Human history to orbit sun

STAFF WRITER

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An image of early human history will soon be voyaging into the stars on a spacecraft thanks to the effort of Eastern New Mexico University personnel.

An artistic rendition of the Clovis Points, sharp instruments fashioned by early inhabitants of North America at the Blackwater Draw archeological

Courtesy photo: Eastern New Mexico University

The Clovis Points, sharp instruments fashioned by early inhabitants of North America at the Blackwater Draw site over 10,000 years ago, will be included in digitized form on OSIRIS-REx, a spacecraft traveling to the asteroid Bennu to collect samples.

site over 10,000 years ago, were submitted to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by Matt Hillsman and Sean Shepherd of ENMU.

The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, will be launched in the second half of 2016 to gather a sample from the asteroid Bennu. NASA, along with a team from the University of Arizona, wanted outside help. The public was invited to submit digitized artwork to NASA’s social media profiles, which would then be included on a hard drive attached to OSIRIS-REx.

Hillsman, a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, had already attempted to send a Clovis Point along on a journey to the moon that the university was planning, but it proved to be too expensive.

“I put that idea in the back of my mind, and a couple of weeks ago, Sean approached me with this information he had received from NASA, and I thought, ‘This is neat. Instead of sending something to the moon, we can send something to the asteroid,’” Hillsman said.

When he heard about the opportunity to submit art, he approached ENMU anthropology professor David Kilby, who had already created artistic renditions of the Clovis Points. After Kilby agreed to use his renditions, art professor Bradford Hamann made the digital renditions to be submitted to NASA.

According to Erin Morton, head of communications for the OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator’s Office at the University of Arizona, the purpose of including artwork on the spacecraft is to engage the public in the idea of exploration.

“We as a human species have been exploring ever since we began, and part of that exploration involves a creative component. We’re trying to get people to start engaging that creative impulse in themselves to recognize what NASA and the scientific community is doing, and realize that there is that connection there.”

The hard drive containing the artwork, Morton said, will remain on OSIRIS-REx even after it has collected its sample from Bennu, which will eject in a capsule that will return to earth. The craft will then enter a safe orbit around the sun, in which it will remain in perpetuity unless it is called out for another mission.

“There’s no weathering effect of atmosphere out in space, so the spacecraft will exist for thousands of years, along with the art that is on it.”

Since the spacecraft is never returning, the image of the Clovis Points will exist in space to explore the universe alongside the other submissions, which is why Hillsman chose it in the first place.

“The Clovis Point is representative of the spirit of adventure that probably started well over 10,000 years ago by the arrival of the Clovis people into the new world. We just thought it was an extension of that.”

Morton shares that sentiment, noting that this is simply an extension of the exploration undertaken throughout man’s history.

“We explored the different continents, and that’s what brought us up to America. That’s what populated the entire world. That’s what Lewis and Clark were doing. They were going out where their society had never been before, and they were seeing things for the first time,” she said. “We, as humanity, have seen the world, and so the solar system is the next place for us to go and see what’s there, and see how it is that we relate to it.”