Interesting Website!

 Hi guys! So I was doing some perusing around the interwebz and found this nifty little page on Visit Las Cruces and how it is a "Place for Space", and thought it went perfectly with the content we've gone over, including Spaceport America and Virgin Galactic. It is along the lines of the Roswell site(s) we visited this summer. It also has a few videos embedded on the page, I'd love to hear what you guys think of the site. I think it is a lot better put together than the previous sites we visited, the color scheme and simplicity/ organization makes it really nice to navigate. 

Here's the link!

https://www.lascrucescvb.org/las-cruces-is-a-place-for-space/

NMSU Atomic Aggies Launch at Spaceport America

 Check out this story about Aggies building rockets at Spaceport!

New Mexico State University’s student rocket team the “Atomic Aggies” held two successful rocket launches at Spaceport America on Saturday, September 19.

 The Atomic Aggies were due to compete in the 2020 Spaceport America Cup which was canceled due to COVID-19. The team mostly comprised of mechanical and aerospace engineering students from NMSU, had started work on their rockets in August 2019, and continued through the pandemic to finish their vehicles ahead of test day...

https://mailchi.mp/spaceportamerica/atomic-aggies-at-spaceport-america-3897669?e=edbbe62678

Short Freewrite on Hall"s “Animals Aloft” and “Silent Skyhooks”

Keep in mind the freewrite rules I explained in class and compose a 3-minute freewrite on the chapter you were not assigned for today's class. Respond to only one the questions below for that chapter. Post your freewrite as a comment here to this topic.

– What was the most interesting idea in the chapter and why did you find that so interesting? 

– What details did Hall use in the chapter and what did those details add to your understanding of topics?

– What role does New Mexico play in the events related in the chapter, other than simply a location?

– What choices did historical people make in the chapter that you question and were those choices defensible at the time or would they be defensible today?

– What is different about how we would manage similar events and topics today than how they were handled in the historical time Hall writes about in the chapter?

NEWS: UNM, NASA scientists find depletion of halogens due to Giant Impact

So many connections exist between NM and Space that I have decided to start posting on our blog news stories I find reflecting that connection. All of us in my class should feel free to help me with this project and post any news about such connections that you find with a title that starts "NEWS." See the news story below.

From UNM News Minute #1,541 - September 14, 2020

... In new research, authored by University of New Mexico graduate student Tony Gargano and scientists from UNM's Center for Stable Isotopes, in collaboration with scientists from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) titled Chlorine isotope composition and halogen contents of Apollo-return samples, researchers focused on chemical analyses of highly reactive elements including fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine (halogens).

For full story, see http://news.unm.edu/news/unm-nasa-scientists-find-depletion-of-halogens-due-to-giant-impact

Flask Talks on Goddard and Operation Paperclip

Feel free to respond to any of the questions below!

-- What was the most interesting or surprising idea you heard in any of the flash talks from today's class?
-- Which of the other groups gave the most effective flash talk today and why was it particularly effective (you cannot choose your own group's!)?
-- What was the most difficult part of today's exercise?
-- How effective was today's exercise in helping you retain info from the readings or helping you think about Hall's content from new perspectives?

 There is a brief instance where the passage mentions the "incredible technological advances over a relatively short time span". This struck me as interesting and I would like to learn more about these advancements in space technology at the time. Could these advancements have been made sooner if more stress had been placed on space research? Our society could be vastly different today if these technologies had been perfected say 20 years earlier.

Interesting fact: Socorro Pueblo

I thought that Hall’s reference to Onate and Socorro was intriguing because it was so brief, and because I wanted to know what happened to the pueblo after Onate and his men were there. I wanted to make sure we didn’t overlook or sugarcoat the experiences of indigenous groups.

The people who lived in the area at the time were known as the Piro. The Spanish did not officially settle the area at the time; it was not resettled until later, after the original pueblo had been destroyed. During the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, by which point the population had significantly declined due to Spanish presence, Spaniards fleeing the revolt stopped in Socorro. Most Piro went with them as they continued south, while others scattered. Socorro was resettled in 1815, many years after they reconquered the area.

Removed from the Hall of Fame

When I was researching the inductees to the Space Hall of Fame, I found out that of the 173 inductees, one, Hubertus Strughold, was actually removed by a unanimous vote in May of 2006. I was curious about why that was, and it turns out that he was a member of Operation Paperclip, and while the US Government had tried to cover up his war crimes, they eventually came out in the 1980s. Roughly 20 years later, he was removed from the Hall of Fame. To me, this seemed like a slow response, especially considering the heinous experiments that he conducted, which I will not write here for the sake of decorum.

I was next curious about where the line was drawn in regards to controversial scientists in the Hall of Fame, so I searched through the list of inductees to see if any other controversial Operation Paperclip scientists were still in the Hall of Fame. While nobody got close to Strughold, there were a few who were very involved with the V-2 rocket program, including Werner Von Braun himself. While he is controversial, I can at the very least understand why he is still there, while Strughold was removed, but when combined with the fact that it took 20 years to remove Strughold, I am somewhat suspicious about the hesitancy of the Hall of Fame, and the scientific community as a whole, to reevaluate and censure those who may have left a black mark on history.

Walt DIsney is in the International Space Hall of Fame

I can't confirm exactly why, but it seems to be because he put out 3 space themed specials for his television show that were scientifically acurate and informed by actual scientists. They were good enough that President Eisenhower showed one of the specials to Pentagon officials.

Interesting Fact

 I wanted to find out more about Gus Grissom, but ended up looking more into the Gemini project instead. The Gemini program fell between the Mercury and Apollo programs in 1965 and 1966, and was the gateway into space travel. NASA needed to determine if astronauts could survive in space for a several days at a time, and the Gemini missions enabled NASA to do so. The Gemini capsules were also larger than the previous Mercury program, which allowed more than one astronaut to fly into space. Each of the Gemini missions served a different purpose, from testing a new vehicle to being able to connect two aircrafts to orbiting in space for a few weeks at a time. All of these tests were important to determine if astronauts could go to the moon.