Intrepid Advancements Newsletter Winter 2024

BE CURIOUS. BE INSPIRED. BE INTREPID.

Winter 2024

INTREPID ADVANCEMENTS

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INTREPID AT 80

REFLECTIONS FROM

KATE GOOD I have always been fascinated by things that fly. In fact, the Lockheed A-12 has been my favorite plane since I was a little girl. This interest in combining STEM with the Arts & Humanities led me to pursue a Masters in History with a certificate in Science & Technology Studies at Virginia Tech. In 2012, I took part of an internship at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in New Mexico. It was my first experience working in a museum. I was instantly hooked.

Intrepid Museum’s new Associate Curator of Aerospace

Fast forward to 2017, when my husband and I moved to New York City. I began volunteering at the Intrepid Museum and was contracted to assist with the development of the Museum’s upcoming exhibit, A View from the Deep: The Submarine Growler and the Cold War. I was getting the best of both worlds, working on amazing aircraft while researching a subject I had known and loved since college.

Though the contract ended, I continued to volunteer and ended up as an Aircraft Restoration Specialist.

My time with the restoration team cemented my love for this institution. Not only was I working on my favorite planes, I was participating in uncovering the humanity behind the hardware to help pass on my passion. I am so thrilled to be back in a new role with the Intrepid Museum as Associate Curator of Aerospace.

With Apollo: When We Went to the Moon, adding to the Museum’s aircraft collection, continued preservation efforts—including the F-16 restoration and the return of Concorde—2024 is slated to be a banner year for aerospace history at the Intrepid Museum!

The Intrepid Museum Makes Google’s U.S. Year in Search List

Intrepid’s 80th commissioning anniversary brought nearly 200 former crew members back to their ship to celebrate its milestone birthday, while more than 600 of their family members paid tribute to their loved ones’ service.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, keynote speaker for the event, praised the crew not just for their time in active duty, but for “inspiring and guiding our next generation of sailors, just as their former ship continues to do today.”

The commissioning anniversary presented an opportunity for Museum staff to interview six former crew members for the Museum’s Oral History Project, and for nineteen former crew members and their families to donate artifacts to the Museum’s collection (including the artifact spotlight at the end of the newsletter).

Together, these materials will provide invaluable information for ongoing exhibit development as part of the Museum’s upcoming Engine & Boiler Room VR Experience, made possible thanks to the generous support of Museum Trustee Tom Secunda through the Secunda Family Foundation.

These programs, exhibitions and events were just some of the highlights in a banner year for the Museum. Thanks to your support, we achieved a new high-water mark in 2023: the Intrepid Museum was one of Google’s most-searched museums in the U.S., coming in at #10 alongside other renowned institutions like the American Museum of Natural History, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Reaching this milestone during Intrepid’s 80th commissioning anniversary year, and on the back of the Museum’s 40th anniversary in 2022, means the world to us.

We look forward to building off this momentum in 2024 to amplify our efforts to honor, educate and inspire.

Want to stay up to date on the Museum’s upcoming exhibitions or tune into exciting live programs?

Check out our new online events calendar to learn and explore with us year-round!

ABOVE: Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and USS Intrepid Former Crew Member Association President Stu Gelband at Intrepid’s 80th Commissioning Anniversary.

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Photo by Erika Kapin Photography

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ASTRO LIVE

NEW EXHIBITION

FINAL FLIGHT

A Hybrid Program Success Story Fall 2023 kicked off with the unveiling of the newest permanent exhibit, Final Flight: The Story of a World War II Corsair, which features carefully preserved pieces of an Intrepid Corsair fighter discovered off the coast of Japan in 2006. Using digital, audio-visual, and tactile elements the exhibit traces the history of the fragments and unravels the story hidden beneath their corroded exterior.

RIGHT: Recovered engine fragments of Corsair ABOVE: Dale Isley, nephew to Ensign Loren Isley, at the opening reception of Final Flight.

The exhibit Apollo: When We Went to the Moon was originally scheduled to travel to the Museum in 2020.

When the pandemic struck, however, the exhibit was put on hold. The Museum quickly pivoted.

The exhibit spotlights the plane’s likely pilot, Ensign Loren Isley, and follows his life, from his childhood as a Missouri farm boy, to his loss in combat on March 18, 1945, at the tender age of 21.

Funding that had been secured to execute programs was redirected through conversations with our amazing partners. New virtual programs arose to provide crucial educational content for individuals and families impacted by the pandemic. The biggest public programs success story to emerge during COVID was the Museum’s Astro Live series, formerly Virtual Astronomy Live.

And Astro Live continues to flourish.

The family of Ensign Loren Isley traveled from all overthe country, and Dale Isley spoke about the Museum’s outreach and the inclusion of his uncle’s story in the exhibit. Afterward, remarks were given

by Thomas Bartelmo, President & CEO of the exhibition’s lead funder, the Kislak Organization, and by Akira Endo, Deputy Chief of Mission for the Consulate General of Japan in New York.

In 2023, more than 289,000 people watched Astro Live programs featuring NASA astronauts, leading scientists, professors, authors, and entrepreneurs. Topics covered everything from Skylab’s 50th anniversary to future plans to send astronauts back to the surface of the Moon.

Astro Live has an international following, expanding the Museum’s global footprint, but crucially also reaches a core local audience.

This exhibit has been made possible thanks to generous support from The Kislak Family Foundation, Inc., Emil Buehler Perpetual Trust and The Ng Family.

In 2024, Astro Live is projected to grow even more.

In addition to monthly virtual programs, there will be four onsite events, including tie-ins to Apollo: When We Went to the Moon focusing on NASA’s upcoming Artemis II lunar flyby mission. Check the Museum’s new website and calendar for more details about upcoming Astro Live programs!

