Wyn Caudle

Business Manager

On Sept. 25, the Wooster Astronomy Club and Wooster Activities Crew (WAC) joined together to host an outdoor screening of the movie “Project Hail Mary.” 

Due to Party on the Green getting rained out, WAC provided the movie night experience with the snacks left over from the previous event. These snacks included space-themed candies, chocolates, pretzels and more.

 The Astronomy Club and members from WAC set up for the movie during the day, having the inflatable screen sitting just past the stone stairs beside the Scot Center beginning around 2:45 that afternoon. 

Closer to the event, the team brought out a projector to display the movie. The event itself started at 8 p.m., with students beginning to arrive around 7:30 p.m.

As the event started, the crew found themselves struggling with the projector, adding to the initial setup issues earlier in the day. This pushed back the start time some, but once the technical errors were sorted out, the movie finally began. 

Anakha Shah ’27, president of WAC, commented on the woes of getting the projector set up. “[WAC] really wanted to do a movie outdoors when we heard there that there was a screen that could be blown up, but it didn’t seem like it could be possible, but thanks to Events Crew they were able to blow it up and we were able to do an event outside with [the] Astronomy Club!” 

“Project Hail Mary” follows the story of Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, as he navigates space trying to save Earth while also learning how to interact with an alien from the planet Erid. This alien, named Rocky and voiced by James Ortiz, is facing the same issue at his home that Grace is facing on Earth. 

The turnout for the event ended up being around 50 to 60 people under the cool, quiet Friday night sky in which an almost full moon was visible. Due to the event being outside, the Astronomy Club brought a telescope to allow students at the event to look towards the stars and observe the sky. “Everything is better with a telescope,” Kristen Townsend ’28, president of Astronomy Club,  shared.

As the movie progressed, students found themselves invested in the storyline of Ryland Grace and whether he would be able to complete the task set before him to save Earth.

An attendee of the event, Charlotte Stringer ’30 stated, “One could say this was, Stellar!” 

The event continued late into the evening, with the movie drawing to a close at around 10:30 p.m. 

“I really like the movie.” Townsend said. “I think it’s a really good kinda of gateway for science education especially right now . . .  it’s informing people of, kind of what the future . . . of science and space exploration could potentially look like, obviously, hopefully, not under those circumstances. It also has a really good message about climate change and everything like that.”

Follow The Astronomy Club on Instagram @woo.astronomy for updates on future events, such as Star Parties!