The Tim Has Landed

A final day at Space Camp.  :-(

I attended two panels this morning as my final experiences at Spacefest III.  The first was on "The Next 50 Years" and the other on "Mars."  It was really fascinating to sit and listen to these people just talk about what they thought the future held for space exploration.  They brought up lots of good questions, lots of good points, and really made you think about why we do what we do (we being the government) in terms of space travel and scientific studies.  I have gained new insights and have start thought processes in my head that I never knew I'd have. 

Audience members brought up great questions as well.  Smart questions!  One of the things I liked about the conference was that I didn't need a degree in astrophysics or engineering to understand what the conversations were (although I'm sure it would have helped with some).  Audience members were from all levels of intelligence, from passing enthusiast to journalist to professor.  Nothing ever felt dumbed down over totally over my head.

The biggest thing that I'm probably taking away from the whole experience is that we don't want to just plant another flag down in the soil and say "Done."  Don't "conquer" a planet for conquering's sake just to say you beat another country to it.  Have a goal and a plan in mind as to why you want to explore, what you want to learn from it, and not make it a pissing contest with another country.  Don't bring politics to outer space.  I know that's a tall order, but to me, it's a hopeful one.

Well, that's it.  I can't believe what an absolutely fantastic time I had.  The people I met, the things I learned, the amazing sites that I saw will stay with me forever.  There's always room for learning, enjoyment, and wonder.

Bruce McCandless and the Star Party

It sounds like the name of a classic rock band.

Tonight I attended the evening BBQ Banquet.  A couple of weeks ago we chose which astronaut's table we wanted to sit at and I picked Bruce McCandless (no particular reason).  When I showed up tonight, not only were the tables assigned, but also the seating placements around the table.  Imagine my surprise and excitement when I sat down and saw that Bruce was supposed to be sitting right next to me.  His wife, Bernice also joined him.

They've been married 50 years.  He proposed to her three times before she finally said yes.  He was a naval officer at the time and she said she didn't want to live that lifestyle, knowing that he was probably going to be in the limelight.  But he kept pursuing and she finally gave in.  I can tell you, they seem so much in love.  He waved affectionately to her when they entered the room so that she could find the table.  They talked about who was going to get what at the buffet.  And at least once during the presentations I saw him put his hand on her back and give a little rub.  They were incredibly cute.  At one point in the evening, I asked Bernice if she was ever scared when Bruce went up on a mission (he flew two shuttle missions).  She said she was more excited than nervous because she knew how much he wanted to do it.

Bruce was an incredibly gracious man.  He answered all of our questions with joy and didn't seem put off at all by people asking him the same things he's probably been asked a million times before.  He added on some extra stories about his thoughts on Mars, the future of space travel, etc.  Just a genuine, down to Earth (pardon the pun) guy.  He even gave a fist bump to one of the other people at the table.  When they were leaving, I thanked them both for taking the time to join Spacefest and join as at the banquet.  Bernice said, "Oh, we love doing this stuff."  It shows.

Aside from the two shuttle missions he flew, he was also the first man to do a spacewalk untethered.  You may have seen this picture before.

That's Bruce.

After the banquet, there was a Star Party outside on the grounds of the hotel.  I think there were about 8 or so telescopes set up to look at different objects in the sky.  I got to look at Saturn again, a binary star system, a globular star cluster, and another galaxy.  I went back multiple times to some of the telescopes as I just couldn't get enough.

I can't believe it's all over tomorrow.  I don't want to leave.  It's like I've been in a completely different world here (again, pun not intended).  I've learned more than I thought I would, I've experienced things beyond my wildest dreams.  It is an experience I will carry with me always.

Overheard quote of the day:  "That nebula looks like a vag."

Zzzzzz...huh...wha....I'm awake!

Ohhhhh 7:00am comes early when you went to bed a scant five hours earlier.  But off I went to my first lecture this morning.  Here is what I learned today:

Alan Gould, Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, CA

The most I learned from this session is that I didn't have nearly enough sleep to be able to understand anything this guy was talking about.  He's very intelligent, but wasn't very organized.  And I couldn't focus to follow him on anything.  What I did learn is that you could detect whether or not a planet exists by measuring the dips in light curves as the planet passes in front of it's star.  There were a lot of charts and graphs to support and explain this.  I am not a chart or graph.  I can not explain this.

