Portland State Vanguard Volume 76 Issue 27

VOLUME 76 • ISSUE 27 • NOVEMBER 9, 2021

NEWS

SPORTS

SCIENCE & TECH

La Casa Latina celebrates Día de los Muertos P. 6–7

Vikings contend for first place in volleyball conference P. 8-9

Portland aerospace community discusses at annual expo P. 10

CONTENTS

COVER BY SHANNON STEED, COVER PHOTO BY SOL CEJAS

ARTS & CULTURE EXPLORING THE SURREAL AND STRANGE HAUS OF LUNA

P. 4

ENTERING THE HELLSCAPE OF MARIO PARTY SUPERSTARS

P. 5

NEWS CELEBRATING DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS AT PORTLAND STATE

P. 6-7

STAFF EDIT ORI A L EDITOR IN CHIEF Béla Kurzenhauser

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Béla Kurzenhauser

MANAGING EDITOR Karisa Yuasa

ONLINE EDITOR Lily Hennings

PHOTO EDITOR Sofie Brandt

COPY CHIEF Mackenzie Streissguth

NEWS EDITOR Victoria Calderon

MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Olivia Lee

SPORTS EDITOR Eric Shelby

CONTRIBUTORS Alberto Alonso Pujazon Bogani Allison Kirkpatrick Milo Loza Tanner Todd

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Ryan McConnell

SPORTS VIKINGS UPSET WEBER STATE WILDCATS FOR A THIRD STRAIGHT WIN SCIENCE & TECH TAKEAWAYS FROM PORTLAND’S AEROSPACE EXPO

PRODUC TION & DE SIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Shannon Steed

A DV ISING & ACCOUN TING COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA Reaz Mahmood

DESIGNERS Whitney Griffith Mia Levy Astrid Luong Anastasia Pargett Abigail Wallhauser

STUDENT MEDIA ACCOUNTANT Maria Dominguez

T ECHNOL OGY & W EB SIT E TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS Kahela Fickle George Olson Kwanmanus Thardomrong

To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com

STUDENT MEDIA TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR Vacant

MIS SION S TAT EMEN T Vanguard ’s mission is to serve the Portland State community with timely, accurate, comprehensive and critical content while upholding high journalistic standards. In the process, we aim to enrich our staff with quality, hands-on journalism education and a number of skills highly valued in today’s job market.

P. 8-9 P. 10

A BOU T Vanguard, established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Tuesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.

WE’RE HIRING International Editor EMAIL RESUME AND COVER LETTER TO EDITOR@PSUVANGUARD.COM

PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 9, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

EXPLORING THE SURREAL AND STRANGE HAUS OF LUNA SOL CEJAS’ IMMERSIVE AND AMBITIOUS INSTALLATION EXPLORES THE UNCANNY

THE ENTRANCE TO THE GOLD ROOM IN THE HAUS OF LUNA. COURTESY OF JESSE COBBS

TANNER TODD After her tenants left in April 2020 during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sol Cejas’ rental property in Vancouver, Washington, sat empty. It wouldn’t stay that way for long.

By May, a concept for an immersive art installation—the size of a house—had started to form in the Buenos Aires-born artist’s mind. By June and July, the artwork started to come together.

For the next several months of the summer of 2020, Cejas worked tirelessly to design and build the installation, piece by piece.

“The entire summer, basically, my family would go places and I was like, ‘I can’t. This is what I think of when I wake up,’” Cejas said. “I’ve never had that focus [before].”

Cejas dedicated long hours to the piece, laying down paint, installing neon lights and mounting sculptures and fixtures into the ceiling. After months of work, Cejas’ vision finally took shape in the form of Haus of Luna, a spatial art installation immersive enough to walk into.

In its finished form, the Haus of Luna is unlike any house most viewers have ever seen, but it still resembles one, albeit in unfamiliar ways.

