Visit the kelpforest....

Gareth and I watching the ISS and space shuttle Discovery's final flyover...

Very cool photo - space shuttle Endeavor and International Space Station transiting the sun -

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=28&month=07&year=2009

My boss sends us these -

Here is the schedule for the space station and space shuttle for
tonight. Endeavor is supposed to undock and leave the space station this
afternoon so it might be a pretty cool show tonight....If you are not in
San Diego, follow think link and find your city...

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html

Not much to do with work, but I appreciate them...

Forty years ago? I was six, we had only shortly before moved into this house in this neighborhood. I was going to start second grade at a new school in a couple of months - strangely enough, at the ones my kids attend now.

My parents called us into the knotty-pine paneled den, and we sat on the hard floor, gathered aroung a 12-inch black and white TV. I think there were still boxes around us, we hadn't finished moving in. Grainy, high contrast images. Men putting up a flag, hopping like kangaroos, sipping lunch out of tubes. I was rapt and couldn't look away; I don't remember if my brothers were, being not quite five. Dad worked for one of the companies that helped put those men up there, and we quite understood that this was history. I think one of our parents said this would be something to tell our kids or grandkids about, I don't remember who. Later, we went outside the back door and looked up in the sky, wondering if we could catch a glimpse of the men that were up there; no, said my dad, they'd be way too tiny for us to see.

Maybe this is part of what later fueled my love of science fiction and the idea of other worlds. That certainly hasn't left me. I thought by now the world would be much farther along.

I read about this the night before in a blog, and Gareth's current ambition is to be an astronaut, so off we went to South Coast Plaza.



http://www.ocregister.com/articles/moon-astronauts-cernan-2491039-space-carpenter

I read in one of the OC Register blogs about this event the night before, so Gareth was all charged up to go to it. Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, Gemini and Apollo astronaut Thomas Stoffard, and Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan, who was the last human to step off the Moon, gave a panel discussion, with slides and video clips. Later, the kids were interviewed by an intern from the OC Register (only one statement by Gareth actually made it into the article, but
they're in some of the pictures there too; Avalon is the one giving Stoffard a high-five)

Turned out I parked at the wrong mall - I had in mind the Crystal Court across the street and it took place in the "Jewel Court" which is one small section of the original South Coast Plaza Mall, the bit in front of Macy's with the stained glass dome. So we walked across the footbridge to the proper place which was already crowded and full. Luckily when the old guys came out, they asked all the kids to come up to front -you can see all three of the kids in many of the article's pictures, and Avalon is the one giving Thomas Stofffard a high five (she'd given Cernan one a moment previously). Gareth got to shake their hands and asked Cernan, was any part of being on the moon scary? He replied, None was really hairy, but thinking about it beforehand was. Avalon asked Stoffard if they saw any satellites while they were up there, He replied not until the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Gareth is quoted in the article, although the OC Register intern talked to all of us. Gareth also swore he was never going to wash his hand again after shaking Gene Cernan's, and he'll never forget it.

Cernan must have done a lot of public speaking, because he was quite good at it. Some quotes and stories:

"Neil Armstrong was a good commander but he was a lousy navigator - so we had to paint a white line in the sky for him to follow."

The story about the "Beat Army" sign that appeared in the window of one of the Gemini capsules.

The Apollo-Soyuz mission, where after they met, shook hands and shared some food, a picture of two astronauts holding tubes with Russian lettering. "If you can read Russian, one says 'High-Grade Vodka' and the other is labelled 'standard vodka'" said Stoffard - but when they opened them, they both contained only borscht.





Gareth is becoming quite the solemn dude in the picture lately. You'd think he never smiles.

Some videos posted here.

Interview with Scott Carpenter - "Honor Your Curiosity"

Sunday morning, council matters were done before lunch, and my flight didn't leave until 6ish. So I had time for lunch and a bit more leisurely walk around downtown Spokane. Found two caches of the normal kind and a virtual cache (where you only find the object - these aren't actually allowed anymore and have been replaced by Waymarks). The above was the neighborhood around a cache I didn't find commemorating (sort of, the poster was pretty sarcastic about) an old Art Deco building that used to be there. However, there still seem to be a number of historical buildings in the neighborhood. The old guy waiting for the bus must thought I was nuts, creeping around behind the stone fence around the parking lot - I was trying to be stealthy, but my back made me stand up straight every once in a while.

Downtown Spokane, WA
Canon EOS 1000D
14 June, 2009

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