During some of his animations he had music playing which he commissioned from "the kid up the street."  I'm not joking.  The music sounded like I was back in the St. Louis Science Center planetarium in the early 90's.  It was this really cheesy synthesizer "spacey" music.  It made me giggle.  I don't think the scientists in the room liked that too much.  There is no giggling in space exploration.

Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor and Deputy Head of the University of Arizona Astronomy Department

This guy was cool.  You could tell he was passionate about his work and used to speaking about it.  And I finally found a scientist who actually spoke to one of my big sticking points when reading about searching for life in the universe.  Everyone says there are no planets that can support life as we know, this atmosphere doesn't have enough oxygen, this place is too hot, this place has no water.  But Dr. Impey actually brought home the point that a completely different life form may exist that survives in a way we don't understand.  He even brought up points that here on Earth, we have found microbes in extreme cold, extreme dryness, around heat vents in the ocean, in severe radiated zones, and in high toxicity levels.  So we have to open up our mind as to how we think life might be designed and exist.  I was completely enthralled with him.

Another point he brought up is that we are constantly searching for life on planets.  But moons could support life just as well.  In fact, some moons have a better chance of finding life on them than does Mars.

Did you know yeast has a 45% genetic overlap with humans?  Next time you look in your mug of beer, give it a friendly nod before you down the hatch.

Thought for the day...We've tried to create organisms, we've done genetic altering, we've done cloning, we've created machines that are now left on other planets.  What if aliens created us?

Al McEwen, Principal Investigator for the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter's HiRise camera

Did you know Mars gets dust devils and has an avalanche season?

That's about all I learned.  Because at 3:00pm in a darkened room after only five hours of sleep, Tim doesn't focus very well.  And it was a LOT of pictures of sand dunes.  Lots and lots of dunes.

At lunch today I was seated at a table with three of the speakers:

Carolyn Shoemaker - An asteroid and comet hunter.
William Boynton - Professor of Planetary Science at The Lunar & Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona
Tom Bopp - Co-discoverer of the Hale-Bopp comet

Carolyn was nice, but she was so soft spoken I couldn't hear a word she said.  Tom was kind of a lump until he started talking to two other gentlemen at the table about offshore oil drilling.  William was the big ole papa bear at the table who seemed the most gregarious.  He tried to engage everyone in conversation and talked about his mission that was just approved to land a probe on an asteroid, take samples, then bring them back to Earth to study.

But the big news of the day is what I bought in the artist's gallery.  I talked to the jeweler who makes meteorite rings and we discussed a few things.  He's actually a really nice guy and lives close to me in CA.  After two more days of thinking and decision making, I got measured, placed my order, and will have my new meteorite ring in about 6 weeks (which, coincidentally, will be exactly around my birthday).  I'm very happy and very excited to get it.

It doesn't stop there folks!  I bought two other pieces of meteorite.  Both of them Gibeon (the same material my ring will be made out of), but looking very different.  One is a pendant I can wear on a necklace if I so choose.  The other is just a lump that I liked the look of.  Don't know where I'll display it yet though.  I can't explain how excited I am to finally own a piece of space.  As a kid, I would sit outside with my cheap telescope and just stare at the moon for hours on end.  I would think about the stories it had to tell, what had it seen, and where was it going (metaphorically, of course). 

Then I started hearing about meteorite pieces that people had and I finally saw my first one in a museum in Chicago.  I sat on the floor and couldn't take my eyes off it.  I wanted to know how old it was, where did it come from, how fast did it fly, and who else had scene it.  And now, to think that I have something that is millions of years old, something with a history beyond compare, something that is so much bigger than me makes me look up in to the sky with that much more awe.

But wait, there's more!  I thought that I might want to buy some artwork as well.  I've followed a few artists for a couple of years now and have always wanted some of their paintings or prints.  But in the past few months I found a brand new artist that I am completely falling in love with.  His name is Robert Thorpe.  He has this great 1960's retro style with an amazing color palette that I love.  His art was on display and he was actually at a table working on a new piece.  When I told the dealer I wanted to buy one of his paintings, Robert came over to thank me for doing so and we started talking.  What a very nice man.  He started out doing graphic art work and now spends most of his time doing book covers and these paintings.  So far he's only done 86 original works in 15 years (he was told by someone once he needed to do 100 in 10 years so he's a bit behind).  He gave me a book that he has a cover on and signed the inside of it for me. 

So I didn't actually go in buying what I thought I was going to buy.  But man am I incredibly happy with what I did buy!  I was going to just get one original and then a limited edition giclee.  But the original was hanging next to it and the colors were much more muted on the giclee, so I had to get that original as well.  I hope this doesn't become a habit!

