Smithsonian Lecture Series: Preserving the Space Age
Join us for the first installment of a four-part lecture series with the Smithsonian.
Blast off into the world of space exploration, innovation, and history with Dr. Margaret Weitekamp, chair of the Space History Department at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
Dr. Weitekamp will explore how museums collect and document space history, with a special focus on the Apollo Program. Using the powerful metaphor of cathedral-building—where the generation that lays the foundation never sees the final structure—she will discuss how preserving space history is a long-term mission.
She will also go behind-the-scenes of the groundbreaking Smithsonian exhibit, Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission, on view at the History Center from September 2018 through February 2019, and discuss how the museum helped curate a local section of this interstellar project.
Dr. Weitekamp’s award-winning book, “Space Craze: America’s Enduring Fascination with Real and Imagined Spaceflight,” will be available for purchase at the program. She will sign copies for attendees following the talk.
Don’t miss this opportunity to embark on a space deep dive. Book your boarding pass today.
Admission
Tickets are $10 for non-members and $5 for members. This is a hybrid program. Attendees can participate in-person at the Heinz History Center or online.
American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be available upon request. Please contact us at [email protected] in advance to request accommodations.
About the Series
The Smithsonian Lecture Series brings experts from the Smithsonian Institution to Pittsburgh, presenting a unique opportunity to hear from the scholars behind the organization’s world-renowned research and museum exhibitions.
While each lecture will focus on a different topic, each expert will offer rare insights into how they preserve, collect, and interpret history at the world’s largest museum, education, and research institution.
As Western Pennsylvania’s only Smithsonian Affiliate, the Heinz History Center proudly brings world-class Smithsonian exhibitions, artifacts, and programs to the region. This special lecture series is part of that ongoing partnership.
About the Speaker
Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp serves as chair for the Department of Space History at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and curates the Museum’s social and cultural history of spaceflight collection, more than 5,000 artifacts that include both space memorabilia and space science fiction objects. These everyday mementos of the space age—which include toys and games, medals and awards, buttons and pins, as well as comics and trading cards—complete the story about spaceflight told by the Museum’s collection of space hardware and technologies.
Her book, “Space Craze: America’s Enduring Fascination with Real and Imagined Spaceflight (2022),” is directly based on that work. Space Craze has been recognized with a Secretary’s Research Prize from the Smithsonian Institution, and the 2024 Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award from the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
With Matthew Shindell, she revised and expanded “Spaceships: An Illustrated History of the Real and Imagined (2023).” She is the author of numerous scholarly articles as well as “Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America’s First Women in Space Program,” which won the Eugene M. Emme Award for Astronautical Literature from the American Astronautical Society. In addition, she wrote an award-winning children’s picture book “Pluto’s Secret: An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery,” in collaboration with David DeVorkin, with illustrations by Diane Kidd. Her newest project is a comparative study of 21st century renovations of science and technology museums around the world. She’s also exploring the material history of the space monkey, Able, from 1959.
Weitekamp earned a BA from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA and PhD in history from Cornell University. During her graduate work, she was a Mellon fellow in the humanities and spent a year in residence at the NASA Headquarters History Office in Washington, D.C. as the American Historical Association / NASA Aerospace History Fellow.