DREAM COME TRUE
SPACE THEATER DEDICATED AMID STARRY DISPLAY
The long dream of a small group of farsighted San Diegans became a reality today with the dedication of the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater and Science Center.
Members of the board of the San Diego Hall of Science, the parent organization, and of the Planetarium Authority joined Mayor Wilson and members of the city council at the dedication ceremony.
The colorful event took place in Plaza de Balboa with its towering fountain in the center. The planetarium is on the south side of the plaza, across from the Natural History Museum.
The actual ribbon-cutting was preceded by a Fourth-ofJuly type of festivity, with a parade down El Prado by the Morse High School Marching Tigers, who marched from the Spreckels Organ to the fountain.
The MCRD Marching Band and Color Guard were on hand with their pageantry.
Dr. Bernard Gross, chairman of the Hall of Science board of directors, Capt. Norval R. Richardson, USN, (ret.), the board president, Sheldon Campbell, chairman of the Planetarium Authority, and Wilson all spoke briefly.
A special guest was Major Reuben H. Fleet, who with members of his family contributed $800,000 toward construction of the space theater which bears his name.
The theater, the most advanced of its type in the world, opened to the public at 2 p.m. today. Two shows are scheduled each afternoon and two each night.
A large central lobby is f lanked by the theater on the west, and the incomplete Science Center on the east. The Center is scheduled to open next month.
Following the ribbon-cutting, the members of the boards involved, the special guests, city officials and the scientists who have worked on the project were guests at an invitational showing of two films, “Voyage to the Outer Planets,” and “Garden Isle,” both produced especially for the theater.
The theater contains a complex of projection equipment, including a unique star ball. When computer programming for it is finished, it will be capable of projecting views of the sky from any point on earth at any time in the history or the future.
The white dome ceiling which is the screen gives the viewer the feeling of being completely surrounded by the picture. This is particularly noticeable in the “Garden Isle,” a film made of Kauai Island in Hawaii. The film was made with a fisheye lens on a camera mounted in the nose of a helicopter.