Trees.... From Space?

The space trees, or “shuttle gums” as they’re more commonly referred to, are by no means a secret to anyone. In fact, the university sees them as something to be proud of, and loves to brag about them. Despite this, there seem to be very few people aware of the fact that the space trees even exist, let alone that the university loves them.

                                         Image Taken from News.Purdue.edu

The space trees are exactly what they sound like. They are trees. From space. Or rather, they were born in space. In 1984, Purdue alumnus Charles Walker was an astronaut aboard STS-41-D, the first mission ever flown both by Walker and the space shuttle Discovery. During the flight, the crew germinated 200 sweet gum tree seeds. Once the mission had returned to Earth and the necessary research on the baby trees had been done, Walker was allowed to donate five of these trees to Purdue. These trees were raised in Purdue’s nursery until they were large enough to plant outside, at which point they were planted around campus in generally inconspicuous locations.

In 1988, alumnus Jerry Ross was a crew member on STS-27, a similar mission aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. STS-27 germinated sycamore trees, rather than sweet gums, and one of these seeds was donated to Purdue following the mission. After undergoing the same nursing process as the previous seeds, the sycamore tree was planted near the south side of Lily Hall.

In addition to the sycamore near Lily, the other five trees can be found in Pickett Park, by the northwest corner of EE, at the south side of the Forestry products building, near the southeast corner of Forney, and just northwest of Grissom. They will have a small plaque at their base, explaining their history and significance, but will otherwise look no different than the rest of the trees around them. Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how close space is, and these trees that go relatively unnoticed stand testament to that.

The CoRec

                                         Image taken from studentlife.purdue.edu

Although it is not much of a secret for students at Purdue, the CoRec is something all students should know about and use. The massive building towers over the corner of Third Street and Jischke Drive. The best part is that using the facility is technically free for all students because it is included in the tuition costs.

The CoRec offers a large variety of different activities for students. First, the building features a complete set of different weight lifting machines and free weights along with treadmills, stationary bike, and other exercise machines scattered throughout the building. There is also a rock climbing wall for students, and it is even offered as a class. Several smaller rooms are located in the building, and they offer activities such as dance classes. It also has several basketball courts and volleyball courts where students can play pickup games during the day. Lastly, the building has a room known as the TRec; it is a large room with a turf floor that is primarily used for indoor soccer and flag football.

The CoRec also has a massive aquatic center. The aquatic center contains eight 50 yard pool lanes along with a diving pool, both of which are used for completion. It also houses a massive recreational pool with equipment for playing basketball and volleyball. The pool is surrounded by an array of TVs that visitors can watch.  There is also a very large hot tub located near the recreational pool. Additionally, Purdue offers swimming lessons for children in the surrounding area. It also has CPR, lifeguard, and water safety courses that allow students to become certified in the respective fields. Although massive in size, the aquatic center is just a small part of what the CoRec offers.

Additionally, students can join the many intramural sports the CoRec offers. Purdue has a large variety of sports, ranging from common sports like softball, to sports most people have never heard of, like inner tube water polo. Do not worry, however, if you are not the athletic type; most intramural sports offered have multiple leagues, some of which are competitive while others are more for just having fun playing the games.

The CoRec offers a large enough variety of activities that all students at Purdue should find something that interests them.

The Particle Accelerator

Hundreds of students walk through the Purdue Engineering Mall every day, many of which are fascinated by the engineering fountain. However, most are completely unaware of what is occurring beneath them; Purdue is actually housing a particle accelerator in a massive underground laboratory adjacent to the Engineering mall.

               The particle accelerator is designed for use by the Purdue Rare Isotope Measurement Laboratory, or PRIME Lab, for the purpose of accelerator mass spectrometry, or AMS. Although a vast number of students have never heard about or visited the particle accelerator, it is actually shown on several tours to students interested in the EAPS department and can even be visited by students during its normal hours of operations.  However, students are not allowed to use the accelerator for testing or research themselves, but they can request a sample to be tested through the use of a form located on the PRIME homepage. Additionally, there is a fee associated with having the sample tested. It is one of only two AMS research facilities capable of measuring the entire range of radionuclides, the other being CAMS, which is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

                                       Image taken from science.purdue.edu

The accelerator was built in 1989 at a cost of nearly four and a half million dollars. It also costs roughly five hundred thousand dollars a year to run the accelerator and perform all the testing. Additionally, the PRIME Lab covers a massive 31,000 square feet of area underground. Since its first successful test performed in 1991, the particle accelerator has been upgraded several times, including new acceleration tubing, a new charging system, a new analyzing magnet, and a new injector magnet. The large particle accelerator is a marvel to visit.

               The particle accelerator and PRIME lab are another secret at Purdue that is kept beneath the feet of a location students visit daily.

Purdue Presidential Bunker

Imagine for a second living in one of the apartments on University Street. You’re still up working on your thermo homework that might as well be in a different language when you decide it’s time for a break. You stand up and walk to your bedroom window to get some fresh air. As you peer out the window, you see exactly what they don’t want you to see. Every single cop car in West Lafayette with all their lights off, blocking all the driveways down the street. Not a sound is heard as you watch a pair of homeland security trucks drive quickly down the road. A mere thirty seconds have past and the cop cars move back on their way, leaving the street to be business as usual. And you ask yourself, what is Homeland Security doing in West Lafayette?

