chaotic mortal

A Lesson From NASA

April 28th, 2008. Published under School, True Life. 2 Comments.

“A new-fangled technology came out a few years ago,” my teacher told me, “and it’s called video chat, and we’re going to use it today, again.” My teacher loved humor, and she was pretending we didn’t know this information.

We had used it before, with the Tennessee Science Center. We ended up having technical difficulties, and had technical difficulties for half an hour, ending up having to call the district technology director down.

“This time, we are hoping that it will be a little more successful than last time, and because of that, we are having the technology person staying here until we’re done.”

We all cheered. An hour later, we made it down to the lab.

Sitting in front, we looked at the big overhead projection screen. It showed a lazy-looking man sitting in a chair, eating something. Text at the bottom showed we were “connected to Houston Video Chat Services”, whatever that was.

“You all here, now?” the guy asked.

“Yeah, Bob,” answered the technical director.

“Then I’ll link you with NASA now.”

A rumble of excitement went through. We were talking with NASA, one of the most advanced things in the whole United States.

And then the video started.

It was a recording, the first part. Pieces of the solar system whizzed by, and finally, in a big logo, showed the four letters that I knew: NASA.

Immediately everything changed. We were now looking at a room of some sort. A man was standing there.

“Welcome to the NASA learning system!”

And from there, he began to talk about things. Gravity, space, how astronauts fall, how rockets work, and many many things. My favorite part was when he began to talk about the planets.

“This is Mercury,” the man said. Everything behind him turned black. We were now looking at him, and behind him was dark. A Mercury was floating in midair.

Of course everyone was awed. He had been quite amazing.

Finally, one hour later, with zero technical difficulties, it ended. Everyone clapped, even though we were aware he could not hear. Everything on the screen faded away as the last words NASA flashed, and then disappeared.

“You think we’ll be able to talk with NASA again?”

The teacher didn’t look at me. “Maybe.”

I grinned.