Going to Seattle

We're leaving for Seattle in a few short hours. Due to changing plans, we may be backpacking some. So, we packed in the big packs last night. Whoohoo!

On top of that I've heard from most of my close friends that are still in the area, and it sounds like many will be able to come to dinner tomorrow. :)

Busy

Oh, man. Things are busy.

Somehow, despite having this Seattle trip in our heads for a long time, we let preparations sneak up on us. Mostly, this has to do with the fact that I (and others) wouldn't commit until a couple weeks ago. So now, we're trying to figure out what to do about campsites, cars, meeting people for dinner, etc. We'll survive, and even have a great time though.

I backseated my first rendezvous sim yesterday. It was the most nominal rendezvous from a FDO perspective that I think I've ever seen. Afterward, I was thinking that I should have let the guy who schedules us for sims talk me into actually sitting FDO with a backseater. However my first sim goes, it couldn't possibly be more gentle than that. Oh, well. Murphy says that if it had been my first sim, we would have ended up on a collision course or something.

Quiz Time

Everybody's doing it so...

1. When you look at yourself in the mirror, what's the first thing you look at?
This little red dot that showed up on my nose earlier this year. It's permanent, not a zit, but I don't know what it actually is.
2. How much cash do you have on you right now?
$10
3. What's a word that rhymes with "TEST"?
Rest
4. Favorite plant?
A lilac bush. Because we had one right outside the back door in my childhood home.
5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
My phone doesn't separate missed and recieved calls, but Gavin is 4th on the list.
6. What is your main ring tone on your phone?
Harry Potter theme
7. What shirt are you wearing?
A white and various shades of pink striped button-down
8. Do you "label" yourself?
Yeah
9. Name brand of your shoes currently wearing?
"Italian Shoemakers" - They look nice, but they fall off my feet
10. Do you prefer a bright or dark room?
Definitely bright. All rooms should have windows.
11. What did you have for breakfast?
A cream cheese danish and a kolache. *Blush*
12. There's no 12, so make something up.
Outside my window is a parking lot which is very empty of cars on this Friday afternoon. Time to finish up and go home.
13. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Sleeping.
14. What did your last text message you received on your cell phone say?
"Can't wait to see pix. Waiting for our gate to clear." Sent by Gavin after his plane arrived in Denver.
15. Do you ever click on "Pop Ups" or Banners?
Only on accident
16. What's an expression that you say a lot?
"Actually..." As pointed out by a co-worker.
17. Who told you they loved you last?
My hubby. I'd say you'd get this answer about 99% of the time.
18. Last furry thing you touched?
Zoya as she slunk out the back door this morning.
19. How many hours a week do you work?
40. Unless the Shuttle's flying or the sky is falling.
20. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
The only film I have in my house is in a disposable camera that my mom accidentally left there 3 years ago. Think it's still good?
21. Favorite age you have been so far?
Uh... Maybe 21?
22. Your worst enemy?
People who think the Lord of the Rings movies are better than the books. I have a lot of enemies. Some of them are very good friends.
23. What is your current desktop picture? Antarctic glaciers.
24. What was the last thing you said to someone?
See you next week.
25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to go back in time and fix all your mistakes which would you choose?
Cash. I haven't done anything that bad.

TGIF

I've been sitting at my computer at work with my headphones on for about half an hour now, but I just now remembered to turn on the music. I have a feeling today's going to be a... little... slow. On the positive side, I got here at 8:30am, which is pretty good for the last couple weeks.

I think the dogs are feeling sad. Roxy hid in the closet while I was getting ready for work this morning. Zoya practically crawled to the back door on her belly when I put them out. They're getting left again on Wednesday. Poor puppies.

I'm getting excited about going to Washington, but I've been very bad about getting in touch with friends to let them know I'm coming up. A couple e-mails aren't working anymore. I need to make phone calls tonight.

Couch Potato

No news on the job front yet. It sounds like I'll be in somewhat limbo for a while yet. But I'm moving forward in my current path while I wait on the decision.

I really need to get myself back into an exercise routine. Early in the summer, I was swimming fairly regularly. Then due to vacations, flights, laziness, etc I kind of fell off to the point where I wasn't doing anything. As a result, I've gained about 5 lbs. Oh, to be in a place where I could go on frequent hikes. I think the best thing I could do would probably be to get my butt to the pool a couple times a week. Even swimming seems hot in the summer in Houston, but not as hot as walking. The good news is that in about a month it might be a bit cooler in the evenings. Like in the 70s.

The Cutest 1-Year-Old

While Sarah, Gavin, and Rich were exploring Yosemite this weekend, I was in Wyoming participating in Caroline’s first birthday. Caroline is quite a cutie-pie.


Caroline’s birthday party was at Natural Bridge park, between Casper and Douglas. I hadn’t been there in many, many years. So many that my memories were snapshot-like. Here’s one of the snapshots that I had in my head.


Caroline masterfully performed all the required first birthday activities, including staring in awe at her first birthday balloons, playing with bows, and smearing cake all over her face.




If you want the complete collection, the photo album is here.