                                          Image taken from lib.purdue.edu

This is where the conspiracy theorists among us go bananas; there is a real possibility that under the depressing underground library that we call Hicks there is located a presidential bunker. As crazy as that may sound, looking at the logistics of West Lafayette makes it seem almost simple. West Lafayette isn’t exactly the most bustling of towns, and it is far away from many major cities. On top of that, we have an airport capable of housing the largest of commercial planes as well as security to protect them. As far-fetched as the idea may seem, all things considered West Lafayette is the type of place that is ideal for the evacuation of the governments most important of personnel.

Other theories have been made stating that it’s entirely possible that they are providing for the bio and chem labs certain materials that are controlled by the government. In a place of learning such as ours that would make a lot of sense, but that still doesn’t explain why it’s being delivered by Homeland Security.

Purdue and The Manhattan Project

The United States late involvement in world war two didn’t just bring Americans into the fight, it also began the most secretive national defense program in the history of our country. The government had started a product so shrouded in mystery, and upon its completion ushered civilization into a new era of weaponry and scare tactics. Dubbed the Manhattan Project by President Eisenhower, it was so shrouded in mystery and secrecy that not even vice president Truman knew of its existence until he would ultimately take office. But with all that was going on in the artificially created Oak Ridge, Tennessee regarding the project, not many people know of its existence here at Purdue.

It is definitely not common knowledge to the students that there was heavy cooperation between Purdue University professors and the highest of officers in the Manhattan project. These professors were approached and asked to leave their studies to work on the project. When they complied, they began to meet and work together on theoretical nuclear processes; all in the basement of the union.

Students cannot find this room in the union however, because there was so much secrecy involved with the work that the scientists upon completion of the work had the room fully closed. The room has been since lost and is (obviously) inaccessible in the basement of the union. But the legacy of Purdue’s involvement with the Manhattan Project will forever live on in the world of nuclear sciences. Coined in one of the many secretive meetings of theirs, one of the scientists referred to the nucleus of a Uranium atom as being “as big as a barn”. Since then the “barn” has been a unit of area in the nuclear science world that has stuck and is still used today.

                                         Image taken from Bloomberg.com

While there is no way you can actually go and visit the manhattan room in the union, you should take some time exploring the basement of the Union if you have never been there. It is a mysterious looking place and definitely the kind of environment you would expect the world’s most secret scientific operation to have unfolded. It is quite a silent observer of American history.

All American

As we’re beginning to see with this list, Purdue likes to hide all of their most interesting things just under our noses. And by noses, I mean feet, as a lot of these secrets seem to be underground. Purdue’s best food is no exception. Deep underneath the northeast corner of Cary Quad lies the All American Dining Court, home of what may be the most delicious steaks and lobsters in all of West Lafayette. Not that any of us would know, of course, because as far as I’m aware, none of us are on the university’s intercollegiate football or basketball teams.

                                               Photo taken from schooldesigns.com

The room the dining court occupies was originally designed to be used as a media room for coaches. They could hold and broadcast press conferences here, as well as broadcast things for television and radio shows in the l0cal area. Around the turn of the century, university decided they didn’t need the room for those purposes anymore, so they tore out the walls, built a kitchen, installed a modern HVAC system, and opened a dining court. And by “opened,” I mean opened to the sports teams mentioned above. As part of these teams’ athletes’ training regimens, they are required to eat at the All American Dining Court some number of times per week, where their coaches can be sure they will receive both a healthy and hearty meal.

Unfortunately, providing steaks to everyone who walks in the door could become expensive, so the court is closed to most students – even other athletes that aren’t on the football team or either men’s or women’s basketball team. That said, that doesn’t mean you have no hope of seeing it! You can always walk by and look in the door. That might be pretty boring, but you could do it. Alternatively, the dining court has been known to open its doors to the public for special occasions like Valentine’s Day. If you really want to see the inside, all you have to do is be lucky enough to get reservations the next time that opportunity rolls around and find a date so they don’t accuse you of just coming for the steak. That sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?

The Tunnels

Across Purdue’s campus, there are small systems of tunnels that can be used to travel between buildings during poor weather. They can be found between Stewart and Hicks, Beering and the University Street Garage, Physics, MSE, and the Grant Street Garage, the Union and a number of south campus buildings and garages, and even under segmented dorms like Cary or Windsor (although these are generally only used in the event of certain emergencies). However, there are more tunnels under our feet than just these. There exists another tunnel system – far more expansive, but also far more dangerous and closely guarded.

Purdue’s utility tunnel system spans nearly the entire campus, stretching from McCutcheon and Harrison to Rawls and Krannert, from as far south as Wade to as far north as Cary Quad, over six miles of tunnel overall. The utility tunnels are filled with – you guessed it – a good deal of Purdue’s utility systems. Whether it is wired services like electricity or data lines, or piped resources like compressed air or steam, it can be found here. Many of these tunnels are no more than crawlspaces, or are so full of wires and pipes that they couldn’t be traversed by anyone on foot, but some of the main thoroughfares are large enough than a person could walk between buildings in them (if they’re willing to duck a couple times on the way, that is).

Unfortunately, these tunnels will certainly never be opened to the public in their current state, and it would likely be far too costly and difficult to convert them into anything usable by pedestrians. More importantly, if you’ve read this and feel like going exploring down there, we strongly discourage doing so. Walking through the doors to one of these tunnels as a student is arguably the most efficient means of getting either killed or expelled. The tunnels temperature can range from being anywhere between 0 and 400°F depending on the time of year, as well as being home to all kinds of high pressure or high voltage components, and potentially the home of all manner of poisonous gas buildups. The doors are all monitored by alarms that alert PUPD immediately if they are activated. As quite possibly the most dangerous area on campus, the university treats trespassing here more seriously than anywhere else, and will be more than happy to punish trespassers accordingly.