The Haus has a hearth and a chimney, but nothing crackles or flickers in the fireplace besides a lone TV set tuned to static. There is a kitchen, too, but none of the appliances can prepare food, and a closer look reveals that the electric stove’s burners have been removed and replaced with record players, perhaps a nod to other forms of sustenance that can’t be eaten. In most places, the standard layouts and utilities of everyday living have been cheerfully modified, removed or altered—recognizable but jarringly out of place.

“I wanted to have usual things in unusual places,” Cejas explained, gesturing at the

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ARTS & CULTURE

disparate range of familiar but oddly juxtaposed items. The arrangement and placement of the pieces evokes a feeling of the uncanny—the discovery of strange details in ordinarily familiar places and things. Unlike the uncanny encountered in psychoanalysis, Cejas’ scenes aren’t inherently unsettling—as she puts it, they are “entirely subjective.”

Cejas plays with psychology throughout the entire piece, with a surreal sense of style. Haus of Luna’s surrealist influences run deep, and Cejas displays the impact of her artistic predecessors proudly: a melting clock—a direct reference to one of Salvador Dali’s most famous works—is displayed on the mantle above the fireplace. Other influences show up in the installation such as the prolific use of abstract neon lighting—a signature medium of James Turrell, an artist that Cejas counts among her influences.

Haus of Luna dances in surrealist territory with its fixation on bringing the subconscious into the realm of conscious awareness. The installation makes a point of putting the viewer in a liminal space filled with dream colors and textures. The space becomes so thoroughly saturated with unnatural colors and juxtapositions that it is easy to forget the everyday colors and shapes of life outside.

To complete the effect, Cejas tinted windows and sliding doors throughout the installation, so that a viewer trying to catch a glimpse of the world outside the house would be met with more of the neon colours already surrounding them.

Objects, statues, mannequins and creeping vines are installed into the walls and ceiling of the house, and offer just enough clues to get a visitor’s mind guessing for explanations. Viewers are left trying to examine the work for interpretations,

and the Haus leaves visitors unsure of whether the meaning they find is theirs—or Cejas’.

The Haus of Luna withholds an easy answer, but Cejas does hint at the piece’s autobiographical leanings.

“It’s kind of like a map of mind,” Cejas explained. “Obviously it’s very nostalgic.”

She pointed to a room lined with gold, gesturing at various objects connected to coming out as an artist. According to Cejas, the idea of art as a serious vocation was inconceivable to the people around her, growing up in Argentina.

“Art wasn’t a thing,” Cejas said. “It was like, yeah, that’s a great hobby. But what are you going to do? So I went to school for accounting.”

When business school failed to stamp out the closeted artist in Cejas, she finally came out to the Pacific Northwest, where she studied art and design. Since graduating, she’s worked extensively in visual imagery, but Haus of Luna represents an unprecedented evolution in her oeuvre. The piece’s unique size and scope set it apart from previous projects, but also demonstrated a physical embodiment of her experience-oriented artistic philosophy.

“We need more,” said Cejas about the future of art. “We appreciate experience now.”

A quick look at even a few of the rooms inside the Haus of Luna reveals the installation’s deliberate focus on engagement. In one room, participants are encouraged to create multicolored shadows using a heavily modified projector and objects provided for them.

In another, mirrors and lights are skillfully arranged to entice visitors to frame themselves in artfully-composed selfies. In fact, a plaque mounted on the wall encourages readers to tag Haus of Luna’s Instagram in their pictures.

In each case, the rooms and interactive artwork reflect a creative philosophy that stresses a shift towards multisensory engagement. More than just being an alternative approach to entertainment, Cejas believes that Haus of Luna’s engagement-focused style caters to a new-found preference for experience over material wealth in the culture of the United States.

“Yes, a car is neat,” Cejas said. “But it doesn’t give me the same amount of joy as going to a music festival or a concert or going out to eat. It’s an experience, and people like that.”

