A Young Girl’s Path to the Milky Way

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Bright Sky, Starry City © 2015 by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrations © 2015 by Aimée Sicuro. Reproduced with permission of Groundwood Books Limited (http://groundwoodbooks.com) In “Bright Sky, Starry City,” author Uma Krishnaswami delivers both poetic children's fiction and a textbook of sorts, complete with a glossary, recommended readings, and an illustrated afterword that explains the solar system, planetary conjunctions, planetary rings, moons, telescopes, and light pollution.

Bright Sky, Starry City © 2015 by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrations © 2015 by Aimée Sicuro. Reproduced with permission of Groundwood Books Limited (www.groundwoodbooks.com)
In “Bright Sky, Starry City,” author Uma Krishnaswami delivers both poetic children’s fiction and a textbook of sorts complete with a glossary, recommended readings, and an illustrated afterword that explains the solar system, planetary conjunctions, planetary rings, moons, telescopes, and light pollution.

 

In 2001, three scientists sounded an ominous warning about light pollution, writing that their research provided “a nearly global picture of how mankind is proceeding to envelop itself in a luminous fog.”

Pierantonio Cinzano, Fabio Falchi, and Chris Elvidge co-authored the journal article “The first World Atlas of the artificial night sky brightness” in which they calculated that two-thirds of the world’s population — more than 4 billion people — could no longer see dark, starry skies. And roughly 1.25 billion people had lost naked-eye visibility of the Milky Way.

The “loss of perception of the Universe where we live,” they wrote, “could have unintended impacts on the future of our society. … The night sky, which constitutes the panorama of the surrounding Universe, has always had a strong influence on human thought and culture, from philosophy to religion, from art to literature and science.”

Such poignant expression underscores the magnitude of what’s being lost as generations of children grow up having never seen the Milky Way or a sky brimming with stars.

Photo courtesy of Uma Krishnaswami In “Bright Sky, Starry City,” author Uma Krishnaswami builds a narrative bridge strong enough to support the delicate relationships between heaven and Earth.

Photo courtesy of Uma Krishnaswami
In “Bright Sky, Starry City,” author Uma Krishnaswami addresses avenues of accessibility, including a young girl’s path to dark night skies and the magnificent Milky Way.

But onto this nightscape of offending artificial light steps a young astronomer named Phoebe, the fictional star of the children’s book “Bright Sky, Starry City” in which author Uma Krishnaswami builds a narrative bridge strong enough to support the delicate relationships between heaven and Earth.

“Bright Sky, Starry City” (May 2015, Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press) is, in simplest terms, the story of a girl’s love affair with the solar system. But at a deeper level, the story addresses avenues of accessibility: a daughter’s special relationship with her father; people’s ability to see the stars when the glare of urban light pollution is removed; and the strides that female scientists continue to make within the realm of male-dominated astronomy.

The story’s moral is this: The window to the universe is open to all, including a girl named Phoebe for one of Saturn’s moons.

The narrative begins with Phoebe helping her dad set up telescopes on the sidewalk outside his Night Sky store. In hopes of seeing Saturn and Mars together in the sky that night, Phoebe draws the solar system in chalk on the sidewalk, singing the planets’ names as she works: “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.”

Then comes an illustrative clue of connection. Beneath one small telescope, and next to a box of chalks, sits a stack of books. The book at the bottom of the stack bears an author’s name, BENDICK, with the capital letter “B” partially obscured and only a few letters of the book’s title showing.

Adding to this book’s mystery is its serendipitous path into Krishnaswami’s story. As Krishnaswami explained to me in a recent phone interview, she discovered the work of acclaimed author Jeanne Bendick while conducting research for “Bright Sky, Starry City.” Bendick, who died in 2014 at the age of 95, wrote and/or illustrated more than 100 children’s books with a primary focus on science and technology.

As a trailblazing woman in the science-writing world, Bendick championed futuristic concepts and presented complex ideas in ways that children could easily understand. “I was so surprised and so astonished that I hadn’t come across her work before,” Krishnaswami told me. “It was lovely. She was such a groundbreaker.”

The University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library has a copy of Jeanne Bendick’s “The First Book of Space Travel.” The book was originally published in 1953 and reprinted in 1960 and 1963.

The University of Texas’ Perry-Castañeda Library has a copy of “The First Book of Space Travel.”

But Krishnaswami did not mention Bendick in editing notes to her publisher. Nor did she tell first-time book illustrator Aimée Sicuro anything about Bendick’s books.

Amazingly, the appearance of Bendick’s “The First Book of Space Travel” in “Bright Sky, Starry City” is a coincidence. Sicuro discovered Bendick on her own, placing “The First Book of Space Travel” (originally published in 1953 and reprinted in 1960 and 1963) at the bottom of the illustrative literary stack.

Sicuro’s addition was “truly magical,” Krishnaswami said. “Somehow I had conveyed this notion about girls and stars, and it was absolutely the step I wanted her to go.”

Krishnaswami, who lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, has written more than 20 highly acclaimed children’s books, including picture books, middle-grade novels, and retellings of classic tales and myths. But “Bright Sky, Starry City” is her first book about astronomy and how light pollution disconnects us from dark night skies.

The idea for the book came to Krishnaswami when she lived in a remote area of New Mexico about a three-hour drive from Albuquerque. In the late 1990s, night skies there were clear and dark, not threatened by a few lights from residential areas. But over the next few years, Krishnaswami watched the horizon go electric bright from an influx of commercial lighting.

Krishnaswami started thinking about what happens when the lights go out — when something dramatic happens, such as in January 1994 when an earthquake knocked out electrical power in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, casting the region into darkness.

According to various newspaper reports, already terrified people were further frightened by what they witnessed in the California night sky. Emergency centers and the Griffith Observatory received calls from people describing a “giant, silvery cloud” — the Milky Way, our vast galaxy composed of billions of stars.

Krishnaswami weaves a similar narrative in “Bright Sky, Starry City” with one huge exception: In this fictional city, no one is afraid of the dark or the night sky when the lights go out during a thunderstorm.

