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Unique Gift to City Tech Foreshadows Future of Communications in Space
City Tech recently received a unique gift foreshadowing tomorrow’s mode of interstellar communications, courtesy of Brooklyn developer Charles Cara, president of Cara Construction & Development and a major player in the ongoing revitalization of DUMBO.
From left, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn artist C Bangs and City Tech Physics Professor Gregory L. Matloff
Photos courtesy of Tenzing Chemey
The gift consists of the original artwork for a holographic or three-dimensional image and four two-dimensional components of that image created by Bedford-Stuyvesant/Brooklyn artist and former NASA Faculty Fellow C Bangs in collaboration with her husband, Gregory L. Matloff, a City Tech physics professor and NASA consultant. The works may soon be on permanent display in the College’s New Student Welcome Center and a featured exhibit at City Tech’s 60th Anniversary Founders Day Celebration tentatively planned for December.
The hologram is the product of a 2001 NASA grant-funded research project to explore ways of coating a solar sail-powered space vehicle with a layer of holographic film containing visual images able to withstand the potentially destructive effects of radiation on voyages to the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond. NASA expects to launch robotic missions using solar sail technology as early as 2020 or shortly thereafter.
Titled “Messages from Earth,” the Bangs hologram is a variation on the original Pioneer 10 and 11 message plaques designed by astronomer Carl Sagan and others and sent into deep space in the 1970s. It contains both 2-D and 3-D images of human male and female figures that combine separate features of all the races, as well as mathematical equations related to the velocity of the solar sail vehicle and a diagram of where Earth is located in our solar system and galaxy.
“Mathematics may be the common galactic language,” says Bangs, “and including images of mathematical equations could convey much to spacefaring aliens about human reason and our ability to think abstractly.”
According to Professor Matloff, “A single solar sail-powered vehicle using the holographic film coating technology could carry thousands of images into space for possible interception by technologically advanced beings, if they’re out there somewhere in the galaxy.”
Bangs presented the gift on behalf of Cara earlier this spring at a 60th Anniversary Donor Recognition Reception for 150 major supporters hosted by City Tech President Russell K. Hotzler and College foundation Chair Martin Jaffe. Also representing Cara at the event was business partner and attorney Tom Cohen.
Other speakers included Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who commended City Tech on its many contributions to education, workforce development and community assistance since the first day of classes in 1947. Yvonne Riley-Tepie, president of the City Tech Alumni Association and an assistant vice president with Commerce Bank, also thanked the gathering for its support of City Tech and its mission.
More 60th Anniversary Donor Recognition Reception Photos
06/18/07
