Hello, and welcome to the Austin Planetarium website!

Did you know that Austin is the largest city in the United States without a planetarium? As a matter of fact, of the top 50 largest cities, Austin ranks #16, but we're the only one without a planetarium or science museum.

That pathetic statistic lies at the core of our project. The Austin planetarium is dedicated to creating a world-class planetarium, science museum and technology center to inspire Central Texas children and adults to learn about the wonders of science and space exploration.

Here, you will find an enormous amount of information about our project, and how you can help us achieve our goal. Additionally, although we do not have a planetarium or science museum in Austin, we have jumped ahead of ourselves and started the work that a planetarium is supposed to do: educate and spread interest about the sciences. To that end, we created our "Astro News"; which is a page here at our website with a ton of exciting information about science related topics. Plus, we also share educational documents that teachers, parents and students are free to download and use.

I hope that you will find a lot of things of interest in these pages, and I fully expect for every visitor to agree that Austin needs a planetarium!

My Story

When I was 10, I had to write a science report on "The Planets of Our Solar System." The problem was... I didn't know anything about it. Luckily, my mom showed me how to use an encyclopedia. But, more importantly, she took time to explain things to me.

I was proud of my report, but my teacher wasn't so impressed. He thought I had just copied material from a book and not learned anything. So he quizzed me, and was shocked to hear me recite exact facts and figures. You see, I had learned because I cared, and because my mother had cared enough to teach me how to learn.

While earning my degree in astrophysics, I worked at the Artis Planetarium of Amsterdam creating and conducting presentations for the public. It was there that I realized my true calling: to make learning science exciting and fun...for everyone. Regardless of age, income, or education, everyone enjoyed learning about science, and the community benefited.

Long ago, my mother taught me that when a person cares passionately about something, others will care as well. I ask you to care.

How you can help

A project of this magnitude can never be achieved without an incredible team, but most importantly, this project requires overwhelming support from the community. Of course we need money to operate our business, and eventually enough money to build the facility, but we also need volunteers; and when we need to convince politicians at the city or state level, we need an army of voices. Below I have listed some ways you can help us in our efforts.

Torvald Hessel, Executive Director