Bright Sky, Starry City © 2015 by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrations © 2015 by Aimée Sicuro. Reproduced with permission of Groundwood Books Limited (www.groundwoodbooks.com)

Bright Sky, Starry City © 2015 by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrations © 2015 by Aimée Sicuro. Reproduced with permission of Groundwood Books Limited (www.groundwoodbooks.com)

 

The plot takes shape as naturally as the Milky Way’s arc, set in motion by Krishnaswami’s poetic touch and Sicuro’s illustrations that retain the fluid softness of Phoebe’s sidewalk chalk drawings throughout the book.

As Phoebe draws, she worries she won’t be able to see Saturn and Mars up in the sky later that night. In a juxtaposed foreshadowing of what’s to come, the words of the first reference to urban light pollution are laid on a green-chalked section of Phoebe’s sidewalk solar system:

“Dad knew where to look, but city lights always turned the night sky gray and dull.”

Phoebe keeps drawing and dreaming, her childlike perspective illustrated by adults visible only from the chest down as they hurry past the kneeling girl whose high-top sneakers are adorned with Saturn and its rings.

The wind picks up as night falls. If they were in the country, Dad tells Phoebe, they could see Saturn and Mars in the western sky. Phoebe closes her eyes, Krishnaswami writes, wishing for all the city lights sending pale fingers up into the sky to disappear.

Bright Sky, Starry City © 2015 by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrations © 2015 by Aimée Sicuro. Reproduced with permission of Groundwood Books Limited (www.groundwoodbooks.com)

Bright Sky, Starry City © 2015 by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrations © 2015 by Aimée Sicuro. Reproduced with permission of Groundwood Books Limited (www.groundwoodbooks.com)

 

Phoebe’s wish comes true. Lightning cracks and thunder booms. Her chalk-drawn solar system is washed away by rain. And suddenly, there’s darkness. Electrical power is out.

Phoebe and her dad, who had taken shelter inside the store, go back outside. Above the newly washed city, Krishnaswami writes, Phoebe sees stars in the hundreds, some in constellations she knows only from pictures. And there, right where they should be, are Saturn and Mars close to each other in the western sky.

People crowd in the street outside the Night Sky store, talking, pointing, laughing, and looking, together under the stars.

Phoebe squints through a telescope, taking in Saturn’s rings and imagining the small, rocky moon for which she’s named. Then, she sees something new — a pale, gauzy, whitish band low in the eastern sky. “What’s that cloud?” Phoebe asks. “The Milky Way,” Dad replies. “That’s part of our galaxy you’re looking at.”

This excerpt from the story’s last page could stand alone as a night-sky poem:

“Phoebe breathed in the night, with all its stars and planets. … Soon the lights would come back on, and everyone would hurry off. But for a brief time, above the dark city, there was the bright night sky. The bright night sky, with the stars in their constellations and the planets wheeling in their orbits.”

Such elegant writing evokes Krishnaswami’s childhood. Born in New Dehli, India, she grew up as an only child whose closest companions were books.

Her father’s civil job for the Indian Army, which consisted of helping manage real estate and supplies for military installations called defense lands cantonments, required the family to move every four years.

In our phone conversation, Krishnaswami described herself as a loner, a girl who couldn’t count on having new friends in new places. So she turned to books, devouring a plethora of literary works, including A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh adventures, Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, and Beatrix Potter’s animal fables.

When her family lived on India’s West Coast, Krishnaswami hid away in the branches of a banyan tree, racing through the pages of English author Enid Blyton’s mysteries.

A young writer was in development: At the age of 13, Krishnaswami’s first poem was published in “Children’s World,” a magazine in India.

Now 59, Krishnaswami balances a busy writing life. She teaches in the low-residency MFA program Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier and is working on two new children’s books, including a middle-grade historical novel.

Krishnaswami has been writing her whole life. As a girl, she loved her father’s Remington Rand manual typewriter that he used for typing envelopes and she used as a toy, typing her name with the double black and red ribbon.

That relationship with words and machine continued during Krishnaswami’s early years as an author. As she tapped out stories on a computer, her young son Nikhil stood at her shoulder, yelling “Read it!” when she typed a period at the end of a sentence.

I asked Krishnaswami: Does Phoebe’s character resemble your childhood? Yes and no, Krishnaswami answered, explaining that while she wasn’t yet connected to the sky or the stars, she spent a lot of time in trees examining things close up. “Nothing could draw me away,” she said. “When I looked at something, I got super focused.”

Phoebe, as role model, displays that same focus as a budding scientist: a young and passionate astronomer showing other girls how they, too, can connect with the night sky.

Bright Sky, Starry City © 2015 by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrations © 2015 by Aimée Sicuro. Reproduced with permission of Groundwood Books Limited (http://groundwoodbooks.com) In “Bright Sky, Starry City,” author Uma Krishnaswami delivers both poetic children's fiction and a textbook of sorts, complete with a glossary, recommended readings, and an illustrated afterword that explains the solar system, planetary conjunctions, planetary rings, moons, telescopes, and light pollution.

Bright Sky, Starry City © 2015 by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrations © 2015 by Aimée Sicuro. Reproduced with permission of Groundwood Books Limited (http://groundwoodbooks.com)

Krishnaswami shares one other characteristic with Phoebe: As a girl, Krishnaswami also loved artful storytelling in the vein she learned from her mother, an instinctive narrator whose stories grew and morphed with each new telling. Krishnaswami told stories often to the adults who indulged her, and she staged plays for the kids in her neighborhood.

One of Krishnaswami’s earliest memories is of drawing on the wall with a green crayon, spinning a tale whose plot is long gone.

Fittingly, Phoebe appears on the cover of “Bright Sky, Starry City” where she has just drawn the book title in yellow chalk, a smudged star serving as the comma. The message is clear: The heavens are available for all, including a tenacious young girl whose vision of the universe comes into full, magical view.

Photo credit: Ethan Tweedie Photography With the Milky Way clearly visible in a dark night sky over McDonald Observatory, a program leader points to constellations from the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center's outdoor amphitheater.

Photo credit: Ethan Tweedie Photography
With the Milky Way clearly visible in a dark West Texas sky, a program leader points to constellations from the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center’s amphitheater at McDonald Observatory. Phoebe, the fictional star of the children’s book “Bright Sky, Starry City,” enjoys a similar view when city lights go out during a thunderstorm.

