Infinity Science Center, Pearlington, Mississippi

The Infinity Science Center is located at Exit 2 off of I-10 in Mississippi, right next to the Welcome Center. It's only open Thursday through Sunday, and we decided to head there on Friday to check it out. 

Almost 15 years ago, INFINITY set its sight on inspiring, amazing and engaging. The science center’s goal: to be THE place where the curious at any age can lose themselves in the depths of the ocean and the farthest reaches of space. INFINITY’s mission: be a place where guests can explore our earth, oceans and space through deepening levels of involvement, ranging from walks through museum galleries, memorable videos and live presentations, engaging, unique citizen science programs, and occasionally participating in world-class historic events.

INFINITY aspires to be in the life-changing business, for students, for teachers and the curious at any age. We seek to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians by nurturing their innate curiosity. By featuring role models – both heroic individuals AND some of the region’s world-class research organizations – INFINITY seeks to nurture a general populace that will support national commitments to basic scientific research. And since laying a foundation for a scientifically-literate workforce begins with outstanding teachers, INFINITY works hand-in-hand with the area’s front line, formal and home school education communities to help develop a stronger K–12 educator workforce.

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The first Section was the Carnivorous Plants. There are over 600 species of carnivorous plants around the world, the plants ensnare their prey in only one of five ways: 

Pitcher's Plants' belly is full of digestive juices and insects simply fall into their belly.

Sarracenia Pitcher Plant

Sundews use color and smell to lure their prey to touch the sticky stalks, which can then bend around the prey and extract nutrients.

Fork Leaf Sundew

Water-based Bladderworts burst small chambers of air whenever prey get near, hoping to suck the tiny animals inside when water rushes in to fill the void. Like little stomachs, each bladder is designed for digestion.

Cork Screw Plant lures prey down a one-way tunnel lined with little hairs pointed in a way that prevents the animal from backing out. Eventually, the tunnel offers a larger space to turn around: the plant's sticky stomach.

Venus Flytrap has hairs on the leaf. Two touches of those hairs trigger an electrochemical reaction that rapidly pinches the plant's leaves closed. After a couple of days of eating, the plant will open and reset.

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The next exhibit we viewed was the wave tank. Waves transfer energy through water. Whether caused by wind in the ocean or the motor in their exhibit tank, a wave is a repeating movement that transfers energy through water. Wave energy travels until it meets something like a buoy, boat, or beach -- or your body when you're swimming near the shore. Part of the wave energy is imparted to these objects. The buoy bobs, the boat rocks, the beach erodes -- and, like the buoy, a swimmer bobs up and down.

Waves change as they come closer to shore. As every swimmer, surfer and wader knows, waves change dramatically as they get closer to shore. Waves typically become more frequent (their wavelength shortens) and taller (their wave height increases) in shallower water. They break when their wave length is 40 to 70 percent of water depth.

Rogue waves, tsunamis, and storm surges: out-of-the ordinary waves can cause extraordinary damage. Under certain conditions, several normal waves can merge into a rogue "monster wave." Underwater earthquakes and avalanches may produce tsunamis. Hurricanes create bulges of water called storm surges and shove them onto shore.

Tsunami Buoy

In 1995, NOAA began the development of the Deep-ocean Assessment and Detection of Tsunami  (DART) system to provide better warnings for tsunami-prone communities. Until 2004, the U.S. operated 6 systems in the Pacific Ocean, however, the network has now expanded to 39 buoys operating in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the Caribbean, and in the Gulf of Mexico. The tsunami buoy and companion sea-floor sensor use satellite communication to transmit tsunami wave information to Tsunami Warning Centers around the globe.

How Atlantic Hurricanes form. It starts with warm air over a warm ocean. The first thing to know about how hurricanes form and grow is that it's a cycle based on some principles you many have heard of: water evaporates and heat rises. Warm air over a warm ocean evaporates sea water. That warm air full of evaporated seawater rises, cooling as it moves away from the warm water. But, cool air can't hold as much moisture as warm air, so the water falls out of the air forming a cloud. Earth's rotation pushes the cloud, causing it to curve into the "arms" of a hurricane you've seen on satellite photographs.

Hurricanes keep spinning and growing as long as they get energy from the warm ocean water. When they move over land or cooler water, they weaken and die. But if they move back over warm ocean water, they can regain strength.

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The other main exhibit was about the space missions. The first one was the ISS Destiny Module -- America's research laboratory in space. The Destiny module, also known as the U.S. Lab, is the primary operating facility for U.S. research payloads aboard the International Space Station. It was berthed to the Unity module and activated over a period of five days in February, 2001.