My artwork is now being wrapped up and prepared to be shipped to me.  That will give me some time to think about where I want to put it!

On the way back to my room I took a few more shots of the views from the hotel.

Learning time is done for the day.  I'm going to take a quick disco nap, then it's off to the evening BBQ Banquet where I will be sitting at the same table as astronaut Bruce McCandless.  I can't wait to hear his stories.

Tim Brain Full

Phew, what a day it was (technically, I guess that would be what a yesterday it was since it's now 1:00am on Saturday).  Talks all morning, looking at art and rings, more talks after lunch, then a full afternoon and evening at an observatory.  Tim tired.

I learned a LOT this morning from a myriad of speakers.  The first thing I learned was that when you have a room full of rocket scientists, you still can't find anyone who knows how to start a projector screen.  After much conferring with the presenter and the hotel staff, the screen finally worked and we were off and learning!!  Below is a quick synopsis of the speakers and what I learned from them:

Leonard David, Space Journalist

Richard Branson is my space hero.  Virgin Galactic actually has a space port near completion and is the closest entreprenuer to begin commercial space flights.

There is a LOT of debris in space (satellites and such).

Richard Cook, Project Manager of the Mars Science Laboratory

I wish I had this man's brain.

I saw an animation of the rover landing for the MSL.  It was pretty fricking wicked.

The MSL, named Curiosity, will launch in the Fall of 2011.  It will take 8 months to get to Mars and will land via a sky crane.  It's roughly the same size as a Mini Cooper and its goal is to find out the history of Mars.  They think Mars was warm and wet enough to support life long ago, so that's why they're looking for the history.

They have a Mars Yard at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for rover testing.  How cool is that?!?!  Imagine the Tonka Truck fun you could have in THAT sand box.

Leslie Young, Deputy Project Scientist on NASA's mission to Pluto

This woman is too smart for her own good.  You can tell she's extremely intelligent, but has a hard time putting her thoughts completely together.  That being said, I still found her incredibly engaging and was fascinated by her own interest in what she was doing.

There is a part of the New Horizons (the name of the mission) spacecraft that is named Venetia.  It was named after the schoolgirl who named the planet Pluto in the 1930s.

The New Horizons craft was the fastest thing to ever leave the Earth's atmosphere.  It passed the moon in 4 hours.

It will pass Pluto at noon on July 14, 2015 (Bastille Day).  Then who knows where it will go.

Andrew Chaikin, Science Journalist, Author, and Speaker

I didn't like this guy.  He was name dropping like crazy.  His book, A Man on the Moon, was the basis for Tom Hanks' HBO miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon.  And he wanted you to know that HE interviewed Tom Hanks, and HE interviewed so and so, and when HE spoke to blah blah...

You have to travel 17,500 mph around the Earth to keep from falling back in to it.

No one may have gone to space at all if we hadn't been in a cold war.  It was a geo-political move by the US and Russia to be at war without actually shooting any weapons.

Did you know it was only 63 years between the Wright Brothers flight and man landing on the Moon?  That's crazy!

Speaking of crazy, it's crazy Buzz Aldrin!

And the more sedate Jim Lovell.

I made a friend at lunch.

In the afternoon, I joined a group of folks to take a tour of the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center, 9100 feet above sea level.  It took about an hour and a half to get there (which meant an hour and a half to get back at 10:30 pm!!), but it was WELL worth the trip.  Very much the highlight of my visit so far.  Here's the telescope we used to look through.  In case you're wanting one of these bad boys for yourself, you can purchase one for about $500,000.

We looked at two things when we arrived.  The first was the star Arcturus.  I didn't know you could see another star during the day.  So that was pretty cool.  But what really blew my mind was when we got to look at the sun.  We didn't use the above telescope for it, but a special one made just for looking at the sun.  WOW!  It was the coolest thing.  There was a huge prominence coming off of it that was about 10 times the size of Earth.  You've seen them if you've ever watched Nova or seen pictures of the sun.  But to actually see it live through a telescope was pretty amazing.  BTW, it only takes 8 minutes for what happens on the sun to be seen on Earth.

This isn't what we saw through the telescope, which was color, but was a previous picture of the sun used with a black and white camera.

After looking at those two things we went to the learning center and had a presentation by Adam Block who is a world known astrophotographer.  This guy is a GREAT presenter and if you ever get a chance to listen to a talk of his, by all means do it.  Plus he has a voice that, well, um, do any children read this blog......

