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Inspiration for the Beyond Hayden Program
To inspire students we must first capture their imaginations!
Integral to NASA’s core mission is a call to “inspire the next generation of explorers.” To inspire students we must first capture their imaginations. No better place exists for capturing the minds of students (and educators and researchers!) than Yellowstone, which has been fascinating mankind since the Sheepeaters—a Shoshone clan—first walked across its geyser basins, and then later when John Colter reported amazing stories of steaming vents and boiling mudpots to captivated, though unbelieving, eastern audiences. Colter’s words alone were sufficient to inspire 19th century cross-continent Earth science explorations, among them the Hayden Expedition of 1871(pictured below).
Sanctioned in 1869 by the U.S. Congress, Dr. Ferdinand Hayden gathered an unprecedented expedition team: private sector scientists, agency personnel, and even the U.S. military. The group brought the latest in technology including large format cameras and survey equipment to greatly improve a variety of maps. The goal of this famous expedition was to explore and document the Yellowstone region and its natural wonders. The expedition did just that and as preliminary information, photos, paintings, and maps arrived in Washington D.C., Congress was quick to act, creating the world’s first national park. We present this proposal in the spirit of the Hayden Expedition and with an explicit goal of employing NASA data to extend the spirit of that expedition. As they inspired the Earth scientists of their day—and indeed the whole of the U.S.—using the latest in mapping technology and education techniques, so can we.
Yellowstone is no less fascinating today than it was in 1871
The ~20 million acre Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) contains the world’s premier collection of geothermal features; diverse native plant communities; relatively intact large-scale processes (e.g., fire, floods, and animal migrations); the full suite of large carnivore species present prior to European settlement (including fox, wolverine, coyotes, lynx, wolves, mountain lions, black bears, and grizzly bears); the headwaters for surface and ground water flow to a large section of the U.S.; the last stronghold of two native cutthroat trout species (Yellowstone [Oncorhynchus clarki bouvieri] and the closely related Snake River [O. c. spp.]); and lies at the interface of several major North American eco-regions—as such it includes a diverse mix of forests and grasslands, mountains and high plains, and wet and arid regions.
Yellowstone is the perfect location to inspire the next generation of NASA explorers, helping them push today’s exciting Earth and natural sciences knowledge boundaries, much in the spirit of the Sheepeaters, Colter, and the famous Hayden Expedition from which our proposing team derives inspiration.
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