Voyage exhibits now open in numerous cities across the country. Read about Voyage below, and click here to learn more about becoming a Voyage community.
The most visible projects of my career have been my work in proposing the ideas for and in helping to develop the educational scale models of the solar system on the CU-Boulder campus and on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The latter is now being spread to communities around the world. Read and click below for details.
Colorado Scale Model Solar System
The original Colorado Scale Model Solar System opened in 1987; in 2021, we updated it with a Voyage Mark II model. Both the original and new models show planetary sizes and distances in our solar system at 1 ten-billionth actual size. (i.e., model scale is 1 to 10 billion.) The Sun and inner planets are located in front of Fiske Planetarium on the campus of the University of Colorado, Boulder. At the time of its opening, the original Colorado model was one of only a handful of walkable scale model solar systems in the world that use a true scale; that is, models that have the same scale for both diameters and distances.
Read more about the Colorado Scale Model Solar System
Voyage Scale Model Solar System
The Voyage scale model solar system opened in October, 2001 on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Voyage depicts the Sun, the nine planets, and the distances between them all on the same scale of 1 to 10 billion, thus giving visitors a real sense of the vastness of our solar system (“that’s why they call it space!”). In this way, visitors get a unique perspective on the beauty and fragility of our home planet, on the challenges and triumphs of space exploration, and on the remarkable fact that our species has managed to learn about other worlds. The models, text, and images that constitute the exhibit are designed to make visitors feel like explorers themselves, so that all humans can share in the great adventure of space exploration.
Read more about the Voyage Scale Model Solar System