Astrophysicists Need a Little Love Too

Space, that final frontier.  It is rife with fodder for science fiction writers.  I was shocked this week when I watched a news release of all the space junk floating around the planet.  There are supposedly more than 20,000 pieces of space debris the size of a softball or larger orbiting the planet.  Space agencies all over the globe have to keep track of them because they can cause quite severe damage to everything up there since they fly faster than the speed of a bullet.  Then there are those things that are smaller than a softball.  Where did all this come from?  Well, companies from tv stations to telephone companies send up satellites for use or research that overtime corrode and stop working, There are parts to rockets or other things that have gone into space.  They collide and make smaller pieces.  Ever wonder why we hear about the International Space Station having to change its orbit.  This is part of the reason.  We think the ocean's are bad with their islands of trash, just wait.  Maybe we'll be able to make a new moon someday for our planet with all the space trash  that we've got up there. 

In the 1980s Reagan was really big into getting kids excited about space, and especially using that excitement to push education in science in math. In 1983 German astronaut, Dr. Ulf Merbold (the 2nd German in space after cosmonaut Sigmund Jahn), joined American astronauts on Space Shuttle Columbia paving the way for NASA to do more joint missions with other space agencies.  Recall Sally Ride was the first American woman in space.   Teachers were especially excited because fellow teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was on board Space Shuttle Challenger as a non-astronaut civilian payload specialist in 1986.  The work of these astronauts has brought us better understanding of the human body as well as our own planet.  Now we are exploring of Mars and beyond. 

One of the neatest things coming out of NASA so far this year are the images of Pluto, that demoted little planet of ours.  Perhaps you've seen the headlines about new proof for Planet X, or more recently the astrophysicists in California who have found a ninth planet in our solar system, at least mathematically, and it is three times bigger than the earth.  They need a little love, we have been focused too much on politics for the last year. 

Asking kids to design space ships leads to interesting results.  Some liked the idea of  Disney's Treasure Planet which had actual sails.  The kids had heard of solar flares and thought they could be ridden like the waves of the ocean.  Others came up with pictures of wings that could fold-up when not in use.  Others used origami and could transform and adapt to the environment of that particular part of space.  They are our future.  Their imaginations are alive and well.  "Space," like Captain Kirk used to say, "is that final frontier."