Dancing, Drumming, and More Recess

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There's great depth to the dance of Body Shift, and there's great fun — an infectious playfulness that inspires confidence. From back left, clockwise, Ashley Card, Silva Laukkanen, Susie Angel, Peggy Lamb (holding crutch), Tanya Winters (sitting in front of Angel on wheelchair), Donna Woods (on ground), and Juan Muñoz celebrate their work in ECHO, a performance piece delivered as part of the Sept. 27 Community Art Sunday at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin.

There’s great depth to the dance of Body Shift, and there’s great fun — an infectious playfulness that inspires confidence. From back left, clockwise, Ashley Card, Silva Laukkanen, Susie Angel, Peggy Lamb (holding crutch), Tanya Winters (rising from wheelchair), Donna Woods, and Juan Muñoz celebrate their work in ECHO, performed as part of the Sept. 27 Community Art Sunday at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin.

Recently, after watching children and adults lose their inhibitions during a Community Art Sunday at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin, it occurred to me that I don’t have enough dancing, drumming, hula hooping, gleeful chasing, and chalk-drawing on sidewalks in my life.

It’s been a long time since I played tag at recess. And that’s not good.

I went to the Center for Creative Action on Sept. 27 to watch a mid-afternoon performance from Body Shift, a collaborative, mixed-ability dance project of Forklift Danceworks and VSA Texas. But I arrived early enough to first check out some of the other Community Art Sunday events on tap, primarily creative activities and games for children.

Drum faster! With palms raised, and eyes trained on African drum circle leader Tonya Lyles, 5-year-old Alexander Strong controls the tempo of one particularly upbeat number during the Sept. 27 Community Art Sunday at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin.

With hands raised in conductor-like fashion, and eyes and ears trained on African drum circle leader Tonya Lyles, 5-year-old Alexander Strong controls the tempo of one particularly upbeat number during the Sept. 27 Community Art Sunday at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin.

I was most drawn to an African hand-drumming circle led by Austinite Tonya Lyles. I’ve taken a couple of beginning African drumming classes from Sherry Gingras, who teaches at her Austin Drumz store, and my ears picked up the familiar language of gun and dun (pronounced “goon” and “doon”) from Lyles as she explained the basics of these bass beats to excited children and their parents.

The energy was contagious. My heart thumped hard, in rhythm with Lyles’ words and resounding beats. A thought hit me equally hard: I’m not happy when I’m not in motion. But I’m not talking about the motion of hurriedness. The motion of running errands, for example, and stressing out in traffic, or pacing around the house and flipping through TV channels because I’ve got too much on my mind to sit still.

Six-year-old Jeriah Hill plays a bass drum with confidence as she follows the lead of African drum circle leader Tonya Lyles during the Sept. 27 Community Art Center at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin.

Six-year-old Jeriah Hill plays a bass drum like a pro as she follows the lead of African drum circle leader Tonya Lyles during the Sept. 27 Community Art Center at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin.

I’m talking about the kind of motion I saw, felt, and heard from the toddlers and older children in the drum circle who couldn’t keep their hands, and drum sticks, off the drums placed before them. I’m talking about a joyful, internal motion that manifests physically. As Lyles taught the group rhythms and songs, there was no hesitation from any child, no apparent doubt about whether it was OK to participate, no question of doing it right or wrong.

There was just doing. There was just drumming, wild and fast from the children in the circle, little hands pounding on African drums.

As a kid, I thought drumming was the coolest thing ever. I recall the first time I held drumsticks in my hands, in the mid-1970s. I don’t remember how old I was, maybe 11 or 12, and I don’t remember where I was. Maybe at a friend’s or relative’s house. But somehow, I found myself in front of a drum kit. I timidly tapped out a simplistic rhythm. Drumming was a lot harder than it looked, and my future career with the rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive definitely seemed in jeopardy.

But just touching the snare drum head with my fingers set my heart on fire. This was the kind of motion I craved.

Then there was recess at the little country school I attended on the South Plains of Texas near Lubbock. I lived for recess and the chance, several times a day, to play red rover and baseball and football and tetherball and a gazillion other games my elementary schoolmates and I invented.

My cousin Cynthia and I made up a recess game in which we sat on one end of a wooden seesaw and asked the boys to tie us to the seesaw with their belts. Then (at a certain age now, with aching joints, it’s beyond me how I ever considered this fun), the rodeo was on: The boys repeatedly banged the other end of the seesaw into the gravelly ground, trying to buck us off. And sometimes they did.

So. For the purposes of this blog post, and the safety of children on playgrounds everywhere, I’m not talking about the pursuit of this kind of haphazard motion. But I am talking about the kind of motion that involves spontaneous chases and merry-go-rounds and swing sets and slides, and seesaws, used properly, with a person on each end.

I’m talking about the kind of motion that involves dreaming. On cold, blustery days, of which there are plenty in the Texas Panhandle, my elementary classmates and I took full advantage of the wind. When gusts were blowing 40 mph or higher, we would throw on our coats, take off running across the huge playground, and thrust our jacketed arms above our heads like sails, believing we could fly. I swear, sometimes my feet left the ground.

That’s my kind of motion.

We played and danced, as only elementary school children can, with abandon, and to the music in our heads. But somewhere along the way this freedom of movement stopped, probably right around the first junior high dance where everybody stood against the gym wall, not quite sure how to dance to ZZ Top.

All of which brings me back to Body Shift, the mixed-ability dance project that includes improvisation classes, performance workshops, and choreography labs. The more I talk about Body Shift, and the involvement of my partner, Donna, the more I realize how many Austinites either haven’t heard of Body Shift and/or don’t understand it.

Some people seem uncomfortable talking about mixed-ability dance, which brings together people of all abilities and disabilities. There’s nothing charitable about Body Shift dancing, as in the misguided notion from some that able-bodied dancers are sacrificing their time out of kindness to be a part of this program.

One crutch, two walking sticks, and three Body Shift dancers — from right, clockwise, Silva Laukkanen, Donna Woods, and Peggy Lamb — equals tremendous motion during the Sept. 27 ECHO performance.

One crutch, two walking sticks, and three Body Shift dancers — from right, clockwise, Silva Laukkanen, Donna Woods, and Peggy Lamb — equals tremendous motion during the Sept. 27 ECHO performance.

