CN3y Sharing the Sky Weblog No. 24
Sharing the Sky visits Spacefest
Once upon a time, we went to the Moon. In 1961, shortly after Alan Shepard’s successful suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7, President Kennedy announced to the Congress that he was committing the nation to “landing a man on the Moon, before the decade is out, and returning him safely to Earth.” These inspiring words opened the gates of NASA’s golden age. Project Mercury was already in full swing; it would naturally be followed by Project Gemini, and later Project Apollo. We all know that Kennedy did not survive to see his dream come true, but come true it did, on July 20, 1969, when Armstrong and Aldrin set foot on the Moon.
NASA’s glory days essentially declined after 1969, although there were further joys during the shuttle years. Voyager’s visits to Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, the Hubble Space Telescope, and Shoemaker-Levy 9’s impact week in 1994 are examples of the ability of the space agency to inspire people to get interested in the sky, and now that important goal has been adopted by the Sharing the Sky Foundation.
In recent years Kim and Sally Poor have allowed us to dip into those magic waters again. Last week’s Spacefest 3 conference brought some of the Apollo astronauts back into the limelight. True to its nascent era, most of the attendees were alive during the Apollo years and came to help celebrate NASA’s achievements. There were also a host of scientists there, including Carolyn Porco, imaging team leader of Cassini’s long mission to Saturn, and Carolyn Shoemaker and me, the two surviving members of the team that discovered the comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994.
In her lecture, Carolyn reviewed the process of the observing program that the Shoemakers and I conducted at Palomar. She began by paying me one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received; she said that the times the three of us spent atop Palomar were the happiest in her life. The humor, the fun, the enthusiasm, and the cometary adventures there were unforgettable in her mind. She then described how Shoemaker-Levy 9 was picked up during an otherwise pretty cloudy observing run in March 1993, and then went on to tell how the comet took the three of us into its final orbit during the sixteen months that stretched between discovery and impact. In my lecture I described the path I took from my decision in the fall of 1965 to begin a comet patrol, to its launch on December 17 that year, through the 19 fruitless search years that led to my first discovery in 1984, and my work since since then.
Carolyn Shoemaker in front of Jarnac Observatiory's central building.
Spacefest brings the opportunity to bring together those who enjoy the space program with those who love the night sky. Businesses like Starizona, that provide specialized telescopes and lenses to capture the night, and Astronomy to Go, which emphasizes outreach efforts, were present and popular at Spacefest. Finally, Explore Scientific, which has designed several high-quality telescopes, was in the wings. Its founder, Scott Roberts, continues to be one of the true stars of astronomy outreach and works tirelessly to inspire people to reach for the stars. All these people salute Kim and Sally for their devotion to the space program—may it thrive forever!