For some Saline Middle School students who’ve walked to school from home during time there, the added 1.8 miles that come with advancement to classes at our high school on Campus Parkway may feel prohibitively distant. [1]
Seven months ago, some of those students stepped up to the challenge of testing their STEM mettle at the FIRST Robotics Competition District Meets in Belleville Michigan — another fifteen miles or so on top of that. Dubbed “Destination: Deep Space” for 2019 matchups, it was clear that ultimate sights here were set well beyond the game field at hand. [2-4]
Two-and-a-half months ago and forty-three miles east of Saline, FIRST Championship rounds began in Detroit. And the picture got bigger, the connections clearer. [5]
When Robo’Lyon Team 5553 from the home country of France-based NAVYA earned its place at Cobo Center in 2018, local operations for the NAVYA subsidiary in Washtenaw County were shut down so that employees could attend and root for their team in person. This year, top executives from our own Quantum Signal staffed a booth at FIRST Championship with an eye toward recruiting talent. [6-8]
Today in particular, however, it’s valuable to remember that the distances for context are far greater, the timeline decades longer.
Fifty years ago, at 9:32am Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The United States of America was en route to winning “The Space Race” — on the surface of the moon, some 238,900 miles from the earth and Saline High School. [9-14]
Curiously, the National Aeronautics and Space administration appears to be rather cirumspect in its own assessment of Apollo Program importance. This past May, it wrote that these missions were “the first time people had left Earth orbit and visited another world,” and that “These trips will help NASA explore other worlds later.” [15,16]
Even from a more linear perspective, there is more to be said here — if only in abbreviated form. Apollo begat Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz, which set the stage for the International Space Station, “the largest single structure humans ever put into space, … continuously occupied since Nov 2, 2000.” The Space Shuttle program and development of reusable spacecraft stands on the shoulders of Apollo. [17-21]
Following a steady pace of progress, and, to be sure, recovery from spectacular setbacks, the notion of mainstreem private enterprise ventures into realms high above our clouds is no longer the stuff of quirky television fantasy. [22-24]
No doubt NAVYA and Quantum Signal can trace significant parts of their current technological DNA to rover autonomies utilized in exploration of the planet Mars. [25]
Equally if not more important cultural shifts came of this as well. Even those familiar with Katherine G Johnson before President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom would only have seen context as that of behind the scenes. Who knew the color of her skin? [26,27]
In the 1980s, D2 Enterprises wrote to Anna Lee Fisher with suggestion that NASA offer an “adopt an astronaut” program, further offering support for her, personally, as the first mother in space. In her extended reply, she politely demurred, albeit clearly charmed by the notion. Anticipation was that the distinction of “first” would give way to “commonplace” in the foreseeable future. [28]
The following decade, Mae Jemison then became the first African-American woman in space. [29,30]
On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first woman in space on behalf of the United States. She was also the youngest. After her death at the age of 61 in 2012, it was also disclosed that she had also been the first astronaut known to be gay, having enjoyed a twenty-seven year relationship with a woman met and befriended in her childhood. [31,32]
It’s hard to say which if any of the facts above would be highlighted today. But just prior to serving as flight engineer for STS-7 onboard Space Shuttle Challenger, “Dr Ride was interviewed several times about her preparation for going into space. [33]
Among questions about her training, she was also asked questions about how space was going to affect her ability to reproduce, and what kind of makeup she was going to take on the mission. She handled the questions with grace, and later said, ‘It’s too bad this is such a big deal. It’s too bad our society isn’t further along.’
Although such questions are far from eliminated, it’s clear that Apollo 11 cut a path that is significantly improved and cognizent of the importance of attracting the most valuable human resource talents. Last month, for example, Saline Singularity hosted a “Girls Robotics Workshop,” intent on maximizing every potential advantage for its 2020 robot entry in Belleville, and then, hopefully, Detroit.
That’s a symbolic part of the Apollo 11 legacy too important to pass on this day without note.
References
- Saline Area Schools (home page).
- “Saline Singularity FIRST Robotics Team week 1 progress report: Here’s what happened after the 2019 game was announced” Dell Deaton (January 9, 2019) Saline Journal.
- “2019 Season: Team 5066 – Singularity” The Blue Alliance.
- “2019 FIRST Robotics Competition: Destination: Deep Space Game Animation” FIRSTRoboticsCompetition (January 5, 2019) YouTube.
- FIRST Championship (home page).
- Robo’Lyon (home page).
- NAVYA (home page).
- Quantum Signal (home page).
- “50 Years Ago Apollo 11 Launches Into History” (July 16, 2019) NASA.
- “Apollo 11” NASA.
- “Apollo 11 Audio Highlights: Flight Day 1” (July 23, 2014) NASA.
- “Fifty Years Ago, Apollo 11 Launched to the Moon: A Look Back at the Epic Day” Chelsea Gohd (July 16, 2019) Space.
- Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (home page).
- “The Space Race” KnowledgeHub (June 20, 2017) YouTube.
- NASA (home page).
- “What Was the Apollo Program?” (May 31, 2019 NASA.
- “Skylab” NASA.
- “Apollo-Soyuz Test Project” (July 26, 2010) Smithsonian: National Air and Space Museum.
- “Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: Russians, Americans Meet in Space” Elizabeth Howell (April 25, 2013) Space.
- “International Space Station: Facts, History & Tracking” Elizabeth Howell (February 8, 2018) Space.
- “Space Shuttle Era” NASA.
- “Report to the President by the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident” William P Rogers, Chairman (June 6, 1986) NASA.
- “The Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster” Ramasamy Venugopal, Space Safety Magazine.
- “Salvage 1” IMDb.
- “MARS Exploration Rovers” NASA.
- “9 Fascinating Facts About Katherine Johnson” Michele Debczak (August 24, 2018) Mental Floss.
- “NASA Langley mathematician named as Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient” Sara J Ketchum (November 16, 2015) Daily Press.
- “Anna Lee Fisher” Easy Science for Kids.
- “Dr Mae C Jemison” National Institutes of Health.
- “Teach arts and sciences together” Mae Jemison (February 2002) TED.
- “Sally Ride” Ashlee Anderson (2018) National Women’s History Museum.
- “Why Sally Ride waited until her death to tell the world she was gay” Alan Boyle (July 24, 2012) NBC News.
- “Space Shuttle: Mission Archives, STS-7” NASA.