My observation is this: Body Shift attracts people of all abilities who want to move with integrity, with an honesty of how one’s body works in any given moment and setting. Some people come to Body Shift with extensive dance experience, others come with none. But together, the participants generate tremendous motion, whether they’re dancing solo, in a duet, or in a group. At other times, the dancers generate motion by starting from stillness, then gradually moving a toe or a finger or a leg or an arm or blinking an eyelid, and then returning to stillness.

Body Shift is not fast motion for the sake of fast, or slow motion for the sake of slow. It’s simply motion, at any speed, played out on a landscape of inclusivity for every body. There’s great depth to this dance, and there’s great fun — an infectious playfulness that inspires confidence.

VSA Texas and Forklift Danceworks offer classes for all ages and levels, including Body Shift’s monthly mixed-ability Elements of Dance classes (details at www.bodyshift.org) and the Leaps & Bounds program (details at http://forkliftdanceworks.org/leaps-bounds) that partners with Austin schools to bring creative movement to classrooms.

If you want to get moving, these are great places to start.

Some children, suddenly inspired and curious, couldn't help but wander into the dance space of Body Shift’s Sept. 27 ECHO performance. From back right, counterclockwise, Peggy Lamb and Ashley Card (with arms raised), Tanya Winters, Susie Angel (obscured, in wheelchair), and Juan Muñoz perform.

Some children, pulled by curiosity, couldn’t help but wander into the dance space of Body Shift’s Sept. 27 ECHO performance at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin. From back, right to left, Peggy Lamb and Ashley Card (with arms raised), Tanya Winters, Susie Angel (obscured, in wheelchair), and Juan Muñoz perform.

Driving With Clouds: Texas Capitol

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October 6, 2015: Twenty-nine years after she was lowered into place, this Goddess of Liberty replica still watches over Austin from her perch atop the Texas Capitol dome.

October 6, 2015: Twenty-nine years after she was lowered into place by military helicopter, this Goddess of Liberty statue replica still watches over Austin from her perch atop the Texas Capitol dome.

The Goddess of Liberty statue replica atop the Texas Capitol dome in Austin was gently lowered into place on June 14, 1986, by a Mississippi National Guard helicopter. Two weeks earlier, as described by the Austin American-Statesman, Texas Army National Guard crews tried for two days to secure the statue with the use of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter.

But as the Statesman and other newspapers reported, including the New York Times, the Texas Army National Guard’s efforts were thwarted by gusting winds and the helicopter pilot’s inability to see below the aircraft in attempts to place the statue over a steel pole attached to the top of the dome. As detailed by the New York Times, the Mississippi National Guard came to the rescue with a Sikorsky CH54 Skycrane helicopter that offered better visibility for the pilot and a suspended line that could be raised or lowered, as opposed to a fixed line.

The replica replaced the original Goddess of Liberty statue, which was erected in 1888 and was showing damage and deterioration due to exposure to heat, rain, and wind. Under the oversight of The State Preservation Board, the original statue was removed by helicopter from the Texas Capitol dome in November 1985.

According to historical records from the Office of the Architect of the Capitol, the deterioration of the Goddess of Liberty was first noticed in 1983 when workers painting the statue’s pedestal noticed extensive cracks along the backs of her arms, hand, and sword.

The original and refurbished Goddess of Liberty is on display at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin (www.thestoryoftexas.com). Originally cast of galvanized iron and zinc and coated with paint and sand to simulate stone, she stands almost 16 feet tall and weighs about 2,000 pounds.

The Goddess of Liberty replica is corrosion-resistant and made of an aluminum alloy. Like the original, she holds a sword and a gilded star.

October 8, 2015: The Goddess of Liberty replica atop the Texas Capitol holds her gilded star high against a bank of soft clouds.

October 8, 2015: The Goddess of Liberty statue replica atop the Texas Capitol dome holds her gilded star against a blue-gray overcast sky.

Body Shift Dance: The Body Beautiful

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From left, clockwise, Body Shift dancers Juan Munoz, choreographer Silva Laukkanen, Peggy Lamb (holding crutch), Tanya Winters, and Susie Angel (in wheelchair behind Winters) create an image during the Aug. 22, 2015, ECHO performance at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx in East Austin.

From left, clockwise, Body Shift dancers Juan Munoz, choreographer Silva Laukkanen, Peggy Lamb (holding crutch), Tanya Winters, and Susie Angel (in wheelchair behind Winters) execute a move called “creating an image” during the Sept. 27, 2015, ECHO performance as a part of Community Art Sunday at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin. The foot near the bottom center of the photo belongs to Donna Woods, a Body Shift dancer who lay on the ground to help complete the image.

For the past two years, thanks to the involvement of my partner Donna Woods, I’ve been documenting something called Body Shift: an Austin, Texas-based mixed-ability dance project that offers classes, workshops, and performances.

Donna is an able-bodied dancer. She practices and performs with able-bodied dancers and dancers with disabilities. But the people with whom Donna interacts in Body Shift are not so neatly categorized. The differences between “able” and “dis” — between tight-turning wheelchairs and bare feet pivoting on a wooden floor or shoes pounding on pavement; between experienced dancer and inexperienced dancer, regardless of the physical body in which one lives — vanish in the improvisational power of motion and connection.

Body Shift dancer Shaniqua Ezparza, foreground, and Tanya Winters perform during the April 2014 Crippin’ the Streets performance that ended in front of Austin's City Hall.

Body Shift dancer Shaniqua Esparza, foreground, and Tanya Winters perform during the April 2014 Crippin’ the Streets performance in downtown Austin.

Dance is defined, not redefined, within the fluidity of space. The dance of Body Shift features people of all abilities dancing with each other, with a constant awareness of each other’s movements. But that awareness is not based on a said notion of what movement is or should be. No one holds a patent on movement.

That idea mirrors the missions of Forklift Danceworks and VSA Texas, two Austin-based organizations that began working together in 2003 to create ways for people of all abilities to dance together (read about the genesis of Body Shift at www.bodyshift.org/history.html). In 2010, Forklift Danceworks and VSA Texas co-launched Body Shift, now considered the nation’s only-such ongoing program.

