Joel Ong Lecture | Event 3

Joel Ong: Sound | Art

Joel Ong is an artist who has most recently completed a graduate Biological Arts degree at SymbioticA, University of Western Australia.  According to Exhibition Road, "he is primarily interested in the definitions of listening that are developed from interdisciplinary research, extending scientific explorations of physical resonance and vibrations, to the psychological, anthropological and imaginative premise of sound and embodiment. He is also a musician who perhaps devotes too much time to his instruments and his guitar-dissonant melodies."

Mr. Foley from D.A.D.D.Y on Vimeo.

Last Thursday, I went to listen to Joel Ong's lecture on sound art!  It was interesting to learn about how he processes sound -- he spent most of the lecture laying the groundwork for sound terminology and explaining how sound processing works (and how it differs based on perspective and form person-to-person). He first showed us Mr. Foley (video seen above), which centers around the fact that sound is always all around us, and shows a man trying to escape a band following him around "soundtracking" his life.  After showing us the video, Ong explained his interest in how we listen to sound and the different theories that come out of it.

What is Sound?
Ong then went into a basic description of sound, first asking the age-old question "If a tree falls in a forest...".  This led into a discussion of sound as a relationship between the listener and the environment, a relationship that is always changing depending on how you move your head and position yourself.  At one end, the perspective is grounded in mathematical ratios and acoustic, from the frequency and the wavelength to the sound.  At the other, perspectives are grounded in your psychosocial perception of sound and how you individually process the melding of different pitches together.  Pythagoras (570-495BC) was interested in these harmonies, in listening intently to sounds, and using different-sized objects to create a multitude of different pitches.  He was a pioneer of the Musica Universalis (Music of the Spheres), a proposition that all celestial bodies produce a unique hum, stemming from their orbital resonance.  It was funny to learn that Earth's hum is actually pretty dissonant compared to that of other planets!

Acoustics: sound – sound is our perception of sensation created by a vibrating source, that disturbs molecules of liquid, gas, or solid, within certain range of frequencies

Cynatics
We then watched an interesting TED Talk: Making Sound Visible through Cynatics (Evan Grant).  This talk further delved into the objective and perceptual sides to sound.  What I found most interesting about the discussion of this portion in sound is that sound surrounds us constantly.  There is never a waking (or sleeping) moment where you aren't surrounded by the hums of the earth, the whirrs of a computer, or the rushes of flowing water. Sound is so omnipresent that it becomes easy to block out sound and have your brain discard this input as background, irrelevant stimuli.  

What is Listening?
The above realization about sound thus made the concept of listening all the more important.  Ong posed the question -- "Removing other senses, what is the best way to listen?" and referenced a multitude of other projects that focused participants on directed listening. I thought the most interesting was the Anechoic Chamber, where there is no echoing of sound from external sources (picture seen above). I'm very interested in experiencing UCLA's Anechoic Chamber!

Ong then spent a significant portion of his lecture discussing John Cage (1912-1992), who famously stated "Until I die, there will be sounds".  Even in the anechoic chamber, Cage heard two sounds, the sound of his nervous system operating (high), and the sound of his blood circulating (low).  He pondered whether or not we can experience true silence while we were alive, and implemented many performance pieces focusing listening to silence and the lack of noise rather than listening to jarring or composed sounds. The most famous of such performances is 4'33", where a composer sits on stage with a full orchestra and conducts a 4'33" long piece of silence.  It's a very interesting concept -- even when we watched it in class I became much more cognizant of "background" noise like shuffling of feet, coughing, etc.

Other cool sound art projects:

-       Bernard Parmegiani – De Natura Sonorum sound artist

-       Max Neuhaus – Water Whistle Series (listen while underwater)

-       Can your ears blink?

-       Carrie Ann Simpson: “Noise Cancellation: Disrupting Audio Perception”

Sources:
"Exhibition Road | Ong, Joel." Exhibition Road Joel Ong Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.exhibitionroad.com/6601/joel-ong>.
"John Cage - About the Composer." PBS. PBS, 1 Aug. 2001. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-cage/about-the-composer/471/>.
Ahern, Mike, and Enda Loughman. "Mr. Foley." Vimeo. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://vimeo.com/20606655>.
Cox, Trevor. "Does an anechoic chamber cause hallucinations?." The Sound Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://acousticengineering.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/does-an-anechoic-chamber-cause-hallucinations/>.
Ong, Joel. "Sound | Art." . N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.arkfrequencies.com>.

