BY MARIAH MOORE
On Tuesday, July 22nd, the 99th Science Cafe took place at the Venue at Thirsty’s Bar and Grille. A dull murmur fills the room, waitresses buzz between tables, people shake hands, chatting eagerly on. This is not the most obvious place for scientific discussion to be held, however, this perfectly fits the goal of the Science Cafes. A self-proclaimed grassroots project, the goal of the effort is to bring conversations like these to local cafes or bars to offer a comfortable space for growth and education.
The project is described as a two-way interaction between the audience and the speaker – who are local professionals with a burning passion for the topic of the Cafe – allowing for a wide diversity in presenters. The speaker at this specific cafe was Dr. Paul Adams. Adams serves as Dean of the College of Education at FHSU, as well as being a professor of both physics and education. Adams has spoken at many conferences for science and science education; his admiration for space and the worlds beyond our world is very clear.
“They told me to cut this down from 100 slides…well…I tried.”, Adams mentioned as he opened his speech.
Adams was able to perfectly meld comedy and star-studded facts in his presentation. The demonstration covered the start of the Apollo missions, as well as addressing what these advances meant for the ultimate goal of the space program. Adams described the space race as a “proxy war”, and heavily touched on the importance of moon exploration and its relation to nationalism. Adams painted the stunning history of the Cold war era technology pushing its boundaries just to make advances, no matter how small.
“For those of you who don’t remember, we had the Rangers. It was a very simple mission, fly to the moon and crash into it. That’s a good mission. But how many of you would be happy with just that?”, Adams said.
Conveying intent like this was something Adams excelled at, questioning the audience so they too could understand the drive felt by engineers and crew members during this period.
“Earthrise” photo cred. NASA
Adams began the second part of his speech by stating, “Actually, one of the Apollos that landed went and took a really nice picture… It made us start the mission to get humans there.”
His casual tone conveyed his message clearly- we were not done with the moon, nor did we want to be. Adams then digressed for a moment, talking about his childhood and personal memories of the moon landings, where he claimed his love and admiration for all things astronomical began.
During his time spent talking about his childhood, and his personal memories, Adams states, “It was by about [mission] 17 which I bribed my brothers, I was going to summer camp, and I bought fifty cassette recorders and had them set it up to the TV and record every bit of the mission. I had them record everything. I wanted to hear everything.”
Adams successfully captured the feeling the audience had, there was an affinity for these early launches, about these first leaps for mankind. He stressed the importance of these missions, they were not just important to us, but important to the entire world.
Nearing the end of his presentation, Adams introduced the modern moon mission. The newly named Artemis program is geared towards landing somewhere on the surface we have never been able to go before- the south pole of the moon. He explained the reasoning behind the project name was tied to Greek mythology, this project was named after the goddess of the moon to demonstrate it being our new path to it. The Artemis project was new information to nearly everybody in attendance. Adams elaborated on the mission, describing it as a “fast-paced mission ending with an orbiting moon space station.” He also addressed the mission’s goal of having both a man and a woman on the moon, something not done before.
He gave his concluding statement and was proudly met with applause, “All those who have ever read science fiction- we are trying to get to it.”
After the presentation, Adams welcomed questions. He explained his passion for both science and the Science Cafe program as being closely linked to empowerment, both of the individual and the community. He described a want for citizens to get more involved with science, and stressed how easily it could be done.
“One way to get involved is citizen science,” Adam said. “Citizen science is you as an average citizen just going on a walk and seeing different types of insects, or you count the number of insect bites, or you look up at the stars…and count all the dull ones. Science used to be done by everybody…you didn’t have to have high-dollar tech.”
Adams encourages the community to go out and find science all around them. Having been involved with the Science Cafe program since it started its chapter in Hays, Adams highly recommends it to anyone interested. The Cafes are normally held throughout the academic year, starting in September through November, and then starting again in January through April. This Cafe being only one of two held in summer, both of which were in celebration of the Apollo missions.The next Cafe is set to take place on September 16th at 7 pm at the FHSU Robbins Center. The topic is “A Celebration of 100 Science Cafes”, the speaker will again be Dr. Paul Adams. For more information or to learn more about the FHSU Science Cafes, visit their twitter ( www.twitter.com/FHSUScienceCafe )