Photos by Erika Kapin Photography

Apollo: When We Went to the Moon Exhibit Lands in March 2024 This year marks the 55th anniversary of Apollo 11, NASA’s groundbreaking moon landing. NASA is also scheduled to send astronauts on a lunar flyby next year—the first since 1972—setting the stage for the ambitious Moon-to-Mars program.

In anticipation, the Intrepid Museum will host Apollo: When We Went to the Moon, a traveling exhibit co-produced by the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and Flying Fish. The exhibit will fittingly be constructed within the Museum’s Space Shuttle Pavilion, in the shadow of the largest NASA artifact on display in the northeast: Space Shuttle Enterprise.

When We Went to the Moon will feature dozens of rarely-seen artifacts from the U.S. Space & Rocket Center with additions from the Museum’s own collection on our mobile guide, exploring the tumultuous Cold War era through the people, technology and world events that defined it, with education programs discussing the ship’s role as a recovery vessel for Mercury and Gemini missions during the Space Race, and highlighting the shuttle’s role.

ABOVE: Lunar lander from Apollo: When We Went to the Moon Photo from U.S. Space & Rocket Center and Flying Fish

Astro Live is supported through a NASA Cooperative Agreement awarded to the New York Space Grant Consortium. The program is also supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

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UNSTOPPABLE THANK YOU TO WOMEN OUR DONORS!

The Museum’s annual 24-hour Giving Tuesday fundraiser was a big hit thanks to the wonderful ambassadors who volunteered their time, energy, and even donated directly to the cause. With their help, the Museum broke its initial fundraising goal and ended the day with nearly $15,000 in contributions. This amount was graciously matched by Museum trustees Stanley Hubbard and Joseph Plumeri, bringing the day’s total to $30,000 in support of the Museum’s mission to honor, educate, and inspire.

The Intrepid Museum held its second annual Unstoppable Women Leadership Symposium in November. Nearly 200 guests joined us in the Museum’s Space Shuttle Pavilion, for a panel discussion on the new space economy.

Moderated by NBC News Senior Business Analyst Stephanie Ruhle, featuring industry luminaries Meagan Murphy Crawford, Co-founder and Managing Partner of SpaceFund and Host of the Mission Eve Podcast; S. Sita Sonty, CEO of Space Tango; Janna Lewis, Senior Counsel of BAE Systems, Inc.; and Peggy Whitson, Axiom Space’s Director of Human Spaceflight and former NASA astronaut, panelists drew attention to the private space sector’s ever-expanding potential and fielded questions from the audience.

The Museum was thrilled to have its latest cohort of GOALS girls present to hear these trailblazing women. Peggy Whitson, recipient of the 2023 Unstoppable Woman Leadership Award, spoke about her humble beginnings growing up on a farm in the Midwest.

With role models like Peggy Whitson, there is no doubt that young women interested in pursuing careers in STEM will continue to reach for the stars—not just figuratively, but literally!

Giving Tuesday kicked off our year-end campaign, where 322 donors collectively contributed $234,630 to help position the Museum for success in the New Year.

LEFT: Janna Lewis, S. Sita Sonty, Stephanie Ruhle, and Meagan Murphy Crawford ABOVE: Peggy Whitson, recipient of the Unstoppable Woman Leadership Award, with Intrepid Museum Trustee, Charles F. Bolden Photos by Eric Vitale Photography

Besides general operating support, the most popular categories for giving included education programs, the Museum’s exhibits, and aircraft restoration. Speaking of aircraft restoration, supporters contributed about $22,344 toward these efforts, allocating roughly half this total specifically to the refurbishment and preservation of British Airways Concorde G-BOAD, the Museum’s record-setting supersonic commercial airliner.

The Museum is looking forward to welcoming the Concorde back to Pier 86 this Spring.

The remainder will help the team with upcoming projects, including the rollout of the freshly restored F-16A Fighting Falcon and the start of restoration efforts on the Museum’s F-8K Crusader. We are especially excited to breathe new life into the Crusader given the role these iconic aircraft played during Intrepid’s time in service!

ABOVE: Historic photo of Intrepid sailors and Director of Collections Danielle Swanson reviewing artifacts in Collections storage Photo from U.S. Space & Rocket Center and Flying Fish

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Giving Tuesday

$14,800 Raised by 89 donors

Year End Giving

$234,630 Raised by 322 donors Year End Giving Allocations

86% General Support 9% Aircraft Restoration 3% Education Programs 2% Exhibits

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Office of Institutional Advancement One Intrepid Square W. 46th Street & 12th Avenue, New York, NY 10036-4103

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ARTIFACT SPOTLIGHT This photograph was among the many items brought to the Museum during Intrepid’s 80th commissioning anniversary, and like most pictures it is worth a thousand words—and then some.

Baseball diehards will immediately recognize the man in white (second from the left) as “the Yankee Clipper,” Joe DiMaggio.

It’s clear from this picture that Intrepid’s flight deck crew were wowed by DiMaggio’s presence.

But what was the former slugger doing aboard ship—especially in the middle of the Vietnam War?

DiMaggio boarded Intrepid in November 1967 as part of a USO tour of baseball heavy-hitters including Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds and Tony Conigliaro of the Boston Red Sox. Rose referred to Intrepid as, “an

old but great aircraft carrier,” and DiMaggio said of the Army and Navy personnel he met that, “The morale seems very good…Griping? No, I didn’t hear any…They are so happy to see somebody and talk sports.”

ON THE COVER TOP IMAGE: The new exhibition, Final Flight: The Story of a World War II Corsair; LEFT: Unstoppable Women Leadership Symposium; RIGHT: Former crew members at the 80th Commissioning Anniversary. Photos by Erika Kapin Photography and Eric Vitale Photography 8