Joel Ong Lecture Notes | Event 3

Joel Ong: Sound Art

-       Interested in how we listen to sound and the different theories that come out of it

-       Mr. Foley: talks about the presence of sound all around us

What is Sound?

-       If a tree falls in a forest…

-       Sound with reference to a listener vs. the environment

-       Modern philosophy: sound is always a relationship (depending on how you move your head, position yourself, relationship is always changing)

-       Keywords: Tuning, Resonance, Feedback, Environment

-       Pythatgoras: 570BC to 495BC – phythagorial theorem

o   Interested in harmony, listening intently to sounds, mathematical ratios, and geometry. Realized that hitting different-sized objects creates different pitches

o   Musica Universalis – Harmony/Music of the Spheres

§  Pythagoras proposed that all celestial bodies all produce a unique hum based on their orbital resonance

§  Earth actually sounds pretty dissonant compared to other planets

-       Acoustics: sound – sound is our perception of sensation created by a vibrating source, that disturbs molecules of liquid, gas, or solid, within certain range of frequencies

Cynatics

-       Cynatics: TED Talk: Making Sound Visible through Cynatics (Evan Grant)

-       Objective and perceptual sides to sound

-       Acoustic: frequency, amplitude, spectrum, duration, velocity

-       Perceptual: pitch

What is Listening?

-       Removing other senses, what is the best way to listen?

-       Bernard Parmegiani – De Natura Sonorum sound artist

-       Max Neuhaus – Water Whistle Series (listen while underwater)

-       Can your ears blink?

-       Carrie Ann Simpson: “Noise Cancellation: Disrupting Audio Perception”

-       Anechoic Chamber – whatever is in the chamber, does not echo, there is no external sound source

-       John Cage (1912-1992) – “Until I die, there will be sounds”

o   Went to an anechoic chamber and still heard two sounds- high = nervous system, low = blood circulation

o   Notion of silence: can we experience it while we are alive?

o   4’33” – performance piece with no sound, each person’s perception is different

§  My experience: watching it on an edited video is much different than experiencing it in real life

o   Also composed with plants – amplified cacti, chess boards, tennis rackets, etc.

Christopher O'Leary Lecture | Event 2

This morning, I attended a NanoLab summer institute lecture in CNSI.  Today there was guest lecturer, Christopher O'Leary (MFA graduate of UCLA!), who spent the hour telling us about his artwork, motivations, and how he manages to meld science together with art. Christopher has some very, very cool projects - he told us that his very interested in understanding how science and cosmology interact with the landscape, and hopes that through his artwork, he can visually render invisible scientific principles and phenomena that are always present but never seen. According to his artist bio online, "Christopher O'Leary explores notions of human potential through the lens of speculative fiction, comic book culture, and the histories of art and technology". Here are just a few of his projects that help to elucidate mathematical principles through art in a really innovative way.

Black Hole Simulation

Christopher worked with physicists at the University of Montana to study black holes.  From a photographer's prospective, he wanted to emphasize the spiral nature of black holes that interact with each other.  Thus, he worked with physicists descriptions, and through algorithmically generated code, created a visual representation of black holes.  He emphasized that combining art and science was a learning process, from understanding the different languages and numbers of science, to balancing the push-and-pull between being numerically accurate while also creating an immersive aesthetic experience.  The final product was displayed as a giant projection, which was awesome to see.

Black Hole Animation from Christopher O'Leary on Vimeo.

Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber
Another project Christopher is working on is the Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber.  The Cloud Chamber is a relatively simple device invented in the 20th century -- it is a plexiglass box full of supercooled vapor.  Cosmic rays and particles from the sun, along with background radiation from the environment, magnetizes this cooled vapor, rendering particles within the continuous stream of gas within the box.  As such, the lines that you see transiently pop up in the vapor are the result from stars and other planetary forces! In completing this project, O'Leary aims to visualize the invisible through innovative mediums, and as Dr. Ed Krupp of the Griffith Observatory stated, "This isn't education this is spectacle -- putting your body in relationship with galactic scale."

Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber from Christopher O'Leary on Vimeo.

Dark Matter Detector 
O'Leary also took a trip to Occidental College to view their dark matter detector, known as the "Time Projection Device". This device attempts to physically capture dark matter through fine threads of steel.  When dark matter hits a single nucleus, a single electron will bounce off and be detected by these thin steel wires.  He said that this rare event only is projected once very few years!! The machine itself was beautiful, and contained a silky metallic sheet within the steel wires, which we learned is actually a solar sail (light pushes the sail to create energy!)


SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
The final project that Christopher told us about was a photography series he shot of SETI.  SETI was a research institution founded at Berkeley, and was the world's first crowdsourcing platform.  These huge satellites slowly turn in arcs and listen to different patches of the galaxy.  The 'noise' that they collect is translated into picture data that looks like fuzz. Thousands of people are part of the SETI project, looking through these data jpgs to find patterns that may indicate extraterrestrial  communication.  Interestingly enough, when these "fuzz" images are overlayed, they will slowly begin to form stars! Additionally, O'Leary brought up the point that the fuzz is maybe we can't understand because we are looking for human-based communication -- perhaps the fuzz itself is a form of communication that we cannot understand.  Professor Vesna then brought up an equally interesting observation that SETI members are studying sound, but instead of listening to this sound, they are asked to look at this visual representation.

Overall Lessons
I loved O'Leary's mission to visualize the invisible principles that surround and affect our daily lives.  It was very interesting to see that much of his artwork is rooted in mathematics and the coding of algorithms, reinforcing to me that math is just like spoken word language in its ability to convey concepts. The way that O'Leary described how he tweaks his codes and algorithms to enact small changes in the artwork was a great parallel to artists mixing in paint to create slightly different shades of color, or writers adding in adjectives to give extra weight to a certain sentence. Regardless of the medium of communication, all are masterpieces in their own right!

Sources:
"Christopher O'Leary." Christopher O'Leary. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://cargocollective.com/chrisoleary>.
"SETI 101." SETI Institute. SETI Institute, n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://www.seti.org/node/662>.
O'Leary, Christopher. "Black Hole Animation." Vimeo. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://vimeo.com/64747163>.
O'Leary, Christopher. "Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber." Vimeo. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://vimeo.com/97283293>.
Snowden-Ifft, Daniel. "Searching for Dark Matter." Daniel Snowden-Ifft. Occidental College, n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <https://www.oxy.edu/faculty/daniel-snowden-ifft>.

Christopher O'Leary Lecture Notes | Event 2

Christopher O’Leary- Worked with physicists at University of Montana to study black holes-       Jets that fire out superheated materials from either side-       Zoom role orbit – bizarre spiral of two black holes circling each other-       Rendering physicists desciptions through algorithmically generated code-       Generating forces that are science accurate, from gravitational waves recorded in space-       Photographer combining code and wavesounds generated by the spirals-       Artist instinct push and pull with physicist’s ideas – balance between being accurate and being an aesthetic experience-       5gb text file of sheer numbers-       Installation- giant projection of the baby crawling around the spiral

Experience motivated him to craft his art-       Inspired by Richard Feynman lectures, Feynman diagrams-       Light paint a Feynman diagram of his studio-       Some representation of science, using the surface of the image, and the figure is there-       Had been working on project for years and didn’t know it

Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber-       Current project in the basement of the Griffith Obsevatory-       Device invented in the early 20^th century, a plexiglass box full of supercooled vapor-       Cosmic rays and particles from the sun, combined with background radiation, magnetizes the vapor, which renders particles in the gas-       Lines that you see within the vapor comes from stars and other planetary forces, renders something that is always present but never visible-       Interested in ways to visualize the invisible through imagery-       Relatively easy to make!-       Met with director of Griffith (Dr. Krum?), who researches archaea-astronomy, studying ancient people’s understanding of the universe-       Is there a cultural context of this in the 20^th century? How do we come to understand these things from a culture perspective.-       This isn’t education, this is spectacle – putting your body in the relationship with galactic scale-       Metaphor for his project – rendering the invisible (theme of his work!) Other Inspirations-       Rendering of a cloud chamber onto an audio record-       Instructions of how to make something in the gallery, done by other people, much like code or generative animation-       Trevor Paglan – interested in surveillance, figures out where spy satellites are in the sky, positions himself, and photographs it zipping through the sky (uncovering things in the landscape)-       Alan Seccula – documentation of labor and commerce – documentary/video following shipping company moving around the world-       All of these are interesting to him because science and cosmology interact with the landscape in really interesting ways

