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Reopening Weekend Schedule

FRIDAY, November 12

Want to meet the top scientists at NASA Ames Research Center and learn about the latest discoveries about their current work on space exploration? Join us in The Theater for two incredible talks about NASA Ames space partnerships and research from the ISS. Plus, tinker with hands-on activities in Studio 3. 

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Curry Up Now Food Truck

5pm – 8pm

Innovative & Unexpected Indian Fare, that’s a little Naughty too! Since day one, Curry Up Now has been on a mission to serve Indian flavors & ingredients in a friendly and recognizable way.

 

Astronomy Activities with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

5 p.m-9 p.m. Observatory Deck

 The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is an international non-profit scientific and educational organization. Through its materials, resources, and programs, the ASP promotes public science interest, engagement, and literacy through the awe and wonder of astronomy and related fields. 

 

Space Development at NASA Ames:  Past, Present and Future by Bruce Pittman

7 p.m. The Theater 

Join Mr. Pittman to learn about Space Portal, how the NASA partnerships work and expand on successful partnerships. 

Bruce Pittman is the VP of Development, Skycorp Inc. and has supported the Space Portal Office at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon since.  Bruce is a co-founder and CEO of the not for profit Future Frontiers Institute.  He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Space Society. Bruce has over 4 decades of experience in aerospace and high technology product development, spending the first 11 years of his professional career as a civil servant at the NASA Ames Research Center working in planetary exploration and airborne and space based infrared astronomy.

 

‘Open Science for Space Biology: ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ by Lovorka Degoricija

8:30 p.m., The Theater 

Get an inside look at NASA’s GeneLab, the first comprehensive space-related omics database; users can upload, download, share, store, and analyze spaceflight and spaceflight-relevant data from experiments using model organisms.

Lovorka Degoricija is currently working for the GeneLab project at NASA as a next generation sequencing (NGS) scientist and joined the team in summer of 2020.  Prior to working at GeneLab, she held several positions within Thermo Fisher Scientific to include working in R&D where her focus was on collaborations and managing full operations of an NGS lab, to technical marketing where her focus was on NGS applications.

 

Constellation Cards With Ace Makerspace

6-9 p.m., Studio 3

Create a unique seasonal card that lights up!  

Make your light up cards (ages 8 and older) in this hands-on workshop. Then experience the Instant Gratification Machine where you can get a unique photobooth experience courtesy of the Ace Makerspace team. Look inside the machine and learn how it works from the Ace Makerspace team. Folks will use a variety of supplies and constellation maps to create paper circuits. Ages 8 and up. The project takes approximately 20 min. to complete.  

Ace Makerspace is a 501(c)(3) non­profit member-supported organization founded in 2011. We support traditional makers and craftspeople as well as hackers both digital and material. Our community brings together people of diverse skill levels by providing resources and culture to build networks, co-work, and engage in projects that benefit individuals and the community at large. 

 

Dave Bell

5 – 8:30 p.m., Rotunda

Live jazz guitar performance with Dave Bell. 

Guitarist Dave Bell is a graduate of Berklee College of Music (’78) where he studied with many jazz greats, finding inspiration in the teachings of Gary Burton. When his day jobs dried up in the mid-90’s, recording was on full time, and Bellboy Recording was born. Since then it’s been Pro Tools (from 2001), a drum room addition, and, thankfully, good word of mouth for Bellboy. 

 

Mars Habitat Collaborative Build

5-9:30 p.m., Studio 3

Join us this weekend for Mars Habitat Building, where we’ll imagine what it would be like to build structures that can withstand the Martian atmosphere and support the needs of humans inhabiting this alien world. Tinkering is the process of testing out ideas, designing new projects and troubleshooting when things don’t work the way we expect. Community weekend builds allow us to tinker together, contribute to something larger than ourselves and share ideas with other makers. These open-ended constructions connect the process of tinkering to the work of researching the solar system, planning new missions and going to space. 

 


SATURDAY, November 13

Join us on Saturday day and night for special talks led by NASA scientists, community space-themed builds, robotics demonstrations led our teen Galaxy Explorers and partners, hands on activities, bubble demos, singing from the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, special guests, evening music by DJ Brad, food trucks and entertainment. Friday and Saturday evening programs will include wine and beer. 

Get Tickets

 

Mars Habitat Collaborative Build

10 a.m.-9:30 p.m., Studio 3

Join us this weekend for Mars Habitat Building, where we’ll imagine what it would be like to build structures that can withstand the Martian atmosphere and support the needs of humans inhabiting this alien world. Tinkering is the process of testing out ideas, designing new projects and troubleshooting when things don’t work the way we expect. Community weekend builds allow us to tinker together, contribute to something larger than ourselves and share ideas with other makers. These open-ended constructions connect the process of tinkering to the work of researching the solar system, planning new missions and going to space. 