Unlike music festivals or concerts, the Haus of Luna frequently turns the viewer’s attention to something more intimate—themselves. In pieces like the Shadow Room, which projects the viewers’ silhouettes in cascading neon colors, Cejas playfully suggests that her viewers confront their shadows—not as something to be repressed, but as an experience to be playfully engaged with.

“We fear our shadows,” Cejas explained. “And [the Shadow Room] is like, shadows are good.

Explore your shadow.”

In other parts of the house, like the Neon Room, guests can see and interact with their reflection through the room’s reflective ceilings and walls.

“You see different parts of yourself,” Cejas said.

“You see yourself in different ways.”

Ultimately, Cejas and her work embody the need to experience something new, and this theme runs throughout the Haus of Luna, in all of it’s surreal charm.

“As humans, we need interaction,” Cejas said.

“We need to experience things.”

Visitors who would like to experience Cejas’ work for themselves can visit the Haus of Luna in Vancouver, WA where it is currently exhibiting.

PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 9, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

ENTERING THE HELLSCAPE OF

MARIO PARTY SUPERSTARS THE SERIES’ NEWEST ENTRY IS A

FANTASTICALLY GLEEFUL EXERCISE IN MASOCHISM BÉLA KURZENHAUSER CHARTING FROM THE ANCIENT DAYS of penny arcade cabinets to the modern era, decades of game designers have carefully deliberated and pined over the concept of punishment in video games. After the raw cruelty of arcade games—mathematically designed to be as unfair as possible to milk precious quarters from the wallets and pockets of arcade patrons—failed to meaningfully transfer over into home console releases of the ‘80s and ‘90s, gaming entered a brief period of time in which challenge and difficulty were no longer primary goals of designers working in the mainstream.

Eventually, the commercial and critical success of ruthless sweat-inducing action games like Dark Souls and precision platformers such as Super Meat Boy demonstrated a significant interest among consumers for difficult games, opening up the gate to developers everywhere to be as sadistic as possible.

However, despite the tidal wave of difficult “Souls-like” action-RPGs and nostalgia-fueled throwbacks inspired by the immensely difficult games of the NES era, none of these games would truly manage to capture some sense of absolute evil inflicted upon the player.

Indeed, only one franchise—with a bubbly aesthetic carefully designed to deceptively hide the evil that lurked within—has managed to capture the cruelty and evil that the human species is capable of. If you dare to, gaze into the eyes of the devil and you will see Mario Party Superstars.

PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 9, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

In many ways, Mario Party Superstars—the twelfth mainline installment in the 23year running series—represents the ultimate evolution of Mario Party as a game. Rather than trying and failing to successfully innovate upon the game’s mechanics like the last few games in the series did, Superstars hones in on the best parts of the series’ history by lifting content from prior entries and refurbishing it for the Nintendo Switch.

The game boards are curated from the first three games on the N64, and the 100 minigames are selected from the franchise’s entire history, allowing for a significant amount of variety between them.

Between the resurrected boards and the remastered minigames, Superstars evokes the feeling of a greatest-hits Mario Party game more intent on acknowledging the balladic simplicity of the series’ earliest entries than it is on attempting to reinvent the wheel.

Unlike the far more middlingly-received Mario Party 10 and Super Mario Party, Superstars reduces the complexity of Mario Party’s board gameinspired structure into a simple yet distinct setup. While having only five boards, each board feels extraordinarily unique in the way that it plays. The complexity for each one varies as well, ensuring that playing on different boards radically changes the play experience.

The boards are each individually distinguished with a specific difficulty, allowing you and your friends to curate play sessions depending on the amount of cruelty you are planning on dispensing. Mario Party is, after all, a game of sabotage, theft and moral vandalism. Once a match is started, the cards are off the table and the players off the chain, as all prior allegiances and friendships are discarded and tossed away.