Forklift Danceworks, founded in 2001 by Artistic Director Allison Orr, creates community dance projects in which the members of everyday society — linemen, sanitation truck drivers and trash collectors, urban foresters — star as the primary performers in exquisitely choreographed events held at outdoors venues.

VSA Texas, a nonprofit organization under the guidance of Executive Director Celia Hughes, operates along similar lines. It offers cultural, professional, educational, and public awareness arts services and programs for diverse communities of people with and without disabilities. To uphold its motto “that every person has a voice that deserves to be heard,” VSA Texas partners with volunteers, community organizations, educators, and state and local governments to build inclusive and nurturing communities.

Body Shift is an extension of that philosophy: Every person, every body, is capable of dancing and connecting through motion. Every body, regardless of ability or disability, is beautiful in the motion of dance.

The first Body Shift performance I watched in its entirety was held on October 20, 2013, on the Lady Bird Lake pedestrian bridge in Central Austin. The Bridging the Gap dance piece choreographed by Silva Laukkanen, only the third performance workshop presented by Body Shift, unfolded in the middle of the bridge amid a steady stream of runners, cyclists, people walking dogs, and folks out for a Sunday stroll.

Photo by Carol Moczygemba From left: Silva Laukkanen, Juan Munoz, Melissa Grogan, Shaniqua Ezparza (crouching, orange hat), Elvira Junuzovic, and Marnie Paul create a sculpture during Body Shift's October 2013 Bridging the Gap performance on the Lady Bird Lake pedestrian bridge in Central Austin.

Photo by Carol Moczygemba
From left: Lucy Kerr, Juan Munoz, Melissa Grogan, Shaniqua Esparza (crouching, orange hat), Elvira Junuzovic, and Marnie Paul create a sculpture during Body Shift’s October 2013 Bridging the Gap performance on the Lady Bird Lake pedestrian bridge in Central Austin.

Some people stopped to briefly watch the performance before moving on. Others stopped and stayed, pulling out camera phones to record the event. Some individuals, to my amazement, plowed past the growing crowd with eyes focused straight ahead, seemingly unaware that a unique dance performance was taking place.

Through it all, the Body Shift dancers moved back and forth across the bridge, in wheelchairs, on crutches, and on foot, always leaving wide-open spaces for the public’s passage.

Late in the performance, a man jogging while pushing a stroller abruptly stopped at the performance’s edge, forcing the cyclist behind him to stop as well. “Do you know what this is, what’s going on here?” the man asked loudly, addressing no one in particular, and never removing his ear buds. After getting no response, and then seeing a clear path forward, he resumed jogging.

The incident brought a brief halt, maybe three or four seconds, to a circular train of Body Shift dancers weaving in and out of onlookers at mid-bridge, much to the crowd’s delight. As the man jogged away, performer Melissa Grogan was next in line to cross the bridge. But before doing so, she approached the cyclist who remained stopped, silently motioning his way forward with a gracious flourish of her arm.

Understanding laughter rippled among observers. The jogger pushing the stroller had seen a barrier where there was none.

Since that day, I’ve replayed that scene over and over in my mind. The man’s irritation unwittingly added depth to the performance and seemed to unite the small group of onlookers standing closest to the dancers. As he moved on, I sensed a rising level of compassion and curiosity from those witnessing their first Body Shift performance.

Since that October afternoon on the bridge, I have attended four Body Shift performances and watched snippets of workshops and rehearsals. In the process, my concepts of dance largely centered on individual performance have been altered.

Tanya Winters, left, and Laura Burns incorporated the use of walking sticks, or crutches, and an oxygen tank into their Body Shift Choreography Lab duet on Aug. 22, 2015.

Tanya Winters, left, and Laura Burns incorporated the everyday use of walking sticks, or crutches, and an oxygen tank into their Body Shift Choreography Lab duet on Aug. 22, 2015.

Body Shift’s central philosophy is this: We all move in interesting and compelling ways. As described on Body Shift’s Facebook page, “The dance world can be extremely unfriendly to anyone who does not conform to the image of the young, tall, thin, and able-bodied dancer. This not only excludes anyone with a disability, but also leaves out older adults, people with larger bodies and even experienced dancers who have grown older or whose bodies have changed.” Mixed-ability dance, the description continues, acknowledges “that all of us move in unique and different ways. This uniqueness becomes an asset, not a problem or something that must be hidden or ignored, in a mixed-ability setting. Difference is exciting and ignites creativity.”

Body Shift dancers form intimate connections through shared space. They work in duets and groups of three or more, using each other’s bodies and everyday mobility equipment — from wheelchairs, to walking sticks, or crutches, to an oxygen tank — as creative essentials of dance.

On the move: Choreographer Silva Laukkanen (foreground) and Body Shift dancers Susie Angel (in wheelchair), Peggy Lamb, Juan Munoz, and Donna Woods (at left, front to back), Tanya Winters (head down, beside Angel) and Ashley Card (back right) build a statue during their ECHO performance on Sept. 27, 2015, at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin.

On the move: Choreographer Silva Laukkanen (foreground) and Body Shift dancers Susie Angel (in wheelchair), Peggy Lamb, Juan Munoz, and Donna Woods (at left, front to back), Tanya Winters (head down, beside Angel) and Ashley Card (back right) build a statue during their ECHO performance on Sept. 27, 2015, at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin.

Body Shift dancers lean on each other. They build body statues and sculptures. They take full advantage of a performance space’s architecture, sometimes even climbing on structures, as seen above, to accentuate a pose.

They engage in “flocking,” a way of moving together that resembles birds in flight. I thrilled at seeing flocking in motion during Body Shift’s May 2015 Ninetet performance at the Town Lake YMCA in Austin.

Dance instructor Julie Nathanielsz, who choreographed and performed in Ninetet, shared her fascinating relationship with flocking, and unison exercises, in a blog post she wrote at http://forkliftdanceworks.blogspot.com.

Flocking, Nathanielsz explained, was a concept she had initially rebelled against more than 20 years earlier during a workshop. “Unison felt too much of a representation of togetherness,” she wrote of that period. “I wanted the feeling, yet not the picture.”