 

Big Bubbles With Sterling Johnson

10am – 2pm, Main Entrance

Sterling Johnson was trained as an engineer and lawyer and used bubbles to unwind. He’s performed versions of his hand-blown bubbles for over 45 years. While first it was a past time to entertain friends, yet it soon developed it into a full stage show. He is the first person to walk completely through a bubble film and the only person to ever put a bubble inside a bubble inside a bubble on stage without any straws or tubes. Sterling is the only entertainer who specializes in blowing bubbles with his hands. 

 

‘SUITED” FOR SPACE’ With Astronaut Dr. Yvonne Cagle

11 a.m., Theater 

An exciting astronaut personal narrative illuminating the enthralling journey launching dreams into aspiration, action, and exploration inspiring discoveries of our cosmos and ourselves that hold “Space” for All! 

Dr. Yvonne Darlene Cagle is an astronaut for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and consulting professor for Stanford University’s department of Cardiovascular Medicine and its department of Electrical Engineering. A retired Colonel of the US Air Force, Dr. Cagle served as a certified flight surgeon, where she began her medical career. Dr. Cagle currently is the chief scientist for the Level II Program Office of NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research program. Her groundbreaking work is preserving NASA legacy data while galvanizing NASA’s lead in global mapping, sustainable energies, green initiatives, disaster preparedness and longitudinal space telemedicine. 

 

Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir

12 p.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m., Courtyard 

Join us for a series of socially distanced, masked performances throughout the day. 

Since 1982, the internationally and nationally award-winning Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir has offered exceptional music and choral training to over 10,000 children from schools throughout the San Francisco East Bay Area. 

 

Robohawks

11am – 4pm, Studio 3 

Robotics demonstrations with the robotics team from Head Royce school 

 

The Tinkerer’s Corner at Studio One Arts Center

11 a.m. – 4 p.m., 6-9 p.m., Studio 3

The Tinkerer’s Corner is presented by the City of Oakland Parks, Recreation and Youth Department’s Studio One Arts Center, Discovery Center, and Town After-School Camp.The creative space will provide youth an opportunity to explore flight by building and testing their own airfoil, avian wings, and flying objects.

Studio One Art Center is the only city-run program dedicated to studio arts instruction in a wide range of media for persons of all ages including, but not limited to, classes in Ceramics, Glass Fusing, Stained Glass, Bead-making, Jewelry, Painting, Mixed Media, Drawing, Life Drawing, and a Tinkerer’s Class for youth.  The Discovery Center offers Oakland youth a fun way to explore their world through science, providing youth with a hands-on science and experiential learning experience.  The Discovery Center program is currently facilitating S.T.E.A.M activities at OPRYD Town After School Camps and will have programming events at Arroyo Viejo Recreation Center.

 

Spacesuit Demo with Richard Smith

11 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., Studio 2 

Learn more about one of our Soviet-era Cosmonaut spacesuits in this presentation with Chabot Space & Science Center volunteer Richard Smith. 

Chabot’s Sokol KV-2 space suit that will be on display is one of six Chabot has in its collection. It is a real spacesuit, though it has never been in space. This suit was used by cosmonauts on the ground as a practice suit.  

 

Astronomy Activities with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

1 p.m-5 p.m. Observatory Deck

 The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is an international non-profit scientific and educational organization. Through its materials, resources, and programs, the ASP promotes public science interest, engagement, and literacy through the awe and wonder of astronomy and related fields. 

 

Women In STEM Panel

2 p.m., The Theater

Join our host Dr. Debbie Senesky for a discussion about how early STEM education led these women scientists to a career with NASA. 

