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Astronomycast, episode 342, Sunsetting Spacecraft.

Welcome to Astronomycast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos.

We'll help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know.

My name is Fraser Kane, I'm the publisher of University Day, and with me is Dr. Pamela Gay, a professor at Southern Illinois University Ebertsville, and the director of CosmoQuest.

Hey, how are you doing?

I'm doing well. How are you doing, Fraser?

Good. I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but I would like to plug.

Okay.

So hang out a thorn.

Yes, April 26th, 27th. I'm actually going to start posting blogs about that today.

So last week, for those of you listening to the audio recording, you'll have multiple things to catch up on.

We're going to talk about the history of CosmoQuest and what it is exactly that we're looking for funding for.

So hopefully many of you out there have jobs if you don't, we hope you find them quickly.

And if you want to consider getting your employer involved to help sponsor us, we're looking for corporate sponsors, we're looking for clubs to donate money.

Right now, I just got back from the National Science Teachers Association meeting in Boston, where all of us who do astronomy education at one level or another were pretty much walking up to each other and going,

okay, are you going to make it?

And it was like we were talking to a bunch of other terminally ill individuals because, well, NASA's budget for doing citizen science, for doing education, for doing communications, all of those fabulous things is currently less than what one individual reportedly spent for a commercial ticket to go around the moon someday in the future on unproven technology.

We need help and we're hoping that you'll help us define the future of astronomy, citizen science, education, and communication with your business, your friends, contributions.

So what's the date again that April 26th, 27th, we are going live at 10 a.m. Central, 8 a.m. Pacific, 4 p.m. London, and we're going live for 36 straight hours.

Nice, not, I mean, it's going to be pain and suffering, but in the cause of raising funds for the Cosmic West in astronomy research.

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