A Night Exploring the Red Planet

Fifty years and 40 missions after NASA’s first spacecraft to Mars, “The Red Planet” astronomy show on Oct. 17 celebrated the exploratory history, current discoveries, and future NASA missions to the planet.

The event, held at UW-Milwaukee’s Manfred Olson Planetarium, was the sixth astronomy presentation between Sept. 12 and Oct. 24 to highlight Mars and stargazing.

“The Red Planet,” drawing a full auditorium of students, community members, parents, and children, serves to answer the questions most have about Mars; why scientists originally wanted to go there, if there has ever been past life on the planet, the reasons NASA is exploring the red planet now, and why Mars exploration is important for the study of Earth’s past and present.

“I chose to talk about Mars because there have been rovers on the planet for 10 years and machines going to the planet for almost 50; it seemed like the time was right to put something together and explain to people what we are doing there,” said the night’s speaker Jean Creighton, UWM astronomy professor and director of the Planetarium.

Beginning with a slideshow explaining each successive Mars mission, starting with the early Soviet space crafts of the 1960’s and ending with the newest NASA missions to the planet, “The Red Planet” emphasized the scientific gains of each decade’s machines.

Interspersed throughout the slideshow were NASA commentary videos from the 1980’s and 1990’s, animated sequences breaking down the various space craft landings, and numerous photographs of Mar’s rough red landscape. Creighton also discussed the Viking missions of the 1970’s, and recent Curiosity Rover landing.

Creighton, a native Canadian who grew up in Greece, has been teaching various levels of astronomy at UWM since 1999. In 2007, she became the Planetarium’s director with a mission to improve the visibility of the facility by offering astronomical programs to the general public and private groups. Since then she has established the Friday Night Show, Astrobreak, Stargazing, and other special events at the planetarium.

Perhaps one of the more interesting points “The Red Planet” explores is Creighton’s discussion on the Mars One mission, a non-profit space travel organization which is laying plans to establish a permanent human colony on Mars by 2023.

In their informational video, the company says it hopes to have ample food, shelter, and water available for its first wave of residents.  Creighton adds that more than 700,000 people have already signed up to live in this new space colony which does not have the technology to come back to Earth. The list of prospective residents is now being waned out. The space colony made an impression on audience member Isabell Kramar, 12, who thought the idea was a fascinating one.

“I liked learning about how they are going to make little chambers to make food up on Mars. I can’t imagine living up there and never being able to leave,” said Kramar who is also an aspiring astronomer.

The night was topped off with a stargazing presentation which invited the audience to look up at the large domed ceiling and point out specific stars, constellations, and planets such as the Big Dipper, Andromeda, the Northern Star, Pegasus, and Taurus. After the amateur astronomy session, Creighton took questions from the audience, mainly from enthusiastic children.

Audience member Erin McNett, a UWM senior and film student, is glad there are places on campus which focus on such important and interesting topics such as space exploration and astronomy.

“In large cities such as Milwaukee, it’s hard to see the stars at night. A planetarium helps to educate the community about what is really up in the sky,” McNett said. “That way, they will become more curious about not only this planet, but the universe as a whole. Astronomy is important to me because it educates people on the history of planet earth and even the culture we live in.”