Learning About Space

By Johnathan Brackett, NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador

As a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, I have numerous opportunities to share exciting news about NASA missions and programs with my community. One of my favorite things is presenting at local school STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Nights. Most children believe NASA is only about astronauts and rocket ships. My position allows me to educate about the numerous ways NASA uses STEM subjects, such as robotics and coding, when creating a mission and to ensure children of all backgrounds have access to STEM resources.

The OSIRIS-REx mission is an excellent example of how thousands of people contribute to the success of a mission. After a nearly five-year journey to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, a spacecraft will be bringing back samples of material from the asteroid’s rocky surface, offering scientists a peek into the formation of our solar system.

OSIRIS-REx, short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, was launched in September 2016 on a challenging mission – to study the asteroid Bennu. In December 2018, the spacecraft reached its destination, allowing over 4,000 researchers, including the author, to map Bennu’s rocky surface and select a smooth target sampling site named Nightingale.

The sample collection, which took place in October 2020, was a risky touch-and-go operation to gather material from Bennu’s surface. OSIRIS-REx used a robotic arm to release a burst of nitrogen gas, stirring up regolith (loose rocky material) collected in the sampler head. This mission marked the first time NASA successfully collected a sample from an asteroid, showcasing the agency’s technological capabilities.

After successfully stowing the samples, OSIRIS-REx began its long journey back to Earth. The spacecraft covered over 200 million

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One Man’s Opinion: The SEC and Me

By Bill Crane

Thankfully, as a nation, we still have sport and play and rivalries and school spirit, which reward and embrace us, giving us new experiences and memories atop layers of the old. I am biased and favor college football as a small handful of sports of choice, but in many ways, I can never get too much of our Southeastern Conference, particularly SEC Football. Mary L. Crane, my maternal grandmother, gifted my brother and me with childhood trips to see the then-expansion NFL franchise Atlanta Falcons play at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The stadium was designed for baseball; the baseball diamond spent most all of fall and winter as a muddy patch across the then-real grass football playing field. Though I would follow the Falcons and the NFL all the way out of high school, the NFL fell off the radar for me roughly 2-3 strikes ago.

College football is tribal, laden with traditions, legend, and unparalleled fandom and mascot antics. And our SEC has more than just the sunbelt, winning coaches, and the world’s most beautiful co-eds going for us to coax Missouri, Texas A&M, and now Oklahoma and Texas to leave their respective conferences for the greener pastures and greener TV contracts of the SEC. Georgia’s first National Championship win came in 1980 during my sophomore year at the University of Georgia. Road games are also part of this experience, making most every meeting of Georgia vs. Auburn, the South’s oldest college football rivalry since 1980, and attending a significant majority of the Georgia/ Florida games (The World’s Largest Cocktail Party) in Jacksonville, Florida as well. In the SEC East, I have not ventured into Kentucky’s stadium in Lexington, but I will get there. In the SEC West, I have not yet seen the Aggie’s home turf at Texas A&M, and though I’ve always enjoyed Little Rock, Arkansas, I’ve not yet made it over to Fayetteville. But I plan to be in Austin and the University of Texas for the Dawg’s first in-conference home game with the Longhorns. As of now, I don’t have Norman, Oklahoma on my bucket list.

But the winds of change are blowing as the Big 12 becomes 14 (with some new team back-filling) and our SEC balloons to 16. The SEC East and West divisions will soon cease to be. The four new teams would all geographically fall west of the Mississippi River, and the conference divisions would be imbalanced. The SEC Championship will remain on the first Saturday in December, but the match will no longer feature the champions of the East and West divisions. Fixed positions on rival team schedules are about to fade as cross-team contracts come up for renewal. For the 2024 season, only Georgia/Florida and Georgia/Georgia Tech, the latter being the home state championship and the Saturday after Thanksgiving, have fixed positions on the Dawgs season calendar.

You will hear of marriages ending in divorce, with a pair of SEC team tickets being among the most hotly contested joint marital assets. You may have the pleasure of meeting families with children, grandchildren, and occasionally even great-grandchildren running around with them at tailgates. Hotel rooms in almost every college football town in the SEC sell out, at incredibly inflated rates, requiring a minimum two-night stay nearly a full year in advance.

There is something about hearing your alma mater lilting through

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