Last Wednesday over 1,700 space enthusiasts gathered at Convocation Hall to watch a special episode of The Planetary Society’s weekly radio show, Planetary Radio. Aptly named “We See Thee Rise: The Canadian Space Today and Tomorrow,” the event was a two-hour long celebration of Canada’s achievements in space.
Public enthusiasm for the show was evident almost an hour before the doors even opened, with a line-up stretching all the way across King’s College Circle to University College. Fans at the very front of the line announced that they had been waiting for over an hour and a half to get front row seats to the sold-out event. “It’s Bill Nye!” was the overwhelming response the event-goers had when asked what drew them out on a Wednesday evening, as if no other explanation was called for.
“This is much bigger than I thought it was, I just found out Bill Nye was coming,” said one second-year mechanical engineering student. Yet the crowd did not consist only of science students and engineers. Humanities students, graduate students, alumni, and parents could all be spotted proudly clutching event tickets.
As the crowd filed into Con Hall, they were greeted with live music in the form of upbeat rock jams performed live by an Ottawa-based band, Dream World. When every seat was filled, Bill Nye arrived on stage to a thundering standing ovation that lasted for a few minutes. If seeing The Science Guy himself, fully outfitted in his characteristic blazer and bow-tie combo wasn’t already exhilarating enough, the many science t-shirts worn by fans, waving of posters, and synchronized shouts of “Bill! Bill! Bill!”, helped made the atmosphere in the lecture hall reach excitement levels far more equivalent to that of a rock concert than a science lecture.
After taking a quick selfie with the crowd, Bill wasted no time, jumping right into delivering a one-man presentation on space exploration. The hour-long talk was filled simultaneously with fascinating and highly educational explanations of both the challenges we’ve faced and the achievements we’ve accomplished in exploring our solar system.
Included were descriptions of various ways to divert an approaching meteor (the methods involving increasing levels of silliness), vivid descriptions of solar system phenomena such as giant geysers on Jupiter’s moons, and plenty of exclamations on The Science Guy’s part of the word “cool!” In short, the University of Toronto was treated to a talk that contained all the same elements of the truly entertaining science education that inspired an entire generation to see the “PB & J” (Passion, Beauty, and Joy) of science from the wheeled-in television sets of our middle-school classrooms.
Following the speech, the audience was present for a recording of the Planetary Society’s weekly podcast series. The episode included a panel of scientists and science experts who have all personally contributed in some way to helping us explore space. Present was Gordon Osinski, the associate director of the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration, Elizabeth Howell, a science writer, and, finally, Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian astronaut who was born and raised in London, Ontario.
For the second hour, the audience continued to listen with unwavering enthusiasm as all the speakers had an opportunity to talk about their work in space exploration. The theme that dominated the conversation, however, was how Canada-centric space exploration truly is. Without many Canadians realizing, Canada has had a hand in almost every single space exploration mission.
Even though it has been over 15 years since “Bill Nye The Science Guy” was on air, Bill’s message is still strong with U of T and students all across Canada. Besides hearing about all of Canada’s amazing achievements in discovering the solar system, possibly the most uplifting message learned at Con Hall last week was that “the wonder of space exploration” is still very much alive and well in Toronto.
