I knew Pittsburgh roads were chaotic, but... This would only be complete if it included an arrow toward Mars, a northern suburb of Pittsburgh.

While I still have to write more about the details about my summer internship in Tucson, this morning I’ll share a story I heard there about… Pittsburgh.

I spent my summer sheltered from the blazing Tucson sun in an air conditioned room filled with big glossy-screened iMacs.  I was using software called SPECTRE and MOOG to make measurements inside the spectra (the spread out light of a star), and to take those measurements and translate them into how much Iron, Oxygen, Carbon, Silicon, and other elements are in each star.  The process is very labor intensive, and it’s much like measuring the exact length of every hair on your arm.

I had a question (actually I thought I had discovered an anomaly) in the way SPECTRE added  several exposures of the light together, driving up the signal that you want, and reducing the unwanted noise in the spectra that is in every telescope exposure.  My advisor was away on a trip, so I exchanged a few emails with the author of the software, Dr. Chris Sneden, a long-time astronomy professor at the University of Texas.  He was very helpful with navigating the secrets of his code, and it wasn’t long before I had figured out a workaround for adding the spectra.

Flash forward some days later.  I was having coffee with my friend Thom, a fellow former Pittsburgher, astronomer, Northsider, Perry graduate, Buhl-ite, who was now living in Tucson – pretty much paralleling my own background, only he did it 20 years earlier than I.  Thom was in high school in the 1960s, at the height of the space race, a time when much of America was inspired at every manned space launch and was fascinated  by amazing new astronomical and technical discoveries.  Thom told me it was then that he and a few buddies about the same age started an advanced astronomy club to do their own backyard-based research.  Its members were Thom, Chris Sneden… and Jay Apt.  If that last name sounds familiar, that’s Jay Apt, space shuttle astronaut.  That’s some little astronomy club!

Dr. Chris Sneden at the University of Texas

Dr. Sneden’s biography at the University of Texas website describes the moment while growing up in Pittsburgh when he encountered the astronomy spark:

“I can remember the exact moment when I became interested in astronomy,” says astronomer Chris Sneden, professor at The University of Texas. He was at his home in Pennsylvania, listening to a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game on the radio. During the commercial break, he heard an advertisement for Saturday morning astronomy classes at the Pittsburgh planetarium. Since then, he says he “never, ever wanted to do a single thing other than astronomy. There was never a Plan B.”

Chris attributes much of his success to his parents, Harold and Alice Sneden, who encouraged him to pursue his interest in astronomy. “They knew I was so pigheaded that I wasn’t going to be stopped anyway,” says Chris. “They gave me much encouragement.”

As graduation from his small, mill-town high school loomed, Chris visited his career counselor and inquired about studying astronomy in college. “I don’t know anything about that,” his counselor said, and gave Chris a book with colleges sorted by academic major. Chris quickly turned to the astronomy section and scanned down the list. “I got to Harvard and said, ‘Ahh, I can’t get into Harvard.’ The very next college on the list was Haverford.”

Now THAT’s some ad!  I wonder if that recording exists somewhere.

Dr. Jay Apt shown to scale with the Space Shuttle

Jay Apt also credits his visits to Buhl to preparing him for a career as an astronaut who would go on to fly on four shuttle missions, including a stay on the Russian space station Mir.

During his childhood, he visited Pittsburgh’s original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science many times. This included attendance in Buhl Science classes, including Rocketry, and participation in the annual Pittsburgh Regional School Science and Engineering Fair. Dr. Apt credits his childhood visits to Buhl Planetarium as sparking his interest to become an astronaut. In Buhl Planetarium’s 50th anniversary (1989) book titled, “Lives Touched…Worlds Changed,” Fifty Years of Alumni Achievements, Dr. Apt wrote: “Buhl classes are probably the best preparation for a technical career I can imagine.”

In 1997, Jay Apt would leave NASA to return to Pittsburgh, becoming Director of The Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, which included the new Buhl Planetarium inside The Carnegie Science Center. During his time there, he guided the museums through some turbulent times, setting it on course for a successful future.  He’s now teaching and directing a technology and public policy institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Thom went on to get his astronomy degree at the University of Kansas, work in software, somehow had time for a career as a professional pianist and composer, and is now actively doing astronomical research with variable stars.

Thom’s story is a great reminder of what can happen wen you give kids community resources like good schools and public institutions like Buhl, coupled with the ambition that a youthful drive for exploring the unknown can bring.  When I met Thom, I could definitely still see the spark that was ignited over 40 years ago -  for space, for discovery, for the sciences and the arts.

The town that once had blackened out its stars with the soot of its steel mills has given rise to those who would fly to them.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 12:42 pm and is filed under astronomy, education, music, science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.