To The Future-       Dark matter detector (Occidental College)o   Physically attempting to capture dark mattero   Device Name: Time Projection Device (science fiction come to life!)o   Ultimately will be deployed in a mine deep underground in England-       Close-up photograph – you can see fine lines that are threads of steel that the scientists weave themselves (detection devices)-       Maybe once in a few years, a reaction will happen – dark matter will hit a nucleus and an electron will bounce off and be detected by the steel-       Shiny silky metallic in the middle – solar sail where light pushes the sail-       Use code to rip apart the image and mark it from that perspective – you’re visualizing the flow of the galaxy rather than viewing a static image-       SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence)o   Research institution founded in Berkeley, crowdsourcing platform, first crowdsourcing ever!o   Understanding the priorities of these is important to O’Learyo   Slowly turn in arcs and listen to different patches of the galaxyo   Taking data from these things (noise), combing through the “fuzz” to create a giant panorama – visual representation of jpg fuzzo   Interested in overlaying them and it’ll slowly turn into starso   Interesting that it is sound, but people are not asked to listen, they are asked to look.o   Fuzz is maybe information that we can’t understand, we are seeking signals from our perspective when those signals might not actually exist-       Buckminster Fuller – The most amazing poetry of the 20^th century is e=mc^2

Nanotechnology + Art | Week 5

Whenever I give campus tours, one of the landmarks of UCLA I always highlight is CNSI.  Audiences love hearing about how nanotechnology creates self-repairing armor, paint that doubles as a solar panel, and nanobots in nanoshells that are able to specifically target cancerous cells, while leaving healthy cells untouched. As such, it was great to hear from Jim Gimzewski and understand more behind the history and building blocks of nanotechnology.

History has always focused on the big-picture questions. In trying to find the origins of life, or the meaning of life, scientists and artists have tried to look to the heavens, or through the timeframe of billions of years, in search of answers.  It is only recently that scientists are beginning to shift their scope in the opposite direction.  As seen through the emergent fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology, it is evident that much can be learned from the basic, tiniest building blocks of our Earth. Such is exemplified by Richard Feynman's "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", which suggested that there is so much room to make tiny things that you don't need to always think bigger is better.

Originally coined in 1974 by Niorio Taniguchi to describe thin filaments in cells, nanotechnology now more broadly encompasses everything on the scale of nanometers (10^-9m).  Dr. Gimzewski reinforced that such a tiny scale is often hard to comprehend.  I think artists have been great at elucidating the concept of nanotechnology and its microcosmic scale through innovative projects that contrast nano-sized versions of typical daily objects. For example, Feynman wrote 25,000 pages of Encyclopedia Britannica on a pinhead (though a pinhead has room for 260,000,000 pages). He also offered prizes for a small cubic electric motor 0.4mm in dimension and a book page shrunk by a factor of 25,000 in each direction (100nm font size), prizes claimed very soon after. Similarly Drexler & Merckle founded the Foresight Organization, which came up with the idea of an assembly plant on a molecular scale.

Gimzewski also highlighted the changing perspective that nanotechnology provides.  Because atomic physics is not bound by the rules of conventional physics, conventional laws like gravity, surface tension, size, and weight do not necessarily apply to nanoparticles.  Unsurprisingly, manipulating these unique properties has translated itself into art.  This is exemplified in artwork from the Romans, where a cup seems green on the outside, but if you illuminate from inside, it glows, due to coloration from nanosized gold particles.  Similarly, plate glazes and stained glass windows also used nanoparticles to exhibit unique visual properties.

Much of nanotechnology, on the surface, seems strictly grounded in hard science, with no room for the interpretation of art.  Much of Gimzewski's lectures focused on the technology that allows for the study of nanparticles, from ATMs to STMs, from nanotechnology in chemotherapy to nanoclay that keeps beer carbonated. These lectures also highlighted the practical applications of nanoparticles, from fighting diseases, to making our clothes, vehicles, and streets self-cleaning.