I bought some of Adam's photographs, not because of his voice, which he signed.  We all then went outside to watch the sunset through binoculars.  Yes, once the sun sets low enough on the horizon you can use binoculars to watch it without harming your eyes.  It was unbelievable.  And so beautiful.  I didn't want the sun to go below the horizon at all.  The photos below don't do it justice.

Did you know your shadow is actually blue?  It's not black at all.  And if you were on Mars, your shadow would be pink.

Once the sun went down, we went inside the observatory dome to start looking at things through the telescope.  The very first thing he set up in the lens was something that he told us he hoped would produce gasps and exclamations of WOW.  It certainly did.  He had lined it up with Saturn.  The view was so clear that you could see the rings and two moons around the planet.  WOW indeed.  I don't even know if I have the words to exclaim how amazing it was to see a planet that clear with my own eyes (well, with the help of a highly powered telescope, but you get my meaning).  I could have stood there all night looking at just that.  Seriously, I'm trying to think of how to explain the feeling, but I just can't.  And it only got better.

We went on through the night looking at spiral galaxies (from both a top view and a side view, one of them being the Whirlpool Galaxy), nebula, globular star clusters (including Omega Centauri), binary star systems, and a drive by of the Hubble Space Telescope.  We would alternate between the telescope and going outside to look through our binoculars at the different things.  You can actually see clusters and galaxies without the aid of a telescope, but I guess you have to be 9100 feet up and have a dark sky in which to do it.

Of course, it was very cold up on the mountain, so we were all huddled in our jackets.  At one point, they made hot cocoa for us to drink while we were waiting our turn to look at something through the telescope.  And with the requisite Enya-esque music playing in the background, cheese factor aside, it was an amazing night.  I saw things I've never seen before and may never have the chance to see again.  I consider myself very fortunate and lucky to have had the experience and I'm already plotting my next trip to another observatory.

Quote of the day:  "It's the subtlety that helps create the sublime."

NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDDDDSSSSSSSS

HHHHHHHOTTTTTTTTTT!!!

When they say the JW Marriott Starr Pass is nestled, they mean REALLY nestled....nestled as far away as can be.  It's actually outside of town in a rather posh area.  I couldn't see much driving in, but I could tell the houses were really nice and that the grounds were going to be gorgeous. 

After kind of a fitfull night of sleeping, I almost hopped out of bed when I got my wake up call this morning.  I was too afraid I'd fall back asleep and miss the day!  I got ready in plenty of time and thought I'd grab a quick breakfast on the patio.  Nothing like having a coffee and croissant outside at 7:45am when it's 90 freaking degrees already!!!  But the spectacular views more than made up for it.

I even had a breakfast companion for a little while.

Back inside to cool off before getting on the bus to head to the Pima Air and Space Museum.  Here, we had to split in to two groups and my group was doing a drive through tour of the boneyard.  The boneyard is a secure government facility, so we had to stay on the bus during the tour.  We had an excellent tour guide who gave the best line of the day.  "It's been so dry here the trees are begging for dogs."

I've never seen so many planes in one place before.  When a plane goes out of comission, they ask AMARG (don't ask me what that stands for) at Pima if they want it.  It seems that they usually say yes.  The planes then sit there as part museum, part testing, and part spare parts.  If somebody needs something for a plane that is still flying, they call up AMARG to see if they have it.  The guide told us that, if needed, they could get any part to Iraq within 24 hours if they had to.  This will become more impressive once you see how vast a collection they have.

It also seems that selling spare parts is a pretty good business.  This group in the military actually MAKES billions of dollars a year with the Foreign Military Supply program.  They can sell parts to approved countries for the planes they still fly.

Below are the pictures from just the boneyard area.  You'll see a reflection in some of them as all of these pictures were taken from inside the tour bus.

Lots and lots of engines.

The F100 was the first plane to break the sound barrier at level flight.

They even have a sense of humor.  It's a place for the Stealth Fighter.  Get it?  Get it????

The plane below was used during the Cold War and was called the Looking Glass.  There was always one in the air 24/7 and it always had a One Star General onboard so that they could execute a nuclear strike in the case of a war breaking out.



After a tour of the boneyard, we went back to the museum portion where they have other planes on display both outside and in hangers.

