By: Stephen Buechter
Staff Writer
Meramec’s Sky Club hosted an out of this world event on the eve of Nov. 6 when former astronaut Linda Godwin answered questions and gave a presentation on her four trips to the International Space Station. The event was well attended, and Godwin said that the questions asked were even better than expected.
The president of the Sky Club, Jeremiah Slanger, said that the event was likely to pique an interest in the subject of space and space travel.
“Science is really what kind of drove me into really wanting to get back into school and everything. So I would say that everyone’s interested by that,” said Slanger. “Everyone’s interested in meeting an astronaut.”
According to Slanger, the event was born through connections between the staff supervisor and a student. “[Our supervisor] Joe actually has a student that is Linda Godwin’s niece. And so Joe was in contact with her, and got her to talk with her aunt, and eventually he asked the question on whether she would be willing to have a speech,” said Slanger.
Joshua Bus, who attended the event, said that it “definitely piqued his interest”, and that he had looked into space travel in the past, but hearing the section of Godwin’s presentation dedicated to commercial space travel and her responses to questions gave him a renewed interest.
“It was this big government organization working on it, and now it’s… well, your more average day-to-day person actually has a chance to get involved,” said Bus.
Bus appreciated that the presentation was more focused on “day-to-day” activities instead of complex and de tailed topics such as how a spacecraft is launched.
“You see the movies about what it’s like to float and all that, but I thought it was really cool to talk to someone and have her just tell you about the view or little things like the grape juice on the window,” said Bus.
Slanger said that the presentation was a “good learning experience,” citing a young girl in the audience who asked a question about the effects of microgravity, and that there were some unexpected questions as well.
“I would say the most unexpected questions were from the gentleman who asked about Area 51 and…aliens and all this,” said Slanger. “That was pretty entertaining.”