What makes Superstars even more masochistic than the series’ reputation would lead you WHITNEY GRIFFITH to believe relies largely on the exceeding polish that the game presents. Like most Nintendo games, Superstars is presented with a near-flawless sheen. Every minigame feels resoundingly more responsive than its original counterpart did, and the slickness and satisfaction that come with each one fuels the desire to gain skill and familiarity with the game’s mechanics.

The

game’s only blemish is Nintendo’s consistently poor support for online play, as even a single player having a bad connection can cause the match to become unplayable with the lag induced by the awful netplay, causing frustration and failure during minigames.

Outside of that, the game is so disgustingly fair that any mistake made or punishment allocated to you is either entirely your fault or the result of the borderline-unethical barbarity of your fellow players. Even the most certain victory can be robbed, stolen and beaten out of you at the last minute by a star-pilfering Boo or sly Chomp Call. Hell hath no fury like a Luigi scorned, and that Luigi will most certainly do his best to betray and deceive those who have wronged him.

As the match pushes onwards and the turns pass quickly, all goodwill is abandoned as the savage ruthlessness of the players kicks in, desperately clobbering one another in hope of reigning supreme in the competition.

The anger induced by such moments ensures that matches are not simply a competitive endeavor but also a social experience. Mario Party Superstars is like a steam engine powered by this anger, with moments of levity or peace few and far between. The urge to stop playing is intense, but nonetheless, you will return to it for just one more game in a foolish attempt to regain your dignity.

Superstars’ candy-colored shell just barely obfuscates the hellishness underneath, cracking to reveal an exceedingly cruel and masochistic exercise in suffering, sabotage—and triumph. It is a game whose very shape seems to be possessed and defined by entropy, rearing chaos and disorder. A game that transforms the kind into the cruel, the weak into the tyrannical and the bold into the stupid; a game where friendships, allegiances and regimes can wither away at the snap of a finger; where the mighty are humbled, desecrated, torn apart and shamed—and where the most unholy of unholy thoughts are manifested into action and inhumanity.

Hearts will be crushed, minds will be shattered, controllers will be broken and friendships will be dismantled. But, in the end, Superstars, in all its beautiful and horrible glory, is an acknowledgement of what Mario Party has always done and always will do best— making friends into enemies and enemies into friends amidst a battlefield of supposedly family-friendly catastrophe and destruction.

ARTS & CULTURE

5

PORTLAND STATE STUDENTS CELEBRATE

DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS LA CASA LATINA RETURNS TO IN-PERSON EVENTS VICTORIA CALDERON When it comes to the decade-long support La Casa Latina Student Center has provided for students, a physical space on campus for students to reconnect with and bond over their culture is just the beginning. Each year, the space welcomes all people from differing socioeconomic classes and connects students with career opportunities, mentorship and mental health resources.

After students around campus celebrated Halloween, La Casa Latina started their yearly celebration of Día De Los Muertos for the ninth year in a row. This year’s celebration looked much different than last year’s remote event, which occurred during the

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NEWS

height of the pandemic. Despite this, because of the isolation everyone felt, La Casa Latina tried their best to work with the limitations.

In 2020, students hopped on Zoom, shared their own altars for Día De Los Muertos and walked everyone through their culture—a unique connection never done for prior events.

Historically, the celebration would have taken place with live music and shared food eaten together.

Even though campus is back to in-person events, Portland State University’s current guidelines require checking vaccination status and tracking if there are any people who are not students attending, since vac-

cinations are mandatory for students.

Additionally, because eating or drinking is not allowed in non-specified areas, catering was a challenge.

With COVID -19, the Center itself changed greatly, as much of the programming team from the last year have graduated, and some of the current team will graduate this coming year. The programming team is used to a constant rotation, but this term is looking to be the last with one of the community staples—Pedro Torres, the current Senior Programming Coordinator at La Casa Latina.

While difficult, Torres has continually given back to his community.

Torres said he is looking forward to

the future for Casa when he passes on his role.