For some reason, I fell in love with this plane.  I just love the sleek design and how it looks all stealthy (although it's not a stealth).  It flies so fast that it can get from NYC to London in under two hours and can go from LA to DC in 1 hour, 14 minutes, and 4 seconds.  Now tell me that's not cool!!!

The Vomit Comet!!  Notice there are no windows.  The walls were fitted completely with padding for the passengers.

This is called the Big Guppy.  It was used to haul parts for the space program.

Bert decides to tame a target drone.

A bomb bay.

Bert does his Peter Sellers impersonation.

A Whole Lotta Air.  Not a Lotta Space.

So I'm not really in to airplanes that much.  But I was impressed with everything they had.  I mean, this place was HUGE!  And going through it, there was kind of this romanticism about some of the older fighter planes.  I can see where if you were an ex-military or plane buff that this place would give you an aeronautical hard-on.  But it really wasn't floating my boat too much.  I was more excited to get to the space part of the tour.  After lunch we had some free time and I made a bee line over to the space flight hanger.  It was kind of lame.  There were three things there though that caught my fancy:

One of the tires used on the space shuttle Atlantis.

Space dinner used in the Gemini program.

And...wait for it...an actual moon rock!!!  It's very small, but it was really cool to be standing that close to it.  And they designed that particular portion to have the backdrop be a picture of the Earth from the Moon.  So it was kind of like you were actually picking up the rock yourself.  For me, it was the highlight of the day.

After Pima, we went to the Titan Missile Museum.  At one point in time there were three Titan missile sites in the US: Arkansas, Kansas, and Arizona.  The one in Tucson is the only one that is left open.  All of the others have been completely destroyed and/or sealed up.

Don't worry about the missile though.  THIS is what you really have to worry about.

After sitting through an introductory video where we were told over and over that nuclear weapons help instill "Peace Through Deterrance," we donned our hardhats and headed outside to look at the silo cover.

An old rocket booster engine from a Titan missile.

My requisite artsy pic of the inside of the rocket booster engine.

Pictures of the Tital missile itself (sans nuclear stuff and all).

The control room where a crew of four worked a 24 hour shift.  In order for them to actually launch a missile, there were many steps:

The order came in from the President.

The Commander and second in command wrote down the codes delivered, then double checked each other's codes.

They opened two padlocks that only they knew the combination to.

Then MORE codes, including the directional code from the order.

They each had to turn their keys simultaneously.  The keys were spaced 7 feet apart and had to be held in position for five seconds.

They had a choice of three buttons to push for their target: Target 1, Target 2, or Target 3.  They never knew what their target was and that information is still classified today.

The control room is actually not connected to the silo itself.  There is a large gap between the two underground (under the ramp).

The control room is connected to these giant springs.  If there happened to be an earthquake or an air strike by an enemy, the springs kept the control room from being damaged.

A really big door before you go through a really long hallway.

And goodbye to Titan and all things that can destroy us from the air.  Instead, let's look at some of the prettier things that can't do global destruction.

I don't know why, but today I kept checking my Blackberry for work messages.  I was doing so well at not checking it earlier in the week.  But for some reason, my hand kept going to it.  It wasn't until the bus ride back to the hotel that I finally just made myself stop and put it in my backpack instead of attached to my pocket.  Then I left it in my room while I went down to the lazy river the hotel has.  Ahhhhhhh, relaxation!!!  I lost count of how many laps I did, and I didn't really care.  I needed to remind myself that I was on vacation and this time was for me.  Oh, it was glorious when that finally sank in.  And it was so nice to look up and see the cactus covered hills and blue skies above.

Finally, dinner.  My plan was to actually go in to town and eat at a local restaurant.  But since the hotel was so far away, I didn't really want to pay $70 for a taxi there and back for only a $40 dinner.  So I ate at one of the hotel restaurants on their patio.  How could I go wrong with a view like this at dinner!!??

And a good dinner it was!  I had an appetizer of pork and hominy stew that really hit the spot.  I know, I said it was hot earlier, but it really cools down a lot in the evening.  So the stew was perfect.  A main course of paella which was ok (not bad, not stellar, but ok).  And a great dessert of grilled pineapple and vanilla bean creme brulee.

Now, back in my room, finishing my recap.  PHEW!  Tomorrow will be more lectures and less picture takey stuff.  I'm ok with that.  It'll be nice to sit still for a while and learn some new things.  All in all, a great start to Space Camp.  Amazingly, I'm not that tired after walking in and out of the sun and riding on busses all day.  I'm surprised I've been able to stay up and finish this without zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz