Unit 9: Space & Art

This week's topic adjourned the similarities between space and art. This is a topic that is particularly interesting to me and relates a lot to my major, astrophysics.


A captivating photo by the Hubble Deep Space
 telescope of countless galaxies beyond our own.

Laika, the dog who travelled in space.
In the lecture videos, Victoria Vesna speaks about space exploration and the history of how space age development began, mainly after WWII. Political tensions between the US and the Soviet Union were high. The "Space Race" began, which had American and Russian engineers challenge and race each other to see who could dominate the field of space exploration. During this era, Russian and American aerospace technology was constantly reinvented and sent to space, to assert dominance over the other country. This was something that had never been done before, so nobody really knew what to expect.


Vesna also lectured on the large roles that animals played in space exploration. I learned about the very first living creature to be in orbit around the earth, a dog named Laika. This was something I was unaware of before I watched the lecture videos, so I was surprised to find out that a dog has been in space before even humans have been.



The "Powers of Ten" video made me aware of the scales of the universe. Most of the scales are mind-boggling to think of, whether it be because of such immensely large spaces or infinitesimally tiny spaces. It is impossible for me to visualize most of these scales. It takes a massive amount of abstract thinking to be able to even think about these sizes.





Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon on July 16, 1969.
Space exploration borrows concepts from many other fields of science, such as mathematics, physics, robotics and nanotechnology, to name a few. Combining ideas from these fields as well as new creative and artistic ideas, humans were able to begin to explore space. Space and space exploration inspire many of the ideas of science fiction. It is fascinating to think how one day, nobody thought it would be possible for humans to go to space, and now we have people who have landed on the moon. Perhaps in the future





Sources

“Powers of Ten™ (1977).” YouTube, 26 Aug. 2010, youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0.

“Universe Size Comparison 3D.” YouTube, 10 Nov. 2017, youtu.be/i93Z7zljQ7I.

Vesna, Victoria. “8 Space pt1 1280x720.” YouTube, 29 July 2013, youtu.be/6ZIqTR332l8.

Vesna, Victoria. “8 Space pt2 1280x720.” YouTube, 29 July 2013, youtu.be/hLZMDpoP-u0.

Vesna, Victoria. “8 Space pt3 1280x720.” YouTube, 29 July 2013, youtu.be/4WOqt_C55Mk.

Vesna, Victoria. “Space pt4.” YouTube, 30 May 2012, youtu.be/J5ClKO6AJPo.

Vesna, Victoria. “Space pt5.” YouTube, 30 May 2012, youtu.be/WnSUHMXBmdg.




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