“I’ve learned that there are many ways to celebrate one’s culture and identity,” Torres said. “Something else I have learned is that, as a culture, we are very resilient—and I know that term gets used a lot but I feel that at the same time Latinx students are some of the best student leaders.”

For campus after COVID-19, Torres expressed hope that the Latinx community at PSU will continue to build relationships and “take an even bigger leadership role on campus, whether students, staff or faculty.” In addition, Portland State is the only place in Oregon where students can earn a

PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 9, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

certificate in Chicano/Latino Studies. “[The certificate program] is ready to grow, and that is a very positive thing [as] PSU becomes a HIS (HispanicServing Institution),” Torres said.

“After [COVID-19], I think people are ready to come back, get to work and continue on their path—and, most importantly, have fun as a community with student groups and with friends.”

The programming team’s presence on campus has been entirely remote and run by four students—three returning and one freshman—all from Latinx backgrounds. However, only one of the students had been a part of the team prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tatiana García, the longest running member of the team, was also the only one who had physically worked in the office prior to the shutdown.

As a student programming assistant, García attended the events and discussed the numerous changes made, including last minute adjustments based on PSU’s vaccination and tracking. At one point, Casa was unclear if it was even possible to have the event, since the fall term seemed so up in the air.

But, with roughly 15% of students at PSU identifying as Hispanic or Latino (as of 2019), La Casa Latina felt it was extremely important to host the event.

“Our team debated back and forward for quite some time on what we wanted our Día De Los Muertos event to look like this year,” García said. “Given the uncertainty of the pandemic, it was definitely hard to plan for most of it.

At points, it felt like the event wouldn’t even happen at all.”

La Casa Latina wanted to ensure it was a safe but authentic event in order to maintain their vision. The team all agreed.

“This has always been one of La Casa Latina’s biggest and most popular events,” García said. “It has always been a favorite of ours because we get to share a cultural tradition with people from all across campus and the community who excitedly come to celebrate with us. The pandemic has caused many of us to feel isolated and I hope that by hosting events like these, we inspire people to show up, celebrate and have fun with others.”

One of the biggest obstacles in Casa’s path was how to hold an event where culture is shared through food without being able to eat. This year, they connected at the last minute with an independent caterer—TJ Sheridan— who was interested in the project due to his own connection to the culture and food. Sheridan wished he could have attended, but was happy to contribute food in a meaningful way.

Following PSU’s guidelines, Sheridan created a menu with single servings of tamales, enchiladas and quesadillas— with vegan, vegetarian and meat options—so that more students were able to take things home. That was new to this year, but Casa hopes it will become a regular occurrence.

Speaking to the catering team, and how they managed to pull it off late

with a small team, Sheridan shared about his connection to the food and how personal it is.

“To me, Mexican food has always been my biggest connection to my family and culture,” Sheridan said. “It really inspires me and grounds me. [It]

lets me remember where I come from and carry on food traditions my ancestors started. It was really amazing to be able to cook for Casa as a way to share that with a community of people who might feel the same way, who are part of the same age group...and maybe people who, through dietary restrictions, don’t always get that chance.”

La Casa Latina’s event projection was roughly fifty people. During planning meetings, the discussion of COVID-19 was taken as a huge contributing factor to lower attendance—but, when the final headcount and sign-up sheet was done, there were roughly 130 people who came to the event to partake in culture, sharing and community.

This is La Casa Latina’s first event since the reopening of campus, and reminded them of just how much of a need there is for an on-campus presence for the Latinx community. As the school year continues, La Casa Latina confirms that this is the first of many events that will follow PSU’s safety guidelines provided by the school, and they cannot wait to share those with the community.

Editor’s note: the author of this article is a student volunteer worker for La Casa Latina Student Center.

LEFT: STUDENTS GATHERING AT THE DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS EVENT, TAKING A LOOK AT DIFFERENT ALTARS. ABOVE: ONE OF THE MANY ALTARS MADE BY DIFFERENT GROUPS, EACH PERSONALIZED. BELOW: STUDENTS MINGLING BENEATH PAPEL PICADO PAPER BANNERS. COURTESY OF LA CASA LATINA.

PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 9, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

NEWS

7

VIKINGS UPSET #24 WEBER STATE ON THE ROAD FOR A THIRD STRAIGHT WIN VIKS IN VOLLEYBALL TIE FOR FIRST WITH TWO GAMES LEFT

DARIEN CHASE CATCHING BALL AT ENDZONE FOR TOUCHDOWN. ERIC SHELBY/PSU VANGUARD

ERIC SHELBY

FOOTBALL

The gridiron Portland State Vikings upset the #24 Weber State Wildcats on Saturday in Ogden, Utah with a statement 30-18 win advancing to 5-4 (4-2) this season. In their third straight win, this is the first time the team has made it over .500 this season, and is their second ever road win.

This was not an upset; the win was expected by the Vikings. Prior to the win, both Portland State and Weber State had identical records of 4-4 (3-2). The Viks are now sixth in the Big Sky Conference with two more weeks left of football. Anything could happen.

The Vikings’s last two games of the season will also be against top 25 schools, #16 Sacramento State in Sacramento, California and #5 Eastern Washington at home.

PSU’s Malik Walker gave the team two touchdowns and ran for 90 yards. Freshman running back Jalynnee McGee averaged 11 yards per rush. Davis Alexander went 29 for 42 and threw for a huge 299 yards. The Viks had 129 rushing yards compared to Weber State’s 69 yards. Viks were also 8-15 on third downs as compared to the Wildcats 3-13.

Offense and defense did their job, holding them to only 18 points. Before the game, the Wildcats defense gave up only 21 points per game on average.

Darien Chase showed out with five catches for 79 yards and a touchdown. Nate Bennet had 9 catches for 83 yards. Anthony Adams led defense with 11 tackles and two tackles for loss. Broderick Harrell and Parker McKenna both had six tackles.

This game was slow scoring for the longest time.

Back and forth, back and forth. Viks get a couple first downs, then three and out. Weber State gets first downs, then three and out. The Wildcats strike first, breaking loose with a 51 yard run by Creyton Cooper.

The Viks started out the second quarter with a nearly six minute drive to get a field goal to make the game 7-3 Wildcats. If Alexander needs a first down, count on him to do it himself and run it in.

The Viks made it to the red zone in the last three

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SPORTS

of their drives and with 56 seconds before halftime, Walker ran it in for a touchdown, giving Portland State their first lead of the game. Getting a sack against Weber State officially gives defensive tackle VJ Malo his 10th sack of the season and makes his contempt for quarterbacks apparent.

Alexander and the Vikings know how to take their time with the ball. On another five-minute drive, McGee ran for two straight first downs and 22 yards and Chase caught the ball over the defender in the end zone, giving the Viks the 24-10 lead with 12 minutes left in the game.

Even with an Adams tackle for loss, the Wildcats were not out of the game in their drive. After an apparent pass interference from Adams, Wildcats threatened with a touchdown and a successful two point conversion, faking their extra point. The game was 2418. The fans at Stewart Stadium were real quiet. The Viks could not get a score after Weber State made that touchdown but defense had their day, stopping the Wildcats in their own end zone. Viks got the ball and got an explosive play by Walker with a 39-yard run to the house to solidify the win over a top-25 program.

Portland State plays against Sacramento State Hornets next week on Nov. 13. They are 7-2 and 6-0 in conference. The Viks have a tougher schedule than the Hornets. Portland State started off the season against two schools from Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)—University of Hawai’i and Washington State— in addition to both Montana State and Weber State.

The Hornets will have played University of Northern Iowa and Montana before playing PSU next Saturday. The Vikings and Hornets are extremely close when it comes to points per game. Portland State averages 28.3 points per game while Sacramento State averages 29 points per game. The Viks have a higher third-down percentage with 44.1% compared to Sac State’s 38.1%. The Vikings defense has more turnovers than the Hornets, 17 compared to 14. Defense also allows more points than the Hornets, with 26 from the Viks and 19.78 from Sac State.