But early in the process of preparing for Ninetet, Nathanielsz returned to the group exercises of flocking introduced by guest artist Nina Martin during a 2014 Body Shift workshop.

Body Shift dancers Peggy Lamb, Susie Angel, Tanya Winters, Juan Munoz, and Donna Woods (left to right, front row) and Silva Laukkanen and Kathey Ferland (beside window) perform during Ninetet in the light-splashed atrium of the Town Lake YMCA.

Body Shift dancers Peggy Lamb, Susie Angel, Tanya Winters, Juan Munoz, and Donna Woods (left to right, front row) and Silva Laukkanen and Kathey Ferland (closest to window) perform during Ninetet in the light-splashed atrium of the Town Lake YMCA in Austin.

“Underscored again was the metaphor, and also the singularity of this way of moving,” Nathanielsz wrote. “How much attention, how much relinquishment must we practice so that we are doing the same thing at the same time? So here we were, looking for the Flock. … It was tricky — whose chair had what turning radius? What distance was safe when dealing with bare feet and 600 pounds of power chair?

 “We kept working this latest iteration and used it at the start of the dance,” she continued. “What speed could we all share, determined by no one person in particular? How much effort or discomfort were we interested in dealing with? We were excited by what we saw and felt.”

Back row, from left: choreographer Silva Laukkanen, Peggy Lamb, Donna Woods, VSA Texas Executive Director Celia Hughes, Forklift Danceworks xxxxxx Krissie Marty, and Ashley Card. Front row, from left: Susie Angel, Tanya Winters, and Juan Munoz.

It’s smiles all around after Body Shift’s ECHO performance on Sept. 27, 2015, at the Center for Creative Action in East Austin. Back row, from left: choreographer Silva Laukkanen, Peggy Lamb, Donna Woods, VSA Texas Executive Director Celia Hughes, Forklift Danceworks Associate Choreographer and Director of Education Krissie Marty, and Ashley Card, a teaching artist with Forklift Danceworks. Front row, from left: Susie Angel, Tanya Winters, and Juan Munoz. 

As a photographer, I continue to learn that taking pictures of a Body Shift performance is more than zooming in on individual dancers. The dance of Body Shift moves within the group, from dancer to dancer, in seamless connections.

Tanya Winters, shown in the Body Shift group above, says something beautiful happens when able-bodied dancers and dancers with disabilities start working together. “You can’t filter it,” says Winters, who blogs about Body Shift at http://bschoreographylab.blogspot.com/2015/09. “It’s happening before it reaches to that stupid judgment filter we have.”

The dance of Body Shift “transforms the people doing it and the people watching it,” Winters says. “When I do it, I feel centered. I can’t imagine not having it in my life.”

Body Shift creates community in a variety of performance venues, including the streets of downtown Austin, as seen above. This April 2014 performance, called Crippin’ the Streets, kept Body Shift dancers and onlookers in close proximity.

Body Shift creates community via a variety of performance venues, including the streets of downtown Austin. This April 2014 Crippin’ the Streets performance kept Body Shift dancers and onlookers in close proximity.

Driving With Clouds

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Contrail cloud watermark

March 30, 2015: At dusk, while stopped at a traffic light just north of the Texas Capitol near downtown Austin, I peered through the windshield trying to figure out this cloud formation. Was it a jet contrail? Some kind of trippy clouds I’d never seen? For help, I recently turned to meteorologist Aaron Treadway of the Austin/San Antonio-based National Weather Service.

The formation does look like an aviation contrail, Treadway replied in an email. The clouds around the contrail, he explained, are a mix of altocumulus (puffy, mid-altitude clouds that resemble cotton candy) and altostratus (gray or bluish layers of striated or fibrous clouds in the mid layers). “It looks to me like the jet flew at the same altitude as this cloud layer,” Treadway wrote, “leaving behind the contrail and splitting the cloud deck, then over time the contrail spread out producing the smooth line down the middle.”

Driving With Clouds

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May 14, 2015: Moody South Austin clouds segueing into night.

May 14, 2015: Moody clouds segueing into a South Austin night.

I’m introducing a weekly feature: Driving With Clouds. Every Sunday, I will post one or more of my photos of clouds, taken in urban and rural settings, from the road, from the side of the road, from wherever I happen to be. Clouds change, from second to second, from season to season. They travel across the sky, sometimes like sets of ocean waves, sometimes like tiny boats.

September 24, 2015: Open road and dreamy, twilight sky on U.S. 290 between Fredericksburg and Austin in the Texas Hill Country.

September 24, 2015: Open road and dreamy, twilight sky on U.S. 290 between Fredericksburg and Austin in the Texas Hill Country.

Twilight Moon

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twilight moonI saw this moon yesterday evening on U.S. 290, driving home to Austin from Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country. I say this moon, like there’s more than one moon (for our planet). But I’d never been in this moment, in this space, and I’d never seen this moon and these shades of blue and gray in the sky, like a new box of crayons waiting to be opened. I’d never seen these clouds. I was tired. I wanted to get home before dark. But I stopped, got out, and took a few pictures. And then I wanted to see this moon in black and white.black and white moon

Ambassadors for the Journey to Mars

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Image courtesy of NASA’s Johnson Space Center The Orion spacecraft, which is being designed for potential travel to Mars, performed extremely well on its first flight to outer space. That Dec. 5, 2014, flight, called Exploration Flight Test 1, “was a smashing success,” says engineer Kelly Smith, an EFT1 flight controller who helped design the spacecraft’s guidance and navigation controls system. Next up for Orion is Exploration Mission 1, with a launch scheduled for late 2018.

Image courtesy of NASA’s Johnson Space Center
The Orion spacecraft, which is being designed for travel to Mars, performed extremely well on its first flight to outer space on Dec. 5, 2014. That flight, called Exploration Flight Test 1, “was a smashing success,” says engineer Kelly Smith, an EFT1 flight controller who helped design the spacecraft’s guidance and navigation controls system. Next up for Orion is Exploration Mission 1, around the moon and back, with a launch scheduled for late 2018.

When the National Geographic Society held its first meeting in March 1888, its president called himself a student of exploration. This place called Earth, Gardiner G. Hubbard said, conjured the image of an enormous globe suspended in space, one side in shadow, the other bathed in sunlight.

