Museum of Natural Science to unveil new energy exhibit in the fall
$40 million renovation to hall draws on latest technology
As the elevator doors open on the fourth floor of Houston Museum of Natural Science, a giant hunk of metal rotates around a pipe, much like a wrench would tighten around a bolt. There’s a “whoosh” as machinery turns.
The “iron roughneck,” as it’s known, is a state-of-the-art piece of machinery used on offshore drilling rigs, and it’s the first thing visitors see when they arrive at the museum’s fourth floor and step into the newly retooled Wiess Energy Hall.
The rig is a replica. But Paul Bernhardt wants visitors to see it and imagine they are hundreds of miles off the coast of Texas, standing on a platform anchored to the ocean floor.
“It was tricky, even with some of the connections we have in the energy industry, but we were able to get a couple of team members out on a real rig in the Gulf because we want to be able to recreate an experience for our visitors that few people get to have,” said Bernhardt, the consultant hired by the museum to design and build the new space.