PLAYER PROFILE: MALIK WALKER #27 running back Malik Walker has been a problem for defense recently.

Walker gave the Viks two touchdowns and 90 yards in the Vikings 30-18 win over Weber State on Saturday. The six-foot senior from Corona, California had his season-high rush with 39 yards against Weber State, and leads the Viks with nine touchdowns overall. In addition to playing all nine games of the season so far, Walker was named Big Sky Co-Offensive Player of the Week after the Viks dominated California Polytechnic State 42-21.

He rushed 14 times for 116 yards—with another pair of touchdowns—and nothing is stopping him from doing more damage against Sacramento State on Nov. 13.

VIKINGS’ MALIK WALKER FACING OFF AGAINST MONTANA STATE ON SEPT. 25. ERIC SHELBY/PSU VANGUARD

PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 9, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

PORTLAND STATE OUTSIDE HITTER ZOE MCBRIDE. ERIC SHELBY/PSU VANGUARD

VOLLEYBALL

Coming off of a successful three-game winning streak over powerhouse schools like Northern Colorado and Weber State, the Viks got handed their first conference home loss to Sacramento State. The Viks struggled against the Hornets when they traveled to Sacramento on Oct. 19 in a sweep—but were ready to come back strong.

The Viks won the first set but couldn’t finish it, losing 3-1 (25-19, 15-25, 22-25, 23-25). Makayla Lewis had 12 kills and three blocks, and Maddy Reeb had seven kills and three blocks. Parker Webb had two aces in that match. Ellie Snook showed out again with 25 digs. Ally Wada was behind her with a double-double, 14 digs and 13 assists.

Portland State had a .075 hitting percent-

age and Sacramento State had a .169 hitting percentage. Both teams tied for five aces—but both had stacked up errors, with 29 from the Viks and 26 from the Hornets.

The Vikings moved on and traveled to Cedar City, Utah, to beat Southern Utah 3-1 (29-17, 25-20, 19-25, 25-23) in their last road game of the regular season. On the outside, that 3-1 win looked easy, but the Viks struggled a little to win those sets.

The Thunderbirds were 2-11 before playing the Viks but Portland State’s chemistry at the game on Saturday did not make the Birds look like a 2-11 team. While PSU had 34 errors, the Thunderbirds had only 17; and where the Viks had five blocks, Southern Utah had 13. Lewis

led the team with 16 kills and an impressive three aces. Zoe McBride also had three aces total, after hitting two in a row this match.

Gabby Hollins had 14 kills, while Webb had 12 kills. Southern Utah was competitive the whole match with multiple lead changes but, ultimately, the Vikings prevailed.

After the Southern Utah win, all eyes were on the Northern Colorado vs. Weber State match, which went to five sets. Northern Colorado won in a close game, 3-2 (23-25, 25-15, 23-25, 25-19, 7-15) which makes the Big Sky table even more entertaining.

PSU’s last two games of the regular season are right here at the Viking Pavilion, against the Montana State Bobcats on Thursday,

OUTSIDE HITTER PARKER WEBB SERVING THE BALL. ALBERTO ALONSO PUJAZON BOGANI/PSU VANGUARD

Nov. 11 and on Saturday, Nov. 13 against the Grizzlies of University of Montana. The Viks have already beat both teams in a quick Montana road trip, 3-2 over the Grizzlies and 3-1 over the Bobcats. Montana State is 9-5 in conference play and University of Montana is 6-8. Northern Colorado plays a low-standing Eastern Washington and Idaho to finish out the season, and Weber State plays a 9–5 Northern Arizona and Southern Utah at home in Utah.

Northern Colorado, Portland State and Weber State all have an 11-3 record. Now with three schools tied for first place—and only two matches left in the regular season—Portland State could very much finish first in the Big Sky table.

