That got me to thinking; How far back in my life could i trace my interest in science and space and what were the milestones and who were the people responsible for making me a science buff?
Looking back through the years the earliest thing i could remember was the TV show "Watch Mr Wizard". I probably first encountered the show sometime around 1956 at the age of 6. As i recall our first TV was an Emerson with about a 10" black and white (actually more like shades of snowy grey) screen. My earliest memory of Mr Wizard is filtered through this modest exposure. A tiny, not very distinct image of a man showing children how to do interesting experiments in basic science.
I was instantly, it seems, smitten with the idea of doing science experiments on my own! It wasn't long before i was mixing water and baking powder to make "volcanoes" and "submarines". Then i found out about the reaction between acids and alkalies and turned to baking soda and vinegar concoctions. Mr Wizard got me interested in microscopic animals (protozoans) and soon i was pestering my mom for a microscope (which she happily indulged me in). I looked at everything through it; grains of sugar and salt, household items (cloth, paper and food), blades of grass (you could see chloroplasts!) and then i began looking at water sampled from local ponds and streams. I think my first protozoan was a rotifer. How amazing that something so small could actually be alive!
As i got more into science, there came a series of Gilbert chemistry sets followed by a program my mom subscribed to in which i was sent lab equipment and a list of experiments to perform every month. I'd spend endless hours in a spot reserved for me in the back of my mother's kitchen building steam reaction motors and learning about oxidation and other chemical reactions. I think i tested virtually every conceivable liquid with litmus paper! A considerable amount of time was spent looking at nutrient agar cultures under the microscope. I learned atomic theory and was building atoms and molecules out of coloured snap-together beads by about the age of ten. As a sort of shy and awkward child, this was just geek heaven to me! Mom also bought me youth science books. I had the entire series of "All About" books which gave me an introduction to everything from dogs to dinosaurs to nuclear energy. I searched for fossils (and found some!) in my own back yard. I began taking science books out at the school library. One of my favourites was "Animals Without Backbones", a wonderful book full of annelids and protozoans!
At some point during all of this, i became aware of space....Planets and stars and rockets.....and that the Moon was actually a place you could go to and stand on if you had the right equipment! My first real memory of space science came from a book (the name of which i can't recall) by Willie Ley. In it were pictures of rockets and space stations; Proper space stations that rotated like wheels causing the illusion of gravity! There were artist's concept pictures of the surfaces of the Moon and Mars and other planets ....and beautiful galaxies full of stars and nebulae! The whole thing was almost a religious experience! I began reading about space and then became aware of science fiction which further opened up the door to my imagination. Could we actually travel to the stars in my lifetime?!
I began building my own primitive rockets. The first were fueled by match heads. I'd roll up aluminum foil around a pencil to form a tube....fold over and crimp one end and then stuff it full of clipped match heads. Then i'd stick a match in the open end and squeeze it shut to keep the "fuel" in. Ignition was achieved by heating the tube with a match or alcohol lamp until the contents lit off. I was able to achieve only about a couple of yards of flight in this manner. Later i found out that you could make black powder using certain chemicals (oxidants) mixed with charcoal and sulfur. The charcoal came from ground up barbecue briquettes and the sulfur from powdered sulfur my mom kept in the medicine chest. The oxidant was a bit more problematic as i couldn't think of any household item that would do the job. I ended up asking my mom to pick up some chemicals for me at the drug store near where she worked. I gave her little jars with labels on them for the druggist to fill. Potassium Chlorate was my choice for the rocket fuel because i'd read somewhere that it was a good oxidant. She returned one night with my supplies, handed them to me and said, "Are you making bombs?". She said the druggist told her that Potassium Chlorate could be used to make bombs. I assured her that i wasn't (i was making rockets!) and that seemed to satisfy her. The rocket business was somewhat curtailed by the lack of suitable rocket tubes (i was still using aluminum foil tubes) and i soon tired of it and moved on to experimenting with small model airplane engines (mostly the Cox .049). I built air-frames out of balsa wood and experimented with different fuels with varying results (mostly crashed planes and seized engines).
In the sixth grade our class took a trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York city (dinosaurs!) and The Hayden Planetarium where i actually got to touch the Willamette meteorite! The AMNH was another one of those science epiphanies in my life. I'd never seen so much awesome stuff! Everything was there! Space, nature, paleontology, archaeology, ancient history....It was like being in my own special church!
As the 1960s continued i was becoming aware of things like the X-15 and Sputnik...and that got me interested in NASA...and then we sent men into Earth orbit, and finally to the Moon!
By middle school i didn't even have to study science at school because i'd already done all of that. But the teachers didn't like to call on pupils during class that already knew the answers so very little encouragement came from them. At any rate, by the time i got to high school i'd become bitten by Beatlemania and had transferred all my energy to playing drums in rock bands and science went by the wayside. By the time i graduated, with somewhat less than college entry level grades, i'd lost interest in all but the forthcoming series of Moon landings.
Although i remained a fan of science fiction, it seemed like my interest in science and space had waned to almost the point of disinterest for about ten years....and then i had another epiphany! Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series tuned me back in to the wonders of the Universe and reignited my interest in space. I began buying books and magazines (Discover) and actually became a member of The Planetary Society for a couple of years. Sagan was a joy to listen to and i bought a number of his books. I discovered Isaac Asimov and his prodigious number of science and science fiction stories and books. To this day, Sagan and Asimov remain my biggest inspirations in science and science fiction.
When our first daughter came, i delighted in visiting museums and dinosaur exhibits with her and explaining about ancient and extinct life forms. We became regulars at the Catskill Game Farm which she enjoyed so much that we actually had to wait for her to fall asleep so we could leave! I'd passed along the science bug to my kid, who went on to become a paleontologist and science educator.
Today i still like to keep up with current science...and especially space science. I watch every SpaceX launch and enjoy all the revelations that come from the various probes and rovers. People like Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carolyn Porco (Cassini imaging) are recent inspirations. I am, however, somewhat disappointed that we didn't follow through with manned space flight for the last 40+ years. I always thought by now we'd have colonies on the Moon and people on Mars. Maybe the next generation will get it done?
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