Aspiring N.L. astronaut leading 50th anniversary lunar landing celebrations
A woman from St. John's is devoting some time away from her astronaut aspirations to mark a major milestone in human history, by co-ordinating a global effort to celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing.
Bethany Downer is the global co-ordinator of Moon Landing 50 with the International Astronomical Union, an international body that oversees all things outer space, such as naming planets or demoting them (think Pluto).
The job entails overseeing and co-ordinating worldwide celebrations of Apollo 11's mission success of July 20, 1969, when its lunar module touched down on the moon's Sea of Tranquillity.
"To say it's had a very important impact in society, in various different ways, is an understatement," said Downer.
Downer has spent the last several months compiling moon-related projects and activities in 115 different countries.
It's a staggering list of events to keep track of, from an Argentinian series of workshops, to tactile lunar maps and texts in Braille, to an all-night observatory party in Finland, to an event in Saudi Arabia that aims to connect girls with careers in space.
"It really emphasizes that this is a global celebration," said Downer.
"This is something that we're all proud of and we're all recognizing,"
St.John's will be holding one such lunar event, with a full day of activities slated for Saturday at the Johnson Geo Centre, including a Q&A with Canadian astronauts.
Pushing boundaries
Neil Armstrong's famous sentence, uttered almost 50 years ago — "that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" — stirs something in Downer.
"I don't think I could ever get tired, or refuse to listen to it. I get the same feeling every time," she told CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show.
As an astronaut-in-training, Downer wants to be on Armstrong's side of the transmission. But it also highlights to her how much aeronautics and space exploration have changed in the last century, and where the sectors are headed.
"Everything we're doing in space is pushing the boundaries of what we're capable of in innovation and technology development," she said.
A hundred years ago, Alcock and Brown made the first successful transatlantic flight. Fifty years later, it was the moon. To Downer, what lies ahead is grounded in that history.
"We can only appreciate where we are now, or where we're going, by looking back," she said,.
Downer hopes to be part of that history, as she continues to chase her dreams of being in outer space. Last fall she replicated lunar experiments during field geology training in Arizona, and completed flight training, during which the crew tried to contain the contents of her stomach during moments of microgravity (she was successful).
"That was my favourite, I think. To feel what it was like to float, as if in space," she said.
Downer says she has more flight training on the horizon, once her Moon Landing 50 duties are over.
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