PORTLAND STATE’S VOLLEYBALL TEAM CHEERING FROM THE SIDELINES. ERIC SHELBY/PSU VANGUARD

PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 9, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

SPORTS

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TAKEAWAYS FROM

PORTLAND’S PACIFIC NORTHWEST AEROSPACE EXPO RYAN MCCONNELL The Pacific Northwest Aerospace Expo (PNAE)—hosted by the Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS)—kicked off Oct. 23, 2021. As a student-led organization, PSAS focuses on amateur rocketry, with many members coinciding with the society’s satellite technology-focused OreSat group.

The organization has a wide variety of different STEM majors participating to discuss the latest advancements and builds in different kinds of aerospace projects. The PNAE itself hosted a wide variety of space-related topics including space exploration, space policy and even Earth’s water and climate from space.

Dr. Hugh Lewis, head of the Astronautics Research Group at the University of Southampton, discussed space debris and sustainability from the UK. Similar to the U.S. intelligence agency reports on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), he spoke on the topic of space debris—defined as any human-made, nonfunctional object, including fragments and elements of objects, in Earth’s orbit or atmosphere.

About half of all objects sent into space since the start of space exploration in the ‘60s remain in orbit, with some satellites still active today. The amount of space clutter is extraordinary: over 9,600 tonnes of material floating around Earth. This includes approximately 36,500 objects roughly the size of a softball or larger, 1,000,000 objects around the size of a marble and 330,000,000 items around the size of a ballpoint pen tip.

While it might sound like much of the debris is harmless, if it is only around the size of a millimeter, these fragments could strike a space station at just the right angle to fully disable it.

These collisions are a serious concern for aerospace and satellite engineers because of the increasing size of the debris and the danger of the satellites that the globe depends on.

The issue is so widespread that the United Nations has implemented a set of guidelines to mitigate the amount of space debris sent into orbit. These include limiting the potential for break-ups during an object’s operation cycle and limiting

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SCIENCE & TECH

the presence of any kind of spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit or Geosynchronous regions—where satellites rest to transmit GPS signals.

Dr. Margaret E. Landis, research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, discussed polar ice in our solar system and how we can learn more about water, life and climate. The presentation went in detail about volatiles—compounds typically found in liquid or gas forms on Earth but might have different physical states in other parts of our solar system. For example, Nitrogen is often a gas on Earth, but is a solid on Pluto.

Our understanding of planetary tilts and planetary regions permanently shadowed from the sun can give researchers vast insight into the climates and more nuanced properties of other planets, which is especially helpful for understanding Earth’s moon and its climate.

Finally, Makena Young, research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discussed international cooperation and space innovation, looking at how space is used in our daily lives and what is changing within the domain.

In her presentation, Young discussed the evolution of diversity in space. Prior to 1990, most space exploration was conducted purely between the Soviet Union/Russia and the U.S. Now, there’s a much wider array of countries taking interest in space development, including China, India and Japan. Because of this, global space programs have increased exponentially and use objects for a wider array of tasks and innovations, but this makes space missions more disruptive and disordered because of the groups involved. Since each country also has their own rules, regulations and processes for sending out space projects, there is no proper way to keep track of all the different space projects being sent into orbit, nor is there a method to tightly regulate what is sent out on a global scale.

However, that doesn’t mean that efforts for multinational

collaboration aren’t possible. The International Space Station is a prime example of this, jointly run by NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe) and CSA (Canada). It also allows international relations to be strengthened and supported with countries like China, where communication about each other country’s projects can establish greater trust and diplomacy.

Overall, the Expo held a great amount of insight into the current state of space exploration and ways in which collaboration between nations can further enhance the human experience and our daily lives, one satellite to another.

SPACE JUNK AND GLOBALIZATION REMAIN HIGHLIGHTED CONCERNS FOR THE AEROSPACE COMMUNITY PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 9, 2021 • psuvanguard.com