However, this knowledge helps artists to better understand and visually represent the concepts that they base their artwork around. As Gimzewski stressed, the entirety of life and natural order relies on self-organization and heirarchal structures.  Such is seen in "On Growth & Form" (1945), which highlights the fractal nature of trees, snowflakes, and shells. Similar principles are also exemplified in the Blue Morpho Butterfly, whose nanoparticles create extreme flash that can be seen from a mile in the air. These butterflies have christmas tree-like structures that manipulate light on the nanoscale so that they reflect back color much more effectively than pigments can do alone.  Overall, such principles can also be used in technology, possibly helping scientists self-assemble organs or tissues, but also in art, through the designing of beautiful 3D DNA crystals and micelles.

As a whole, I also think that the basic building structures of life see parallels and equivalent structures on the massive scale of globalization. NPR just wrote a beautiful article titled "When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?" about consolidating advancing technology and efficiency with the culture of art.  In the article, Dr. Ian Wilson draws the comparison between microtechnologies and massive scales of society from the perspective of imagery, stating that "the connection between art and the medical philanthropy is imagery.  Street murals enhance life.  Medical X-ray imagery preserves it."

Sources:
"Feynman.com - Richard Feynman Online." Feynman.com - Richard Feynman Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.feynman.com>.
"Micro & Nano Technology." Nanoparticle Formulation, Fabrication & Delivery Services. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.particlesciences.com/services/micro-nano-technology/>.
Gimzewski, J. "Nanotechnology + Art, Pt. 3." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 23 July 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXjNbKDkYI>.
Frank, Adam. "When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/07/26/334038347/when-cities-become-science-where-does-art-fit-in?>.
Thompson, D. On Growth and Form. 2 ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945. Print.

Space + Exploration + Art | Week 5

Space was described as "the final frontier" in the beginning of lecture, conjuring images of courageous astronauts exploring foreign planets throughout the galaxy.  While that description is fitting, I disagree with the finality that it suggests.  Space is not humankind's final frontier.  As we learn more and more about each of the topics in this class, what we once thought was a full understanding has now led to a huge pandora's box of further questions, of new frontiers.  For example, the field of genetics has now led into the entirely new "frontier" of epigenetics.  Understanding nerves and brain anatomy has now led to huge questions in the debate about nature vs. nurture and the development of personality and consciousness.  For me, space is our most expansive, mysterious frontier, but just one of infinite frontiers that humans continue to explore.

Astronauts of Apollo 11

In watching Professor Vesna's brief overview of space exploration and the motivations behind the movement, there seem to be parallels between art and science. The field of space exploration delves into the unknown, much as artists' often aim to elucidate a foreign concept.  Similarly, space exploration involved taking risks. From the casualties resulting from faulty rockets in Apollo 1/13, Challenger, and Columbia, space exploration has always been a dangerous expedition into the unknown. This theme reminded me of art, as artists push boundaries and take risks (sometimes risking their own bodies!), in order to seek greater understanding of the unknown.

Many times, it can seem as if art is reactionary to scientific advancement.  Taking examples from previous lectures, bio-art formed as a response to the new ability to manipulate DNA and genomes.  Artists were able to manipulate butterfly wing patterns because science made that possible; it's not as if scientists spent billions on the Human Genome Project for the sole prospect of creating butterfly wing art (though it was a beautiful artistic representation of technological advancement).

However, contrary to other fields, the scope of space allows artists be the drivers and dreamers behind exploration and the direction of science.  From nanometers and microscopic scale to the 10^25 massive scale of the universe, the scope and size of space is almost incomprehensible. Because the idea of space, to this day, is still such a huge mystery, artists are given free reign to imagine and dream up plans of what civilization might look like on the moon, or what extraterrestrial life may resemble.  In a contrast to other fields where knowledge is expansive but not yet all-encompassing, space is essentially an artist's largest canvas.  Beyond that, this canvas is nearly entirely blank -- we are just beginning to scratch the surface in understanding the galaxy from Earth's POV, much less the larger universe from the perspective of other intelligent beings or galaxies.