Participants

  • Dr. Debbie Senesky, host
    • Debbie G. Senesky is an Associate Professor at Stanford University in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department and the Principal Investigator of the EXtreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory (XLab). Her research interests include the development of nanomaterials for extreme harsh environments, high-temperature electronics, and robust instrumentation for Venus exploration. In addition, she currently serves on the board of directors of the non-profit organization Scientific Adventures for Girls. Prof. Senesky’s career path and research has been featured on Seeker, People Behind the Science podcast, The Future of Everything radio show, Space.com, and NPR’s Tell Me More program. More information about Prof. Senesky can be found at https://xlab.stanford.edu and on Instagram (@astrodebs). 
  • Dr. Natasha Batalha: Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center
  • Catch up with Dr. Batalha and her research work at NASA Ames exploring exoplanets and brown dwarfs. 
    •  
    • Dr. Natasha Batalha is a scientist at NASA Ames Research Center who studies the atmospheres of worlds beyond the Solar System, also called exoplanets. She specializes in determining the climate and chemical compositions of exoplanet atmospheres using transit and direct imaging spectroscopy. She does so by writing physical models to predict atmospheric structures, that can then be matched to data from telescopes. In the next year the revolutionary James Webb Space Telescope will be launching. Dr. Batalha is co-leading the largest exoplanet observing campaign to study the atmospheres of a mysterious class of planets between the size of Earth and Neptune, and therefore is anxiously awaiting a successful launch in December.   
  • Dr. Huy Tran: Director of Aeronautics at NASA’s Ames Research Center
  • Dr. Tran will discuss her immigrant story coming from Vietnam to America, her early interest and education in space and science, and her work at NASA Ames leading the aeronautics department. 
    • Dr. Tran manages research and technology development for advanced air traffic management tools, advanced aircraft design and analysis, and aviation safety technology. Facilities includes the world’s largest wind tunnel, transonic wind tunnel, six-degree of freedom vertical motion simulator as well as airport surface simulation. Research focus in subsonic rotary wing, and fixed wing aircraft, entry descend and landing for Mars and earth spacecraft, and vehicle systems analysis capabilities. 
  • Amanda Saravia-Butler, Bioinformatician at NASA’s Ames Research Center
  • Discover NASA Ames’ GeneLab and successes from this research platform from their Lead Bioinformatics Scientist. 
    • Amanda is a molecular biologist turned bioinformatician currently working on the GeneLab project at NASA Ames as the data processing lead. Originally from upstate New York, Amanda received her Bachelor’s degrees in Biology, Chemistry, and Mathematics from Utica College in Utica, NY. As an undergraduate student, she performed microbiology research to help discover a new species of bacteria. In September, 2017 she started at NASA Ames as a Mission Scientist on the Rodent Research project. Amanda began transitioning to GeneLab in May, 2018 and has been working on the GeneLab project as the Data Processing Lead for about 3 years. 
  • Marilyn Vasques: Director of Earth Science Project Office Director at NASA’s Ames Research Center
    • Dr. Vasques has managed various airborne science research projects all over the world for NASA’s Earth Science Division Program.  She now leads a group of 19 people who provide project management, coordination and logistics for complex multi-aircraft international campaigns. Her team plans the deployment and field operations for 100-400 people per project and has successfully managed more than 60 campaigns. For 22 years, she supported Life Science research experiments that took place on the Space Shuttle or Russian Biosatellites. Among her many jobs over the years was Project Manager, Project Scientist, Science Department Manager, Branch Chief and Logistics Manager.  She played different roles in 21 Space Shuttle Missions and 3 Russian Satellite Missions. 

 

Vacuum Chamber Demonstration with NASA Ames

6 p.m. – 9 p.m., Studio 3

Join NASA Ames STEM Education specialist Jonas Dino for the Vacuum Chamber Demonstration. Living in the vacuum of space or on the moon is not the same as living on Earth. Hypothesize then watch how different materials react to being placed into a vacuum including: marshmallows, air pillow packing materials, balloons, an alarm clock, and a glass of water. 

 

‘The key to human space exploration: (synthetic) biology as technology’ with Lynn Rothschild,

7 p.m., The Theater

Lynn Rothschild, a research scientist at NASA Ames and Adjunct Professor at Brown University, is passionate about the origin and evolution of life on Earth and elsewhere, while at the same time pioneering the use of synthetic biology to enable space exploration. Her research focuses on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. She has brought her imagination and creativity to the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, articulating a vision for the future of synthetic biology as an enabling technology for NASA’s missions, including human space exploration and astrobiology. Her lab is testing these plans in space on in the PowerCell secondary payload on the DLR EuCROPIS satellite. 

 

‘The search for evidence of life in the solar system’ with Alfonso Davila

8:30 p.m., The Theater

Is there life beyond Earth? The discovery of another inhabited world would be a society-shaping event that would forever change our perspective of life and the universe. Decades of robotic exploration have revealed an unexpected diversity of alien worlds that could potentially sustain life. This talk will discuss the scientific and technical challenges and strategies to search for signatures of life beyond Earth, and the possible implications of a positive result.  

Alfonso Davila is a research scientist in the Exobiology Branch at NASA Ames Research Center. After working as a post-doc at NASA Ames and as a research scientist at the SETI institute, he became a NASA Civil Servant in 2017.  His research activities include the study of life in environments that are considered analogous to other planetary bodies, such as the Atacama Desert in Chile and the ice-free regions in Antarctica. He also helps develop flight instruments and robotic missions to explore other worlds in the solar system, and to search for evidence of life beyond Earth.  

 


SUNDAY 

Join us on SUNDAY day for special talks led by NASA scientists, community space-themed builds, robotics demonstrations led our teen Galaxy Explorers and partners, hands on activities, singing from the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, special guests, food trucks and entertainment.  

