“To infinity...and beyond!” from Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story
My initial thoughts about Learning Adventure #3: When it comes to exploring space, I thought this would be a pretty cool exercise to do with Celestia. I was new to using this program and I never heard of it until we were asked to partake in this adventure. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if there was a meaning behind the name of the program and I found out that the origin of the word is Latin which means “heavenly.” If you are going to have a program that involves space exploration and stars, this name fits very well.
What did I learn while using Celestia: The first thing that I noticed about this program was that there was a slew of keyboard/mouse commands to learn if you wanted to delve into the program. My first stake of learning was to just “jump in” and play around a bit to see if I could view the whole solar system beyond just the demo. As I “flew” around the program, I was noticing the flight path of Haley’s Comet, the orbital of the International Space Station, and the Earth and the Moon as our satellite in real-time. The coolest thing that I thought was a bonus was that you could download and explore science fictional worlds from the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Babylon 5 (just to name a few). Growing up as kid, I was and still am a fan of Star Wars. The introduction of the light saber and how a Jedi would learn how to master its use was just phenomenal to see on the screen as a kid and the science behind the scenes for using this “tool” in the movies were very interesting to know from the documentary of STAR WARS™: THE LEGACY REVEALED which re-aired on the History Channel and from commentary from George Lucas himself in the 6-Disc DVD movie collection. The key lesson that I explored was the History of the Zodiac Constellations. As a kid, I knew a few of them based on reading from World Book Encyclopedias, taking a look into the sky at night, and by asking my science teacher to help me confirm what I thought I may have seen. The key constellations that I learned about as a kid were Ursa Major (Big Dipper), Ursa Minor (Little Dipper) - North Star (Polaris) and Orion (based on the 3 stars in the belt). The Zodiac Constellations were not part of the initial program so; I downloaded the script and installed it into the program. This script was developed by Marco Klunder and it was a 3 part lesson that was a bit interesting to understand about the Heliocentric theory (Galileo) and the concepts of understanding the origins of the characters based on Animals, Persons, and Mythical Objects.
Overall, I learned to just have fun with this program and explore what’s out there. Note: When I tried to install the add-ons for Star Wars, I was able to download them but, it wouldn’t run and that had me stumped for hours. I looked through a lot of forums and I didn’t seem to find a solution to just look at The Death Star or the X-Wing/Tie Fighters in Celestia. The culprit of the problem ended up being the way the add-on was authored and Celestia didn’t want to load them.
Hypothesis of my Celestia question: NASA and ESA, and Chris Laurel would validate/authorize what would be added and/or modified in the Celestia program.
My Celestia Question/Problem that I wanted to find an answer to: Who validates that the information provided in the Celestia program is accurate and how is this program updated to provide newer stars/galaxies/explorations?
Answer: Through my findings, it seems that Celestia is updated/validated by the general public of enthusiasts who provide the explorations/adventures/modifications based on copyrighted and information that is free of use. The users in the Celestia community forums provide the mast majority of updates on a monthly basis and final approvals are granted to include updates by Chris Laurel, other developers, and advisors of the Celestia program. This free program gives us a great example of having a virtual field trip on your computer in space without going to an actual planetarium or buying a telescope.
My reflection: As I was exploring with the Celestia program, I reflected back to the time when I was about 7 years of age. I was the type of kid who was had a knack for science and especially space exploration. I could tell you the planets of the solar system as well as their moons. Also, I could tell you the different constellations of the stars and could provide a comparison between a lunar and solar eclipse. I was into this space exploration thing so much that my father bought me a black and white Tasco telescope with the solar filter which allowed me to look at sun spots during the day and magnified images of Saturn. Saturn seemed to be so cool and unique to me because of its spectacular rings. Later on, I would find out that Neptune would have a fainted ring around it, as well. The other thing that I could remember is that they would stop the scheduled program you were watching to display the launch of one of the many missions. The Space Shuttle program was so interesting to me and to understand how fast the shuttles would launch into space was remarkable. After the launch was complete, the stations would resume back to the previous program. Thanks to cable and DTV everything is now shown on the NASA channel instead of public television. As an adult, I still get excited when I know that a space shuttle launch is about to happen and I am able to watch it as if I was there. It just seems that the interests of students to see launches are not too popular these days. As you may have guessed it by now, I was very interested in becoming an aeronautical or computer engineer. I haven’t travelled physically in space yet but, there’s no harm in dreaming and continuing to reach for the stars. My exploration so far has been via my telescope as child and now through Celestia as an adult. This program allowed my inner child to appear like I was watching Interplanet Janet in Schoolhouse Rock while having fun through Celestia. This adventure was right down my alley. Lastly, my inspirations growing up who paved the way for me and other children who dared to dream are: Benjamin Banneker, Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., Guy Bluford, and Dr. Ronald McNair. Even though I didn’t mention Dr. Mae Jamison earlier, she is an inspiration of mine, too. I attended a NSBE conference where she was the keynote speaker and she “blew the roof off.” In other words, she was very impressive.
Thank you for allowing me to explore and express my thoughts.
Hypothesis of my Celestia question: NASA and ESA, and Chris Laurel would validate/authorize what would be added and/or modified in the Celestia program.
My Celestia Question/Problem that I wanted to find an answer to: Who validates that the information provided in the Celestia program is accurate and how is this program updated to provide newer stars/galaxies/explorations?
Answer: Through my findings, it seems that Celestia is updated/validated by the general public of enthusiasts who provide the explorations/adventures/modifications based on copyrighted and information that is free of use. The users in the Celestia community forums provide the mast majority of updates on a monthly basis and final approvals are granted to include updates by Chris Laurel, other developers, and advisors of the Celestia program. This free program gives us a great example of having a virtual field trip on your computer in space without going to an actual planetarium or buying a telescope.
My reflection: As I was exploring with the Celestia program, I reflected back to the time when I was about 7 years of age. I was the type of kid who was had a knack for science and especially space exploration. I could tell you the planets of the solar system as well as their moons. Also, I could tell you the different constellations of the stars and could provide a comparison between a lunar and solar eclipse. I was into this space exploration thing so much that my father bought me a black and white Tasco telescope with the solar filter which allowed me to look at sun spots during the day and magnified images of Saturn. Saturn seemed to be so cool and unique to me because of its spectacular rings. Later on, I would find out that Neptune would have a fainted ring around it, as well. The other thing that I could remember is that they would stop the scheduled program you were watching to display the launch of one of the many missions. The Space Shuttle program was so interesting to me and to understand how fast the shuttles would launch into space was remarkable. After the launch was complete, the stations would resume back to the previous program. Thanks to cable and DTV everything is now shown on the NASA channel instead of public television. As an adult, I still get excited when I know that a space shuttle launch is about to happen and I am able to watch it as if I was there. It just seems that the interests of students to see launches are not too popular these days. As you may have guessed it by now, I was very interested in becoming an aeronautical or computer engineer. I haven’t travelled physically in space yet but, there’s no harm in dreaming and continuing to reach for the stars. My exploration so far has been via my telescope as child and now through Celestia as an adult. This program allowed my inner child to appear like I was watching Interplanet Janet in Schoolhouse Rock while having fun through Celestia. This adventure was right down my alley. Lastly, my inspirations growing up who paved the way for me and other children who dared to dream are: Benjamin Banneker, Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., Guy Bluford, and Dr. Ronald McNair. Even though I didn’t mention Dr. Mae Jamison earlier, she is an inspiration of mine, too. I attended a NSBE conference where she was the keynote speaker and she “blew the roof off.” In other words, she was very impressive.
Thank you for allowing me to explore and express my thoughts.
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