Week 9: Space and Art

This week we end our class with the topic of space and art. In my opinion, space is one of the most fascinating areas of human explorations and our knowledge of space is still limited. The topic of space and art is very complicated, as Professor Vesna noted in lecture that it combines all of our previous topics into the perfect conclusion of the course.

We started to explore the universe thousands of years ago. One of the most famous scientists was Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus is a mathematician and also an astronaut. He was the first person who introduced that it is the sun, rather than earth, at the center of the solar system and used mathematical details to prove it.

People began their explorations of space thousands of years ago and got great breakthroughs in recent decades. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite Sputnik into space, beginning what is known as the “Space race”. In responding to the “race”, NASA invented the series of Apolo. However the Soviet Union still took the lead. After successfully launching a living dog and chimpanzees into space, the Soviet Union began to try to send humans into space and Yuri Gagarin became the first human to be launched into space. People’s interest in space also increased when the “Space race” started. More and more materials related to space were added into our classes.The “Space race” also accelerated the development of space technology and nowadays more and more countries are able to launch their own satellites and even send living humans to ramble in space. On December 3, 2013 China will launch “Chang’e 3” which has a robotic lander and a rover into space and it will land on Moon to begin its lunar exploration mission.

Space has also inspired the world of entertainment and science fiction plays a huge role in the intersection of art and space. The movie ET was one of the first films to address the idea of alien lives and audiences showed great responses to the science fiction movies related to space. Now we have more and more space movies like Star Trek and Gravity and they still intrigue people of all ages.

With the development of space technology, more and more interesting new stuff in space will be discovered and maybe one day we will find that things that happened in Star Trek and ET really exist!

Citations:

1.Austin, Alex. "Happy Birthday Copernicus!." . N.p., E-mail. <http://alexautindotcom.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/happy-birthday-copernicus/>.

2."Sputnik 1." . N.p., Online Posting to Image of the Day Gallery. E-mail. <http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/201353main_rs_image_feature_924_946x710.jpg>.

3."Yuri Gagarin." . N.p., Online Posting to Inyourposcker. E-mail. <http://www.inyourpocket.com/russia/Moscow/Yuri-Gagarin_72055f>.

4.Winner, Derek. "E.T." . N.p., E-mail. <http://derekwinnert.com/e-t-the-extra-terrestrial-classic-film-review-303/>.

5."The space race." . N.p., Online Posting to History. E-mail. <http://www.history.com/topics/space-race>.

5.