Inside the ISS

Earth's radiation shield: Most EM (Electromagnetic) energy never reaches Earth's surface. Earth's atmosphere shields us from the most harmful EM energy. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gaseous molecules in Earth's atmosphere block most types of radiation, letting through only radio waves, visible light, and some ultraviolet light. Without that shield, high-energy gamma rays, X-rays, and intense ultraviolet (UV) light would quickly kill us.

Apollo 4

Apollo 4 was launched on November 9, 1967, and was the first flight of the giant Saturn V launch vehicle. Reaching an altitude of 11,234 miles, the unmanned flight of Command and Service Modules CSM 017 lasted 8-1/2 hours. The Command Module reentered the atmosphere at 24,917 miles per hour and splashed down in the Pacific. The flight qualified the heat shield for lunar flight.

Apollo Capsule Module

This is a model of the Apollo capsules that carried crews of three astronauts on missions to space from 1968 to 1972. These included six missions that reached the surface of the moon, including the historic Apollo 11 flight in July 1969.  A seventh lunar mission, Apollo 13, failed to reach the surface of the moon after an in-flight explosion crippled the spacecraft and forced a perilous return to Earth for astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert. 

Fred Haise

Fred Haise's Uniform

Moon Rock

This lunar sample was collected by Astronaut David R. Scott in 1971 near the Apollo 15 lunar module. It weighs about 3-1/3 ounces. It is a tiny fragment of the original sample, which weighed 10 pounds, 8 ounces. This rock, called Breccia, is named after the lunar highlands region from which it was retrieved. It is extremely old, believed to be about 3.9 billion years older than almost any of the Earth's surface rocks. Scientific research is still conducted on lunar samples stored at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The majority of samples are kept in pristine condition awaiting the discovery of new investigative methods and techniques.

Lunar Module

 

The Apollo Lunar Module, originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module, was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space, and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth.

The Space Race ~~ On October 4, 1957, the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite to be placed into Earth orbit. Coming at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet success dealt a hard blow to American pride. In 1961, just one month after President Kennedy's failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, Kennedy was ready with a bold response to the Soviets and their allies. On May 25, 1961, he addressed a joint session of Congress in which he exclaimed support for freedom around the world and stated that the "dramatic achievements in space" would be the United States' weapon in a battle between "freedom and tyranny." 

Apollo was born. Kennedy gave the responsibility for space activities to his Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson, who had earlier spearheaded a drive in Congress to create NASA. In a memo that Kennedy sent to Johnson in 1961, Kennedy specifically called for the development of large "rockets and boosters" and asked about the feasibility of such a strict deadline. Johnson consulted with Wernher von Braun, the architect behind Saturn V, and von Braun gave a very optimistic response. The Saturn V, which was our nation's ticket to achieving our goal, was not born after years and years of study and careful planning, instead, it was rolled out in a hurry, in the fall of 1961. Kennedy wanted no time wasted in proving our might. After President Kennedy's death in 1963, his early memo to Lyndon B. Johnson was used to justify the continuation of the Apollo program.

From the moment President Kennedy declared our intentions to send a man to the moon to Neil Armstrong's first historic step onto the lunar surface and every mission thereafter, the Apollo program stands among humankind's crowning achievements. (See my blog post on Neil Armstrong's Museum.) It was a revolutionary step that launched a new era of human space exploration, marking in time American pride over achieving the impossible. Between December 1968 and December 1972, NASA sent nine manned missions to the moon. By 1975, the program had been cancelled, leaving two moon expeditions on the ground. (The Apollo 20 mission became Skylab.)

Saturn V Rocket Booster

The rocket booster is just one part, the most powerful part, of a three-stage rocket launch vehicle specifically designed to carry astronauts beyond Earth's orbit, all the way to the moon. The Saturn V rockets sent American astronauts to space in the years 1961-1971 on 11 total spaceflights. Six of those spaceflights successfully landed on the surface of the moon. The Saturn V was also used as the launch vehicle for Skylab, the first space station. The name "Saturn" was given to the launch vehicles by von Braun, as a logical successor to the previous "Jupiter" series rockets, as Saturn is the next plant after Jupiter in our solar system.

F-1 Rocket Engine

Developed by Rocketdyne,  five F-1 engines powered by the S-1C first stage of the Saturn V rocket that launched humans to the moon during the Apollo Program and later to the orbiting Skylab spacecraft. The F-1, with 1,522,000 pounds of thrust, is the most powerful single-chamber, liquid-fueled rocket engine every built.