerae region of the Second Life mainland southern continent.
The first exhibitions of information and graphics mounted in Exhibit Hall A at The Space Place featured NASA concepts of rockets for space travel in the future, and a celebration of the 400th anniversary in 2008 of the telescope. The latter exhibit displays deep-space images captured in recent years by NASA's four Great Observatories in Space. These two photos provide early views of the exhibit hall interior during Phase 1 construction of The Space Place.
Second Life is a digital 3D virtual reality world on the Internet that has been and continues to be imagined, built, and owned by its millions of residents.
Space Today Online is a Web repository of all things space and astronomy. Its motto since 1986 has been Covering Space From Earth to the Edge of the Universe. STO is published on the World Wide Web at www.spacetoday.org.
SLURL. The in-world SLURL for the website's companion simulation is slurl.com/secondlife/Taerae/32/201/301/.
URL is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator, the address of a Web page on the Internet. SLURL is short for Second Life URL, a Web address for access to a place in the virtual world Second Life.
1986 – Space Today
The print newsmagazine was founded. Circulation expanded to global.
1994 – Space Today Online
The print magazine migrated to online publication with global readership.
2008 – The Space Place
STO took a giant leap forward and landed in the virtual world Second Life.
The original Space Today Online continues on the World Wide Web.
Space Today was founded as a print newsmagazine in 1986. The monthly periodical enjoyed global circulation for many years. In 1994, it migrated to online publication as Space Today Online. In 2008, a companion site in Second Life, The Space Place, was added.
Exhibition halls. Phase 1 of The Space Place, covering an area the size of two football gridirons, is constructed on a 100m x 100m platform floating 300m over the Taerae region.
It has three large exhibition halls, a tarmac surface for large rockets, shuttles and other constructions, and airspace overhead, alongside and underneath for orbiting exhibits. It has a moving miniature replica of the entire Solar System and various space and astronomy models and exhibits.
A special feature of Exhibit Hall C is presentation of outstanding space and astronomy builds by the 13-17 year old residents of the Teen Second Life grid.
Phase 2 of The Space Place is a similar 100m x 50m platform adjacent to Phase 1. It includes an SL home for APOD, the Astronomy Picture of the Day, an SL headquarters for the Solar System Ambassadors, an LLSpaceBase.Shuttle from the Linden Department of Public Works, and a research and development area.
The Phase 1 and Phase 2 constructions are in place with many exhibits mounted and many more underway. There also is room to expand to a Phase 3 if needed in the future.
Whence STO? Space Today Online is written, edited and published by space analyst and historian SpaceToday.org, Ph.D., a professor of mass communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
"The mission of STO is to provide accurate information on human activities in and about space – past, present, and future. That mission is interpreted broadly to include space science, space history, space research, space flight, Solar System exploration, deep space astronomy, and cosmology," editor Anthony Curtis explains. "The mission for The Space Place is the same."
"STO is a definitive news, information and education site on the World Wide Web dedicated to space science, astronomy and related subjects. By communicating the record of human activities in and about space, Space Today Online delivers on its commitment to a greater public understanding of and enthusiasm for human space research and travel," he says.
"We intend to be accessible and useful to young and old, casual and serious readers and learners everywhere. Our audience is the global general public as well as traditional and non-traditional students and teachers everywhere," Curtis says.
"With The Space Place we are adding to our means of delivery and outreach. Millions of people are migrating into Second Life. We're in-world to serve their information needs," Curtis says.
Sources. "Our information resources are authoritative and highly reliable open sources that include space agencies around the world as well as other government agencies, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, research centers, embassies and consulates, corporate press relations offices, museum archives, library collections, international media reports, and online databases and mailing lists," the editor notes.
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