Story and Photos by Kamolgandha Dutta.
Graduate assistants at St. Cloud State University attended a planetarium show on Thursday, October 8, at the St. Cloud State Planetarium in the lower level of the Wick Science Building. The event took place from 2:30 to 4 p.m.
The visit was part of a fall series of gatherings for graduate assistants, intended to give them an opportunity to connect with one another outside of their regular responsibilities. Space was limited, and attendees were required to register in advance through Huskies Connect.
The program began with a screening of “Back to the Moon for Good,” a documentary narrated by actor Tim Allen. The roughly 25-minute film was produced for planetarium domes, and its footage was projected across the full curved ceiling.
The documentary opens with the first era of lunar exploration in the late 1960s and early 1970s, explaining what early landers and orbiters revealed about the moon’s origin, makeup and structure, as well as the resources found on its surface.
It then introduces the Google Lunar XPRIZE, a $20 million competition that challenged privately funded teams to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon. The film follows teams from different countries as they designed and built their spacecraft, highlighting both the competition and the cooperation behind their work. It also takes viewers through a simulated launch, landing, and tour of the lunar surface before closing with a look at what a future settlement on the moon could look like. The competition ultimately ended in 2018 without a winner.
Images are projected across the planetarium dome during the show.
Following the screening, the program shifted to the night sky. Planetarium programs at St. Cloud State typically pair a film with a live presentation of the current night sky using Chronos, the planetarium’s star ball projector, which projects stars onto the dome.
During this part of the program, attendees were introduced to constellations, moving from the recorded film to a live, guided look at the stars projected overhead.
The planetarium is a dome-shaped theater with seating arranged in a circle around a central star projector. The room also features space-themed posters and a mural of Earth above the surface of the moon.
The event gave attendees a chance to step away from their academic and work commitments and spend time with peers in a relaxed setting.
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