45 Years Ago Today!
There was a symposium held here at the Strang Institute forty five years ago to discuss plans to send a probe to explore Planet X, mere months after its discovery. All the while NASA was already making plans to send men to the Moon. It would be another six years before Ellie would be sent on her trip in 1972, three whole years after the Moon landing. Of course it would take her thirty years to reach her destination in 2002, and another eight years for her signals to finally reach us. That’s lots of years. Makes you wonder what’s going on there right now, eight years after the story we see unfolding before us has taken place.
I digress.
Here’s the announcement for the symposium as it appeared in some science journal or the National Geographic or some such magazine. The scientists who spoke at the event are the same people who were recorded for Ellie’s greeting. They’re the first human beings that Jeff and Muffin had ever seen!
Is the Strang Institute affiliated with Washington U?
very cool! I really enjoy the blog additions
Nicely done in the “style” of the era!
I really love those background informations…
Love that illustration, Jim. Fun stuff!
Thanks everybody!
@Anon: I didn’t know why you asked that until I Googled Washington U. So everyone knows what we’re talking about, the Strang Institute logo from 1966 looks just like Brookings Hall, the main gate, at Wash U in St. Louis. I was told that the gatehouse at the Institute was designed after Trinity College at Cambridge University in England. Well, sort of. Here’s what I found out:
Click here for a larger version.
More fun things I didn’t know. It’s always assumed that Carver Agricultural College and Carver Hall are named for botanist George Washington Carver. Though that makes a good story, Carver was only just out of college when the agricultural college was built. It’s actually named for Aloysius Carver, a local and very successful farmer who bred new and “interesting” produce. He created the college from his success. When he died he bequeathed a portion of the campus to his good friend Cornelius Strang for his own research projects. The rest is history. Carver Agricultural College still maintains a small presence on the campus of the Strang Institute and their gardens provide all of the produce for the institute. Some of it very “interesting”.
As you said in the chat-cast, X is _really_ a very small planet. Hasn’t even pulled itself spherical. Are you ever going to show the ring arching overhead?
@ Neutrino: I’ve shown the ring a few times, most notably here: Oh Nature!