Week 9 Blog 9

May 27, 2025

This week’s lecture focused on space and how it’s explored through different lenses from science to art to imagination. We talked about NASA and how they send astronauts into space to run experiments that teach us new things about life beyond Earth. The NASA website has a ton of info about their missions, space tech, and all the cool stuff they’ve discovered so far. They even show how astronauts live up there, which honestly is pretty wild to see.

At UCLA, we’re not just watching from the sidelines we’re actually part of this conversation. UCLA has research connected to space medicine, where scientists study how medicine works in space and try to find ways to improve health in extreme environments. Some of this work is done in collaboration with NASA, which is a pretty amazing connection to have as a student here. There’s also the UCLA Basic Plasma Science Facility, which is basically a space for researchers to dive into plasma physics. According to their site, they work with scientists from all over to study space-like conditions and better understand the universe. It’s cool knowing all this is happening right here on campus.

We also learned about how space isn’t just about science it can be artistic too. One example is the Cosmic Dancer project, where artist Arthur Woods created a sculpture that was actually sent to space and floated around in the Mir space station. It shows how space can inspire creativity just as much as it inspires science.

This week's topic also applies to the film Crater. A child with walking difficulties dreams of embarking on an adventure on this futuristic lunar setting. The crew and he are exploring the moon's surface searching for a crater with some sort of mystery involved. They encounter obstacles, and they learn about friendship, courage, and believing in themselves. The story has different themes of space exploration, perseverance, and believing in your dreams even though it was a fake story.

Even though we’re just students, learning about all this makes space feel a little closer. Between UCLA’s research and what NASA’s doing, it’s exciting to think we might one day be part of something way bigger than Earth.