I am probably the one who wrote the email you refer to - I have been inside the Boston MOS Faraday cage personally and beheld the million volt yard long sparks of the VDG up close and personal. It was totally awesome and I would love to do it again.Here is my experience (spoiler alert): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESxftyuyvA
It was almost a year or two ago, I imagine its still going on - but I can't speak for them.
Here is how I got the chance to go in. Before the 'Theater of Electricity' show started, I talked to someone who looked official and asked nicely about going into the cage. They directed me to a clipboard which had the basic 'if you stick your finger out between the bars its not our fault if you croak' tone to it, well somewhat more formal but you get the idea. I signed and dated it, then simply followed the presenter's directions. I was given hearing protection.
The nature of the museum is that there's all sorts of people in and out of there all day long, and depending when you go there may be more than one electricity show that day. They usually list it on their website (http://www.mos.org/daily-schedule under 'Lightning!') . What you could maybe do is stick around after the first show, and after people leave get the attention of the presenter to politely volunteer to be the Faraday cage subject for the following show.
However, don't have your heart set on it - its kind of first come first serve, and kind of subject to the presenter's judgement. And if in the first show you overhear some kid say 'wow I wanna do that!' and if their parent takes them up to the presenter ahead of you - well do you want to spoil that kid's day at the museum and deny them of that inspirational moment of seeing HV up close and yet safely? You just gotta go with the flow and you might get lucky to not have any competition for it.
Also be aware that if its a humid day the 80+ year old machine might not perform as well as on dryer days. That, and well, the beast is that old.
They also sport what I think is an RSG coil (mostly enclosed though) and a nice twin set of VTTCs in lexan/plexi cases - with a flashlight you might be able to take some decent pics of their workings. It is a little dark in the theater even when the show's not on. Also a cap discharge ring launcher (ring guided by a vertical rod) and the classic 15kv NST jacobs ladder you can turn on by holding down a momentary button.
To keep it on-topic to this list, they had a very nice musical Tesla coil (midi type from the sounds of it) with bright fat loud streamers over a meter long! Very impressive. From what I could see it has quite an MMC of the CD-942 series caps as we recommend often here I think? Is it this series? http://www.cde.com/catalogs/942C.pdf
----------------------------------
Brian Hall
> Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:23:41 +1300
> From: tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [TCML] Boston MOS
>
> Hi
>
> Visited the site a month back and saw the demo you mentioned (staff member
> only in the cage) . Great place but no more info to offer I'm afraid
> Ted in NZ
>
> -----Original Message----- From: John Darwin Powers Sent: Wednesday,
> November 20, 2013 7:37 AM To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
> Subject: [TCML] Boston MOS
>
> Hi,
>
> I read in a posting some time ago that it would be possible to be in the
> elevating "cage" with the staff member doing the presentation during the
> lightning demonstration of their Van de Graaff generator. Last week I sent
> an email to Daniel Davis, the person in charge of the exhibit, but have not
> heard back from him. Does anyone out there have any experience with the
> Boston MOS?
>
> JP
>
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