Every time I’m in the dome, I make improvements

With a goal of developing and providing affordable and easily accessible educational technologies to inspire, engage, and educate, MTPE, Inc., dba ePlanetarium®, is overseen by Dr. Patricia Reiff, an astronomy professor, who is the President and occasional Operator. They bring affordable, accessible, and awesome edutainment to millions of students who can’t afford to go to a major planetarium. Being a family enterprise, they use most of their profits towards outreach, as they are not obligated to shareholders.Being the only Professor-owned planetarium company, it can bring the latest results and imagery via her active NASA astrophysics research.

In 1999, they began their business by marketing software and planetarium shows developed under a NASA cooperative agreement “Immersive Earth” with Rice University and the Houston Museum of Natural Science. They expanded into portable planetariumsin 2003 with the creation of the “Discovery Dome”. They have now sold over 450 units to 45 countries and 45 US states. Their project has always been digital, and all their shows are free on YouTube and affordable to rent at http://fulldomeondemand.com/shows_hmns.html.

The “Discovery Dome” is the ONLY portable system that offers on-demand subtitles and assists customers in creating their own in their preferred languages. Their system is fully modular so their customers can update and improve their system easily and affordably. Presently, they are working on painted domes, more planetarium shows, and creating a simplified interface for “Open Space” so that users can fly around the solar system and through the universe simply.

Their goal is to educate and inspire as many people as possible while maintaining a small and lean staff, and they are doing exceptionally well. They have gotten numerous awards for outreach, giving away over 35,000 pairs of eclipse glasses this past year, teaching eclipse safety and distributing a free show “Totality” which reached over 100,000 viewers.

When it comes to leading, Patricia leads by doing. Even at the age of 74, she tirelessly engages in outreach and tours planetariums around the world. She doesn’t ask her students and employees to do anything she would not do. She doesn't even receive an income; the only compensation she receives are royalties from shows in which she has intellectual property.

For Patricia, communication is the key. She states that if the staff's efforts don't align with the expectations, it can lead to communication breakdowns. They provide weekly Zoom meetings and 24/7 instant messaging to ensure alignment. Since their customers come from all time zones, they feel privileged for being a small and agile company with excellent communication.

Patricia is fortunate that their company has been able to ride out difficulties, most recently the pandemic. They distributeda special open dome to be COVID-safe with special pandemic procedures. Now that the schools are “back to normal”, they use the standard Go-Domes, which replace the air inside every two minutes, ensuring that children who are safe in their own classroom are also safe in the dome. Their domes are also handicapped accessible, and available with special semi-permanent airlock entry ways.

Going forward, they continue to improve their software, their domes, and produce new shows at affordable prices!