It is the nearly-incomprehensible massive scale of that drives artists, and all human life, to dream of what lies out in the universe's unexplored corners (if there are even any corners that exist!), and what motivates artists such as Joe Davis to capture the human essence and send it out into space, whether it be through paintings, experiments or manipulated E-Coli sequences. Artists are given free reign to be as creative as humanly possible. Space is a realm where no dream is too fantastic, where no conventional rules of physics, scale, or time really exist.  Because of this, artists have used their creative force to physically depict our wildest dreams in the form of art, science fiction, and fantasy films.  Their art thus drives the direction of space exploration from a scientists' point-of-view, as the goal of both art and science and the third culture is to seek greater understanding of the human experience.  ...or at least that's what I think!

Sources:
"A Brief History of NASA." A Brief History of NASA. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://history.nasa.gov/factsheet.htm>.
"Apollo 13: Facts About NASA's Near-Disaster." Space.com. Space.com, n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.space.com/17250-apollo-13-facts.html>.
"The Scale of the Universe." Newgrounds.com. Newgrounds.com, n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347>.
Franklin, H. Bruce. "Science Fiction: The Early History." Science Fiction: The Early History. Rutgers, n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/sfhist.html>.
Vesna, Victoria. "Space + Exploration + Art, Part 4." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qSc72u9KhI&list=PL9DBF43664EAC8BC7>

Space + Exploration + Art | Week 5 Notes

Space -- The Final Frontier
Power of Tens -- From nanometers and microscopic scale to 10^25 massive scale of the universe, the scope and size of space is almost incomprehensible.

Lecture 1 - History:
- Copernicus (1512) - Heliocentric concept of the solar system, with sun in the relative center. Postulated Earth's revolution around the sun, required epicycles, which conflicted with the ideas of the church.
- Galileo's Telescope - triggered a new area of space discovery
- Sudbury Buckyballs - born in space, survived meteor impact to arrive on Earth's surfaces
- Spitzer's Space Telescope - discovery of buckyballs in solid form in space
- Science Fiction - huge role in space idealization and concepts (Arthur Clarke's space elevator, Jules Verne's concept of weightlessness in 1865, space stations that were livable in 1920).
- "Celestial Castle", The Fountains of Paradise -- 22nd century

Lecture 2 - Exploration:
- Contemporary space exploration began approx. during WWII
- Arms race became focus of the cold war, led to competition in space exploration
- Soviet Union's Sputnick (actually no larger than a beach ball, no functionality).  However, it created paranoia and competition among countries
- Sputnick launch followed by U.S. "Flopnick" --> NASA created in response to develop competing military space program.
- Residual effects on education as there was an increased focus on math, science, and technology

Lecture 3:
- Leica the dog sent into space to understand any physiological changes that might occur in space
- She didn't live beyond 6 days into her trip as the batteries died and all support systems failed
- Russians stereotyped as a crude people, but government warned that Russians now had a technology that allowed for the transport of bombs for thousands of miles
- U.S. sent chimpanzee into space with the capability of receiving intelligent responses back (as opposed to the dog Russia sent up)
- Alan Shepard (1961) - first American in space
- John Glenn (1962) - first man to orbit the earth

Lecture 4:
- Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, Apollo 1 (exploded), Apollo 13 (launched from Kennedy space center but lunar landing was aborted after oxygen tank exploded)
- Space Challenger disaster (1986) - broke apart 73 seconds into flight
- Columbia completed many missions before re-entry in its 28th mission
- 2003 till present - many government programs ending, now focus in space travel is on private organizations (Virgin Galactic)

Lecture 5:
- X-Prize: $10m prize for non-governmental organization to launch reusable craft into space twice in two weeks
- Spaceship 1 won the prize -- led to a partnership with Virgin Galactic, planning to commercialize craft ($200k per ride)
- Space X's Dragon -- successful attachment to ISS -- private company
- Space Exploration --> Space Exploitation?
- Robotic asteroid mining industry - trillions up for grabs
- Who will mine the moon? Asks a compelling question if the moon will become the Persian Gulf of modern society (Helium 3 could control future global economies)

Lecture 6:
- The Jetsons meet The Flinstones
- CBS' Lost In Space
- Star Trek