Permission To Dream

We have plans but we have not done anything big yet as for this year's celebration of International Heliophysical Year 2007. As of today, we are still stuck on an international project called Permission To Dream based on Los Angeles, US. Our achievements in this project include huge participation of school students and public in different parts of the nation in marveling the night sky wonders through the telescope and curriculum provided by the project. After recently being affiliated to SEDS, we are yet to announce some programs as SEDS-Nepal.

We have found a lot of excitement in working with little children and the public. Pedestrians have stopped and awed at what exists in the sky and what one could see through the telescope when we set up the telescope on road side. One primary level student who participated in observation sessions during 2005-2006 wrote as part of the program?

"I liked Saturn the best. It was like an egg. It had a ring. Because of ring it looked like an egg. It was golden color. When I saw it, I thought if we go to this planet we would fall down. If given a chance I would go there and see its ring because I have heard that this ring is made of rocks. If we go there and see the ring from side, we won?t see the ring. We will feel that the ring is vanished. So, I think it is very enjoyable to go there and see these things."

[He predicts correct about the ring seen sideways. Saturn?s rings are so thin that when looking from sideways you won?t see them. We will observe this phenomenon from Earth on September, 2009 when the rings are in direct line with Earth.]

With all this, we can only say that even with such small works (and small telescopes of course) we can make a lot of impact on the society. This is what we have learnt today. This has led us to understand that more schools need to participate in the project Permission To Dream. At first, Kedar Badu of Galileo Astronomical Society of Pokhara (GASPO) had referred us to the program. This year we will help more schools get involved with the project.

The First Step

It has been hard to dream anything more than what we have done till today in a disadvantaged society like ours. But still we do have some vision to do something more. Using IHY-2007 is, as we think, the best chance to show what we can do and to initiate any work we want to do.

Work plan

1. Organizations that will work with us:

i.                     National Society of Science based on Janakpur, an ancient city in eastern Terai.

ii.                     Everest Science Network, it owns the first planetarium of Nepal

iii.                   B. P. Koirala Science Museum, Planetarium and Observatory Development Board, a government based program that is building an observatory in the world-famous tourist destination of Nagarkot hill, in the outskirts of Kathmandu Valley.

iv.                  NAST (Previously RONAST)

3. Conferences (June/July): Student teams from wide range of fields including Physics, Engineering, Electronics, Robotics and Geology will be called through media and direct contact to participate in workshops and bring their ideas about any possible student-based research projects on Astronomy and Geophysics.
4. Student groups will give their presentations on their ideas in one place. Guest scientists will also give their speeches. This will help in making a common ground for space technology related students for extensive use and development of space exploration technologies.