How and Why to Establish a Modern Planetarium

Presentation theme: future sustainability and worldviews

We briefly examine the history of attempts to build a planetarium in Bratislava (capital of Slovakia) in the last 80 years with the emphasis on the latest project. We discuss what are the roles of various partners: regional and national politicians, developers, technology suppliers, educators, science communicators, general public. Then we identified how they are influencing the project success and what are the identified benefits and risks for the various stakeholders. Next we discuss possible financing models for the investment to a major planetarium including public and private resources and possible financing of the operations phase. Survey of financing models in existing planetariums show a strong dependence on the public education or culture budgets with a minor contribution from private financing and also a limited sustainability of the operations from own revenues.

Image © Arena Berlin