WELCOME TO CARDIFF SIXTH FORM COLLEGE

On 30^th October 2011, we had a very special guest speaker, Dr Jack Bacon, from the Johnson Space Center. He was definitely not what you would expect a rocket scientist to be; he came in like an excited child eager to tell us about what he loved the most, space. Before the lecture he kindly went around the room and answered any questions our curious pupils had. From his answers we could see that he was someone who really knew his stuff.

He started off his lecture enthusiastically, trying to get the audience, us, to think with him. And it worked. Dr Bacon showed us that it didn’t all just start from NASA. He argues that much had happened before; that centuries ago people were already looking at the stars and the movement of the Sun, and wondering what was there beyond the world we know. This he illustrated with a picture of Stonehenge, an archaic structure made centuries ago by our ancestors to discover the ways the sun moved.

After this interesting warm up to the world of space science he went on to the real thing, NASA. It was astonishing to hear that his own grandparents had been part of the group who actually founded NASA, formerly known as NACA. And that the dream of learning about space had carried on through two generations. Dr Bacon then brought in the ISS, which we’ve all probably heard of. The International Space Station. He explained to us how big a thing building a permanent space station actually is and all the difficulties, mainly the cost, concerned with it. Did you know that the total cost of the ISS comes to 160 billion US dollars? That indeed is a lot of money. But Dr Bacon made it all seem worth it. ‘’Gravity,’’ he said. ‘’Gravity was what made the difference.’’ We’ve never thought about gravity in such a way, for us it’s just something we’re used to, that we don’t even think about. For Dr Bacon it’s the whole ground behind his science. Everything, and he means everything is influenced by gravity. And that is why the ISS is so special. It has a microgravity environment, which has many advantages to our life on Earth. The biggest one concerning pharmaceuticals. It has long been known that protein crystals act differently in a microgravity environment but now with 6 permanent members on the ISS we can actually conduct experiments. Who knows, the cure for cancer might not even be found on Earth.

Dr Bacon then told us about the ‘’fun’’ things that take place in NASA, like the ‘’Vomit Comet’’. You might guess from the name that it is as funny as it is disgusting. The ‘’Vomit Comet’’ is a fixed-wing aircraft that briefly provides a nearly weightless environment to train astronauts. As you can guess, the first few times you take part are fun, even exciting. But after the so, 10th time, there’s not so much fun as there is nausea. 

A great thing about Dr Bacon was he wanted to be on the same level with us, make us relate to him. He told us a story of how when he was 14 his dream was to be the first person to put an electric propulsion engine on a spacecraft. We’re all familiar with those dreams, the dreams we have as children and the dreams that during the harsh course of growing up we gradually forget and let go of. Dr Bacon didn’t. His dream during that time was one of the science fiction movies, one completely utopic, one that no one would have believed he would make happen. But he did. After 28 years of attempts and mistakes and failures he finally did it. Hearing someone talk about their dream with such passion and commitment really made us think. Think about how we believe that we’ve given our all after a few tries, how we give up on our dreams so easily, how we don’t even work on our dreams, really work like Dr Bacon did. And it’s not only his own dream Dr Bacon is working on. He’s part of a project bringing water to children in Rwanda, by using a new technology water distillator. There are over 500 schools in Rwanda that now have clean drinking water for their students and this is all thanks to people like Dr Bacon who are using their talent to help others.

Dr Bacon’s speech left a strong impression on all of our minds. Of course it was interesting to hear about NASA and the ways it worked but I think more importantly it was great to see a person who really loved his job. A person who talked about what they did in such way that it made every person in the room, even the people who had never thought of a career in space science, want to do his job. We learned from Dr Bacon to never give up on your dreams, because hard work and passion is all you need to make them true.

Written by Karima Gadalla