For the society, the late 19th century signaled a new era of organized research relating to the geography of land and sea, the geographical distribution of life, and the science of geographic art and mapmaking. “When we embark on the great ocean of discovery, the horizon of the unknown advances with us, and surrounds us wherever we go,” Hubbard told the group. “The more we know, the greater we find is our ignorance.”

But the ignorance of which Hubbard spoke evoked the humility of simply not yet knowing — not a lack of smartness or determination.

Image courtesy of NASA’s Johnson Space Center The first job for the Space Launch System — being designed as the most powerful rocket ever built — will be to launch the Orion spacecraft on a test flight to the moon. NASA engineers are working toward a late 2018 launch for what would be Orion’s second test flight to outer space. But Orion won’t land on the moon on the 2018 flight, called Exploration Mission 1. Rather, in what engineer Kelly Smith describes as “the final shakeout test for Orion,” the spacecraft will fly around the moon in retrograde, or a clockwise (and stable), orbit.

Image courtesy of NASA’s Johnson Space Center
The first job for the Space Launch System — being designed as the most powerful rocket ever built — will be to launch the Orion spacecraft on a test flight around the moon. NASA engineers are working toward a late 2018 launch for what would be Orion’s second test flight to outer space. But Orion won’t land on the moon on the 2018 flight, called Exploration Mission 1. Rather, in what engineer Kelly Smith describes as “the final shakeout test for Orion,” the spacecraft — with no humans aboard — will fly around the moon in retrograde, or a clockwise (and stable), orbit.

Image courtesy of NASA’s Johnson Space Center NASA engineer Kelly Smith describes the Orion spacecraft, shown here after Exploration Flight Test 1 splashdown, as looking like an “iron gumdrop.”

Image courtesy of NASA’s Johnson Space Center
NASA engineer Kelly Smith describes the Orion spacecraft, shown here after Exploration Flight Test 1 splashdown, as looking like an “iron gumdrop.”

On the largest scale imaginable, it is the same brand of intelligent resolve with which NASA scientists and engineers today are building the Space Launch System (which will be the world’s most powerful rocket) and the Orion spacecraft being designed and tested to someday carry a human crew to Mars millions of miles from planet Earth.

With all eyes on Mars, it’s the same kind of scientific spirit that’s driving the One-Year Mission aboard the International Space Station as scientists and physicians study the effects of long-duration spaceflight on humans.

And it’s the same zest for knowledge that last week brought a small group of science-based educators and journalists to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for a first-of-its-kind event: the #spacED education media workshop. I was thrilled and honored to be a part of this 12-member group that was chosen by application to participate in the Sept. 15-16 event.

The #spacED education media group was in good hands with International Space Station mockup tour guide Kenneth Ransom.

The #spacED group was in good hands with International Space Station mockup tour guide Kenneth Ransom.

We toured Johnson facilities, ducking our heads to fit through passageways on an International Space Station mockup. We peeked inside an Orion capsule mockup and took turns sitting in the side-by-side front seats on a Space Exploration Vehicle. Some of us (I watched, and learned) operated space station and Orion docking simulators, the latter complete with spine-tingling sound effects.

The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at Johnson Space Center includes submerged mockups of the International Space Station for astronaut training.

The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, located at the Sonny Carter Training Facility as a part of Johnson Space Center’s operations, includes submerged mockups of the International Space Station for astronaut training.

 

We visited the Apollo Flight Control Room, preserved and designated as a national historical landmark, and the historic White Flight Control Room now being used to support NASA’s Orion spacecraft. We toured the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (above) where astronauts train for the microgravity conditions of spaceflight in a 40-foot-deep pool that holds 6.2 million gallons of water.

On day one, Tuesday, Sept. 15, we were swept up in the festivities surrounding two momentous occasions: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko marked the midway point of their One-Year Mission aboard the space station; and Mackenzie Davis and Sebastian Stan, cast members in “The Martian,” starred in their own media day at Johnson Space Center, with TV crews and photographers following the actors’ every move.

The #spacED group was present for almost every moment involving Davis and Stan. Activities included two panel discussions led by Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa and the day’s most significant event: the actors’ live downlink conversation with Kelly and fellow NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren that took place in Johnson Space Center’s International Space Station Flight Control Room.

Tuesday, Sept. 15 was a special day for NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (left in second screen from left), who marked the halfway point of his historic one-year stay on the International Space Station. Adding to the festivities in Johnson Space Center’s International Space Station Flight Control Room was the presence (from left, far-left screen) of JSC Director Ellen Ochoa, “The Martian” movie actors Sebastian Stan and MacKenzie Davis, and family members on hand to say hello to Kelly and fellow astronaut Kjell Lindgren. Stan and Davis asked the astronauts questions in a live downlink conversation.

Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015, was a special day for NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (left in second screen from left), who marked the halfway point of his historic one-year stay on the International Space Station. Adding to the festivities in Johnson Space Center’s International Space Station Flight Control Room was the presence (from left, far-left screen) of JSC Director Ellen Ochoa, “The Martian” movie actors Sebastian Stan and Mackenzie Davis, and family members on hand to say hello to Kelly and fellow astronaut Kjell Lindgren.

From left, astronaut Michael Hopkins, actors Mackenzie Davis and Sebastian Stan, Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa, and International Space Station flight controller Pooja Jesrani get a red-carpet welcome before a special screening of “The Martian.”

From left, astronaut Michael Hopkins, actors Mackenzie Davis and Sebastian Stan, Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa, and International Space Station flight controller Pooja Jesrani get a red-carpet welcome before a special screening of “The Martian.”

#SpacED day one ended with a wild ride of an assignment: don 3-D glasses for a private, full-length screening of “The Martian,” the 20th Century Fox movie set for release Oct. 2.

The #spacED group had a great time during the two-day workshop. It was heady stuff listening to, observing, and photographing astronauts and Hollywood actors.

But we were not mere tourists. Based on criteria we eagerly accepted, the #spacED group was here to work: Our mission was to gather information, establish connections with Johnson Space Center officials, and pledge our efforts to serve as conduits between classroom teachers and students and NASA’s fascinating journey to Mars.

