Our Inspirations

Our Inspirations. .

The greatest thing we can do is inspire young minds… , - John Glenn

John Glenn was born in 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio. After a career as a pilot for the US Marine Corps, and as a test pilot, he was selected to be one of the "Mercury-7" NASA's first cohort of astronauts. On February 20, 1962, Glenn was launched into space atop a dangerous Mercury Atlas rocket and completed 3 and a half orbits., As a US Senator, Glenn focused his legislative sights on the promotion of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education. Before his death in December 2016, he gave his name to this project in hopes that it would inspire young people to become passionate about space and science., Reconnecting us to the Universe , Throughout most of history, humans have been inspired by the wondrous sight of a night sky filled with stars. Our stories and mythologies have been mapped upon the patterns of the stars. Our calendars, festivals, and agriculture have been linked to the movement of the heavens. In recent times, a view of the night sky has been an inspiration in many young people for a lifelong passion for science in general., Sadly, however, the lights of our modern world have in recent decades put our view of the heavens behind a veil of artificial light. Most of us live under a sky that gives only a pale, washed out, hint of its former beauty., The Hocking Hills is one of the few areas left in the state of Ohio where the night sky can be seen in its near pristine state. It draws on the traditions of countless generations of humans who marked the important changes of the seasons through the motion of the sun. They built great structures like Stonehenge in England, the Chaco Canyon Kiva in New Mexico or the many Hopewell and Fort Ancient Earthworks in Ohio, that commemorated these days.