Watch Historic Space Shuttle Launch: July 8
The NASA space shuttle program will embark on its final mission on Friday, July 8, with the launch of flight STS-135. Because of the historic nature of this event, the Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium on the Buffalo State campus will be showing the launch under its 24-foot dome starting at 10:45 am. Lift off of the space shuttleAtlantis is scheduled for 11:26 a.m. Visitors will also be able to view an actual shuttle heat shield tile on loan from NASA.
This viewing is open to Buffalo State faculty, staff, and the public. Reservations are strongly recommended. E-mail your name and number of seats to planetarium@buffalostate.edu. If needed, an overflow viewing location will be set up. Please visit www.fergusonplanetarium.netfor updated information.
The final shuttle launch will mark the end of an era in space travel—although Buffalo State will continue its contribution to research and education about NASA’s planned future endeavors, including travel to the moon and Mars.
Space shuttle Atlantis will complete a12-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS), during which a veteran four-person crew will deliver supplies and spare parts to the ISS to sustain station operations once the shuttles are retired. The ISS is expected to remain in operation until at least 2020.
The space shuttle was the world’s first reusable space vehicle. There have been five shuttles in the NASA fleet: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. The first space shuttle mission lifted off 30 years ago, on April 12, 1981. In March of that year, the late Joyce Swartney, professor of earth sciences and science education and dean of the Faculty of Natural and Social Sciences, served on the national evaluation panel of the NASA Shuttle Student Involvement Project. The project was designed to stimulate science and technology studies in grades 9 through 12 by challenging high school students to develop experiments suitable for flight aboard the space shuttle. It was a precursor to today’s Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP).
NASA has long been committed to engaging and educating the public and schoolchildren about space travel and science topics. The NASA Langley Research Center awarded a three-year, $270,000 grant to Buffalo State in 2010 to enhance middle and high school science education and improve scientific literary. Catherine Lange, assistant professor of earth sciences and science education (and a former student of Swartney’s), leads a project team of Buffalo State faculty, staff, and alumni that includes Kenneth Huff, ’92, ’97. Huff is a two-time Buffalo State alumnus who received a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching from President George W. Bush in 2006. One of the team’s first initiatives was to use NASA data to create lessons plans that help K–12 teachers dispel common misunderstandings about the earth’s rotation.
Kevin Williams, assistant professor of earth sciences and science education and director of Buffalo State’s Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium, is a co-investigator of the Langley project team. Williams has worked on other NASA-funded research projects, including mapping a portion of Mars and field-testing a prototype instrument that could someday be sent to the moon or Mars.
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