As educators and journalists with diverse social media presences, we aim to help Johnson Space Center cultivate students’ interests in space exploration and in the supporting fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Our task is to help shine a light on NASA’s multifaceted education programs for students and teachers — which I will be detailing in upcoming blog posts — that include research projects directly connected to the space station, all-expenses-paid educational visits to Johnson Space Center, interactive online learning experiences, and internship opportunities.

John Charles, chief of NASA’s Human Research Program International Science Office, is the main researcher working with astronaut Scott Kelly as part of the International Space Station’s One-Year Mission.

John Charles, chief of NASA’s Human Research Program International Science Office, detailed One-Year Mission research specifics for the #spacED group.

For me, the most meaningful interactions of the two-day workshop came during lunch with astronaut Ricky Arnold and briefings with key NASA experts. Most notably, the #spacED group learned about Orion spacecraft flight from engineer Kelly Smith and the One-Year Mission from John Charles, chief of NASA’s Human Research Program International Science Office who is the main researcher working with astronaut Scott Kelly.

 

NASA engineer Kelly Smith tells the #spacED group about the success of Orion’s first test flight and what the future holds for this remarkable spacecraft that he says resembles an “iron gumdrop.”

NASA engineer Kelly Smith tells the #spacED group about the success of Orion’s first test flight and what the future holds for this remarkable spacecraft.

Orion’s first flight to outer space on Dec. 5, 2014 — called Exploration Flight Test 1, or EFT1 — “was a smashing success,” said Smith, an EFT1 flight controller who helped design the spacecraft’s guidance and navigation controls system. “It was an unbelievable feeling.”

But as Johnson Space Center education officials Arturo Sanchez III and Bob Musgrove told us, not all classrooms are familiar with NASA’s research, including space-station activities and the related quest to send humans to Mars.

Sanchez recounted a recent conversation he had with Houston Independent School District educators. Some of the educators said they didn’t know what was happening on the International Space Station and that they weren’t hearing much about NASA’s space program in general.

Arturo Sanchez III, Integration Manager to the International Space Station in Johnson Space Center’s External Relations Office, encouraged the #spacED group “to help connect the dots for people in the classroom,” for teachers who are encouraging students to think about science and math.

Arturo Sanchez III, Integration Manager to the International Space Station in Johnson Space Center’s External Relations Office, encouraged the #spacED group “to help connect the dots for people in the classroom,” for teachers who are encouraging students to think about science and math.

A lot of people, says Sanchez, Integration Manager to the International Space Station in Johnson Space Center’s External Relations Office, don’t realize that NASA will celebrate 15 years of continuous human presence on the ISS in November. Many people, he says, aren’t aware of the global cooperation that’s enabling the scientific research experiments that characterize the historic One-Year Mission aboard the space station.

His hope for the #spacED group, Sanchez told us, was that during our two-day stay we would see the rest of NASA’s story: “That as an agency we’re thinking ‘What does our journey to Mars look like? What are the things that we’re having to learn?’ ”

Sanchez encouraged us “to help connect the dots for people in the classroom,” for teachers who are encouraging students to think about science and math. “If it’s what inspires them in the classroom today, that ultimately brings them to work at NASA,” he said.

Such students, Sanchez continued, might also work for high-tech companies and in career fields connected to exploration and innovation. “We know that you guys are critical voices to help us do that,” he told the #spacED group.

Bob Musgrove, director of Johnson Space Center’s Office of Education, implored the 12 members of the #spacED group to become “NASA ambassadors.”

Bob Musgrove, director of Johnson Space Center’s Office of Education, implored the 12 members of the #spacED group to become “NASA ambassadors.”

Musgrove, director of Johnson Space Center’s Office of Education, said he hoped that after our two-day stay we would be “NASA ambassadors that we can turn to to help tell our story and get the message out about all of the cool things that we do.”

Mission accepted: Beginning with blog posts over the next several weeks and months, I will help tell the story of Johnson Space Center, which serves as NASA’s lead for International Space Station operations and oversees Orion spacecraft development, including crew module, crew training, and mockup facilities, through its Orion Project Office.

I will tell the story of the One-Year Mission and the investigations under way that address health concerns in long-duration spaceflight, such as the loss of muscle and bone strength and fluid shifts suspected of negatively impacting vision.

I will continue writing about the highly sophisticated LED lighting system being designed for the ISS and how this astronaut-friendly lighting, based on the much smaller size of the Orion spacecraft, will be further tuned for deep-space travel to asteroids and beyond.

And I will tell of connections between students and space — including my own. At 9:56 p.m. CDT on July 20, 1969, I and more than half a billion people glued to their television screens watched Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong slowly descend a lunar module ladder to set foot on the moon.

I was 6 years old. More than four decades later, that black-and-white scene from my family’s rabbit-eared TV remains seared in my mind.

Astronauts were my heroes. They still are. So my next #spacED blog post will feature Arnold, the astronaut who provided delightful lunch company for the #spacED group in a Johnson Space Center cafeteria. Arnold, a former public school teacher whose international classroom stints included Indonesia, Morocco, Romania, and Saudi Arabia, was selected by NASA as a Mission Specialist in 2004. He completed Astronaut Candidate Training in 2006 and in March 2009 flew on the Discovery Space Shuttle to the International Space Station where he conducted two spacewalks in the course of installing power-generating solar array wings and a truss segment.

Astronaut Ricky Arnold told the #spacED group: “Going to space is fantastic — I highly recommend it.”

Astronaut Ricky Arnold talks to the #spacED group.

Arnold immediately put the #spacED group at ease, sharing his background and his love of education. He repeatedly made eye contact with each member of the group around the table, engaging us and fostering a fun, relaxed atmosphere. Spending an hour with an astronaut is the closest I’ll ever come to space travel, and I and my group team members heartily laughed when Arnold passionately described his experience.

“Going to space is fantastic,” said Arnold, who is waiting his turn to serve another space station mission. “I highly recommend it.”

Photo by Robert Markowitz (NASA_JSC_Photo) The #spacED education media workshop lunch with astronaut Ricky Arnold on Sept. 15, 2015, at Johnson Space Center.

Photo by Robert Markowitz (NASA_JSC_Photo)
The #spacED education media workshop lunch with astronaut Ricky Arnold on Sept. 15, 2015.