SpaceAge NightLife

This week - Journey back in time as NightLife launches its very first Space Month with a celebration of the imagination, culture, and technological advances of the Space Age - from Sputnik to Apollo.

Lectures presented by Computer History Museum & B612 Foundation

-----> Forty years after its launch in 1977, the iconic Voyager Golden Record, a message to extraterrestrials filled with sounds from Earth, was released commercially on vinyl for the first time. Join David Pescovitz, co-producer of the 40th Anniversary edition and co-editor of Boing Boing, and Timothy Ferris, producer of the original Voyager Record and best-selling science author, for an illuminating talk on the legacy of this hopeful time capsule. After the talk, pick up your own copy of the Grammy Award-winning box set - a celebration of science and music for the ages.

-----> The Computer History Museum presents a talk about Space Race tech: Learn about the computing power integral to some of NASA’s biggest missions with Glenn Bugos, historian and former NASA employee, and Frank O’Brien, author of The Apollo Guidance Computer

-----> The B612 Foundation, asteroid research and planetary defense organization, presents a talk by Dr. Ed Lu, former NASA astronaut. During his 12-year career, he logged over 206 days in space, including missions to the International Space Station.

-----> Elsewhere, immerse yourself in the colors and sounds of retro-futurism: Command your own mission on vintage space-themed pinball machines from the Pacific Pinball Museum.

-----> Get space-trippy during a synthesizer workshop with the Vintage Synthesizer Museum and recreate some of the mid-century cosmic Moog sounds popular in early electronic music.

-----> Artists from Paint Pens Collective will showcase their own retro space-inspired art while space-themed projections by Colin Harrington will transform the Academy.

-----> And finally, it wouldn’t be Space Month without a trip to the planetarium: Learn about space psychology with UCSF professor emeritus Nick Kanas or catch a screening of Fragile Planet.