Oregon Museum of Science and Industry

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry ( OMSI ) is a technology museum in Portland, Oregon. It lies on the banks of the Willamette River.

History

The OMSI was founded in 1944. At the beginning it was sitting in the Portland Hotel, but moved in 1949 in a rented house. Established in 1950, the first planetarium in the Pacific Northwest the museum. 1956 built the museum with the help of volunteers, a first own building at Washington Park. By 1970, three million people had visited the museum.

1987 Portland General Electric donated to the museum the land on the Willamette River, in 1992 the museum moved in there. On the 60th anniversary of the Museum of 4.2 million U.S. dollars was rebuilt and modernized in 2005, the OMSI moved to its 10 millionth visitor.

Financing

The museum is a non-profit recognized and receives no public funding. It is financed by admission fees, donations and membership fees. In the period from May 2006 to May 2007 the museum took so almost 19 million dollars and gave almost $ 17.5 million from.

Exhibitions

A special feature is a U- boat docked outside the museum in the Willamette River and was adopted by the United States Navy in 1994. This is the USS Blueback (SS -581 ), a conventionally powered boat Barbel class, which is 66.9 meters long and can be viewed by visitors to the museum. Outside the museum is the propeller of the boat.

In addition, the museum has several areas of science, including its own hall for temporary exhibitions, in 2007, for example, the Body Worlds guest. Next there is the Turbine Hall, in a steam turbine is installed and several laboratories for chemistry, physics, technology and lasers and holography.

In addition to the museum pieces that OMSI has a planetarium with a Digistar II projector and an Omnimax 3D cinema.