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Perspective on the Goldstone Deep Space Network

2009-09-16 10:31:20 -- By Emilie Rizzo, Academy for Academic Excellence, Grade 12

Trip to Goldstone in August, 2009

We humans are essentially a visual sort of people and cannot long abide the unknown. Unfortunately for us, the more complex our societies grow, the less we seem to know about our mortal realm and answers are replaced by questions. It is the doctrine of numerous religious affiliations to praise the virtue of faith, to see without sight, to believe in what we cannot possibly know.  In this present age, however, we have been granted the ability to stand on the shoulders of those great minds for which faith alone was inadequate, indeed unacceptable. Only through the privileged eyes of those able to reflect upon the past are these blasphemous quests for knowledge fully appreciated. It is from this coveted standpoint from which my generation prepares to continue the odyssey. I consider myself to be exceedingly fortunate that my high-school, The Academy for Academic Excellence (AAE), has provided me with the opportunity to be associated with the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) program during my senior year and be able witness firsthand the continuation of this journey.    

Even though I see the telescopes every day in mission control, the small image on the computer screen pales in comparison to the sight of one of these monolith structures up close. I jumped on the chance to visit Goldstone on August 18 with my fellow intern, fifteen teacher trainees, and the majority of my school's space science students. Goldstone is the site of our three radio telescopes, DSS-12, DSS-13, and DSS-28, among many others. The first thing that anyone of us will tell you is that the telescopes in real life are in fact much larger that they appear in their four inch pop-up window on the LCER mission control monitors. The one we visited first was DSS-12, which has been in use for over fifty years; a science of numbers and graphs suddenly became tangible as we reached out to touch the brim of the dish and read the inscription on the small metal case that held a portion of ashes from the world's first radio astronomer, Grote Reber. After a side stop at DSS-14 (the colossal size of which gave us a new interpretation of the word “Awesome”), we were invited to see the inner workings of DSS-13. We were introduced to the tools of the trade, such as the dichroic plate that separates the X and S band waves and directs them into the lens to be analyzed.  A previous trip to the Maser lab helped to clarify the more nebulous processes, specifically the stabilization of the collected radiation. Before we left, we were allowed access into the base of DSS-28, our newest antenna. We learned that this engineering marvel has a surprising history: it was built as a prototype for a missal defense system for Homeland Security, given the popular nickname “Star Wars.” Although theoretically an intriguing idea, when conceptualized it was proven to be of faulty design and implausible as a weapon. It is now being put to use not as a weapon, but as a tool for learning, a facilitator in the search for universal understanding.

 GAVRT has given thousands of students in hundreds of classrooms all over the world the unique opportunity to know their Universe; thanks to human ingenuity and the devotion of countless individuals with a passion for research, one no longer has to be content with life's biggest mysteries. We are free to leave behind the confines of faith in pursuit of truth.