Geeeks in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!
Well, okay, not actually in space, but certainly as close as I'm ever gonna get.
On Saturday, The Boy and I drove up to Pasadena to visit the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech during their annual open house. The Boy's been a couple of times before, but I haven't, so the whoe thing was a brand new and geektastic joy to me. The pretty much open up the whole place, with a ton of exhibits and demos both indoors and out. You can get in to see the Deep Space Network mission control room, from where they run the Mars mission; the machine shop where they make assorted spacecraft parts, and the assembly room where they put the crafts together. There are scale models of satellites, prototypes of future Mars and and lunar rovers, and lots of very enthusiastic NASA scientist to tell you all about it.
It was really cool to see parts and models for, and talk to the people who work on the Jason and Topex/Poseidon satellite missions, since I use a lot of their sea surface height data in my work.
To spread the fun around a bit, I brought along the Flat Stanley that drewshi's older boy sent to me as part of a class project he's doing in first grade. (Note to drewshi: I have many more Stanley pictures than that, as The Boy took most of them with his camera. I'm going to make a flickr page in the next couple of days and send you the link.)
Mission control
The next generation of Mars Rovers
Kids pretending to be martian rocks while a rover roves over them (good suspension, huh?)
Model of JASON-1 Satelite
Model of QuikSCAT satellite
Methanol fuel cell demo
Battery for Topex satellite
In the machine shop:
A part from Mars rover being scanned and measured:
here's what it looks like once it's been scanned:
A rover wheel gets scanned:
the shop itself:
Stanley next to a mystery spacecraft part
At the assembly plant:
Aquarius satellite with dummy scientist (how's that for a contradiction in terms)?
some parts for Aquarius
I think this one speaks for itself
Next generation of lunar rovers
I love this sign
A new prototype under development -- this one climbs cliffs!
Another one that's going to climb cliffs
At the Microdevices Laboratory:
Circuit chip
I think "semiconductor laser technology" is a really cool phrase, don't you?
There. Now tell me this isn't the coolest stuff ever.
Also, The Boy took more (and cooler) pictures than me. Go look at them here.
On Saturday, The Boy and I drove up to Pasadena to visit the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech during their annual open house. The Boy's been a couple of times before, but I haven't, so the whoe thing was a brand new and geektastic joy to me. The pretty much open up the whole place, with a ton of exhibits and demos both indoors and out. You can get in to see the Deep Space Network mission control room, from where they run the Mars mission; the machine shop where they make assorted spacecraft parts, and the assembly room where they put the crafts together. There are scale models of satellites, prototypes of future Mars and and lunar rovers, and lots of very enthusiastic NASA scientist to tell you all about it.
It was really cool to see parts and models for, and talk to the people who work on the Jason and Topex/Poseidon satellite missions, since I use a lot of their sea surface height data in my work.
To spread the fun around a bit, I brought along the Flat Stanley that drewshi's older boy sent to me as part of a class project he's doing in first grade. (Note to drewshi: I have many more Stanley pictures than that, as The Boy took most of them with his camera. I'm going to make a flickr page in the next couple of days and send you the link.)
Mission control
The next generation of Mars Rovers
Kids pretending to be martian rocks while a rover roves over them (good suspension, huh?)
Model of JASON-1 Satelite
Model of QuikSCAT satellite
Methanol fuel cell demo
Battery for Topex satellite
In the machine shop:
A part from Mars rover being scanned and measured:
here's what it looks like once it's been scanned:
A rover wheel gets scanned:
the shop itself:
Stanley next to a mystery spacecraft part
At the assembly plant:
Aquarius satellite with dummy scientist (how's that for a contradiction in terms)?
some parts for Aquarius
I think this one speaks for itself
Next generation of lunar rovers
I love this sign
A new prototype under development -- this one climbs cliffs!
Another one that's going to climb cliffs
At the Microdevices Laboratory:
Circuit chip
I think "semiconductor laser technology" is a really cool phrase, don't you?
There. Now tell me this isn't the coolest stuff ever.
Also, The Boy took more (and cooler) pictures than me. Go look at them here.