Free planetarium show at Tulsa Air and Space Museum

TULSA — A complete upgrade to the audio and projection systems at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum's planetarium is just one aspect of major expansion plans for the non-profit, which is approaching its 20th anniversary.

There’s a new executive director, Tonya Blansett, and she told KRMG Monday that she just returned from a trip to the NASA Space Center in Houston, where she learned a great deal about the agency’s plans to visit Earth’s closest planetary neighbor.

She went because TASM has a great deal of interest in the red planet.

It's like candy for your eyes. It's amazing - TASM Exec. Dir. Tonya Blansett on the upgraded planetarium system

“We have a capital campaign project going on, and we have enough money raised to do phase one, which is a new building addition that would be dedicated to Mars,” she told KRMG.

Phase 2, she said, will be a “two-story structure. The bottom story will contain at least three large classrooms, and the upper level will be a restaurant that overlooks the landing strip here at the Tulsa Airport. And then the third part of the capital project will be to enclose the space between the planetarium and the museum with a giant hangar. That will enclose the giant MD-80 jet liner that we have outside, and it will have a lot more space for exhibits and events.”

Meanwhile, TASM is gearing up to show off its new, state-of-the-art planetarium projection and audio systems with a free showing.

The presentation, entitled “The Incredible Sun,” will be shown Wednesday, October 18th at 7:00 p.m.

And it should be impressive, with the planetarium’s new 6000 lumens, single-lens projection system which operates at 2400 x 2400 pixel resolution - well over twice the resolution of HDTV.

The sound system now features digital signal processing and full surround sound.

Admission Wednesday will be free, and Blansett told KRMG if enough people show up they will run it again.