Get Tickets

 

Collaborative Builds

All Day, Studio 3

Join us this weekend for Mars Habitat Building, where we’ll imagine what it would be like to build structures that can withstand the Martian atmosphere and support the needs of humans inhabiting this alien world. Tinkering is the process of testing out ideas, designing new projects and troubleshooting when things don’t work the way we expect. Community weekend builds allow us to tinker together, contribute to something larger than ourselves and share ideas with other makers. These projects take lots of experimentation and exploration and they can only be done with a group of people who all see and understand the world in different ways.  

 

Big Bubbles With Sterling Johnson

10 a.m. – 12 p.m., Main Entrance

Sterling Johnson was trained as an engineer and lawyer and used bubbles to unwind. He’s performed versions of his hand-blown bubbles for over 45 years. While first it was a past time to entertain friends, yet it soon developed it into a full stage show. He is the first person to walk completely through a bubble film and the only person to ever put a bubble inside a bubble inside a bubble on stage without any straws or tubes. Sterling is the only entertainer who specializes in blowing bubbles with his hands. 

 

Mozzeria

11am-2pm, Outside

 

Astronomy Activities with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

11 a.m-4 p.m. Observatory Deck

 The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is an international non-profit scientific and educational organization. Through its materials, resources, and programs, the ASP promotes public science interest, engagement, and literacy through the awe and wonder of astronomy and related fields. 

 

Spacesuit Demo with Richard Smith

11 a.m., 12 p.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m., Studio 2

Learn more about one of our Soviet-era Cosmonaut spacesuits in this presentation with Chabot Space & Science Center volunteer Richard Smith. 

Chabot’s Sokol KV-2 space suit that will be on display is one of six Chabot has in its collection. It is a real spacesuit, though it has never been in space. This suit was used by cosmonauts on the ground as a practice suit.  

 

Robotics Demonstrations With Team Sigma

11 a.m. – 4 p.m., Studio 2

We are Team Sigma. Our main mission is to have fun but also learn as well. We want to spread the learning of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). We have made plenty of mistakes, but we learn from them and aspire to take risks.

 

The Tinkerer’s Corner at Studio One Arts Center

11 a.m. – 4 p.m., Studio 3

The Tinkerer’s Corner is presented by the City of Oakland Parks, Recreation and Youth Department’s Studio One Arts Center, Discovery Center, and Town After-School Camp.The creative space will provide youth an opportunity to explore flight by building and testing their own airfoil, avian wings, and flying objects.    

Studio One Art Center is the only city-run program dedicated to studio arts instruction in a wide range of media for persons of all ages including, but not limited to, classes in Ceramics, Glass Fusing, Stained Glass, Bead-making, Jewelry, Painting, Mixed Media, Drawing, Life Drawing, and a Tinkerer’s Class for youth.  The Discovery Center offers Oakland youth a fun way to explore their world through science, providing youth with a hands-on science and experiential learning experience.  The Discovery Center program is currently facilitating S.T.E.A.M activities at OPRYD Town After School Camps and will have programming events at Arroyo Viejo Recreation Center. 

 

STEM Pathways To Aerospace-a Panel Discussion

1 p.m., The Theater 

Meet a panel of aerospace engineers from the Bay Area, who began their careers at Chabot Space & Science Center. These aerospace engineers represent space agencies such as NASA, SpaceX, Nordstrom and Joby will share highlights of their STEM pathways, glimpses into the future of space exploration and inspiration for the next generation.  

 

Dr. Penny Boston

3 p.m., The Theater

Hear about Dr. Boston’s experiences and discoveries exploring caves and how this led her to NASA Ames and the Astrobiology Institute. Learn more about how her cave explorations helps inform better understanding of the biology on other planets. 

Dr. Penny Boston is the Associate Director for Science Business Development, Code S (Science)
NASA Ames Research Center. Dr. Penny Boston is the former Director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute (NAI), at NASA Ames, Moffett Field. She leads the scientific activities of the Institute’s member teams and all operational aspects of the organization. Penny led the NAI in fulfilling its mission to perform, support, and catalyze collaborative interdisciplinary astrobiology research; train the next generation of astrobiologists; provide scientific and technical leadership for astrobiology space mission investigations; and develop new information technology approaches for collaborations among widely distributed investigators. Prior to joining NASA, Penny, in 2002, founded and directed the Cave and Karst Studies Program at New Mexico Tech, Socorro, New Mexico, where she also served as a professor and led their Earth and environmental sciences department as chair. She also served from 2002 to 2016 as associate director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute, a congressionally mandated institute in Carlsbad, New Mexico. 

 

Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir

2, 3 and 4 p.m., Courtyard 

Join us for a series of socially distanced, masked performances throughout the day. 

Since 1982, the internationally and nationally award-winning Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir has offered exceptional music and choral training to over 10,000 children from schools throughout the San Francisco East Bay Area.