OK, Sorry

OK, sorry, sorry! I know I should have taken the time to update this weekend after leaving you with a cliff-hanger on Thursday. The meeting went, well, like I thought it would. No final decisions have been made. I had been feeling very much like I would take it Wednesday night, but then as Thursday morning went by I started having more and more doubts. The result of this is that I probably sounded very wishy-washy in the meeting as to my desires. The big bosses haven't informed me or my immediate boss as to whether they're going to request me to go now or accelerate the next person's training so they can go sooner than would normally be possible. We discussed having me start some training over there while still maintaining my position in my group for a while. I certainly think that would be a nice deal for me. Plus, I'm officially starting to backseat rendezvous sims next week. So, either way I'm going to be taking a next step very soon.

I wrote a post about Caroline's birthday on the plane last night, but then I forgot my laptop this morning. I'll post it tonight, along with the VERY CUTE pictures I took. :)

"You-so-mighty"

Now I’m sitting next to Jen on the plane ride to Houston, we’ve been trading stories for the last hour. Sounds like Caroline is doing really well, I can’t wait to see her at Christmas.

Sarah, Rich and I were musing over the name ‘Yosemite’ and how people might mispronounce it. Sarah’s favorite take is the title for this post.

Friday morning the three of us drove to Yosemite. The drive in the afternoon took much longer than we expected, nearly five hours from Berkeley. We checked in at the hostel and then drove to the park to catch the sunset. Sarah and Rich got some great pictures of Half Dome bathed in the gorgeous yellow light seen before the sun sets. We stopped at the park’s general store to grab several last minute additions to our daypacks for the big hike the next day (including the all-important moleskin), had pizza at the only restaurant in town, and then crashed back at the hostel since we had an early start the next day.

Up before sunrise, we drove into the park and admired the morning views. There weren’t many early risers, except we were passed by a bakery truck (which I vowed to catch up to, but we never did). We parked below Sentinel Rock, looked up at its top thousands of feet above us, grinned at each other, and then began our climb up the four and a half mile trail to Glacier Point. We had some great views that morning of the valley, with the sunlight falling on the valley side opposite us. It was nice and cool where we were, we didn’t really find the sun until we reached the top after three and a half hours.

Glacier Point is a commanding vista located across from Yosemite Falls and providing an unmatched view of Half Dome and some of the spectacular waterfalls in the valley behind it. We admired the vista, stopped in the gift shop for some ice cream, and then prepared for our 8.5 mile hike down to the falls behind Half Dome. While we were there we read some signs talking about the Glacier Hotel located at the Point which burned down in the 1960s. We also learned of the two dancing ladies who would literally dance on Overhanging Rock, a fall from which would literally take thousands of feet to hit the bottom. And we saw pictures of the Yosemite Firefall, a tradition that the Park ended in the 1970s where they would start a bonfire on Glacier Point every night and then at 9pm dump it over the side so that all in the valley could see the burning embers streaking down to the ground. It would have been great to see any of those today, but I understand why they don’t resurrect them.

The hike down to the falls was hot as we were now in the early afternoon. Now we were starting to get tired, and Sarah and I were finding our moleskin patches on our heels were not working as best as one would hope. We saw three falls, Illilouette, Nevada, and Vernal Falls, all of which were spectacular up close. My favorite waterfall is still Victoria Falls, but all of these three are now in my favorite top five waterfalls I’ve seen.

While we were near Emerald Pond above the misty falls of Vernal we saw many teenagers wading or swimming through it, ignoring the closed area signs. The granite banks are very slippery when wet, I can see how many people might twist a knee or ankle from a slip. It was amusing to watch one boy jump in after a stick, gasp as he realized how cold the water was, and then scramble back ashore. We climbed down some very, very steep stone stairs next to the falls along Misty Trail. We were amazed by the number of people going up that portion.

A few more stops and we were on our way to the bottom. At this point a few people jogged past us going down the trail, and I realized that I hadn’t run yet in Yosemite so I offered to go on ahead and bring the car back to Sarah and Rich. Jogging down wasn’t too bad, I just had to make sure to take it easy, not go too fast, and keep my knees bent to prevent any joint injuries. I made it to the bottom and hopped on a shuttle bus and waited for forty minutes as it meandered through the valley, as our stop was on the far side. As it turned out, the bus didn’t actually stop at our car; I had a nice half-mile jog along one of the paths through a meadow as I made my way towards Sentinel Rock and our car. I drove around and picked up Rich and Sarah, who had only been waiting for 20 minutes.

After grabbing some delicious sandwiches and drinks for dinner from the valley general store we set off to Glacier Point again, this time by car. We stopped near the Wawona Tunnel scenic view turnoff. From there you can look eastward up the valley and see El Capitan, Half Dome, and Sentinel Rock all at the same time. It would have been great just a few minutes earlier before the sun set, as the valley must have been beautifully illuminated for a postcard photo. We hopped back in the car and began the windy long road up to Glacier Point for a special event that we had learned of the night before.

We made it to the top and parked 15 minutes before moonrise, just as twilight ended. We settled down on the point with some other people, facing Half Dome and the darkened valley. We could see a few lights here and there, of people walking along trails. We even saw a light on the steep side of Half Dome, evidently that of a climber settling in for the night. The nearly full moon rose over the Sierra Nevada mountains amid a few cheers from the fifty or so people scattered across Glacier Point. The moon was quite stunning and bright, and wonderful. Sarah snapped picture after picture while Rich fiddled with one of the Park viewing telescopes mounted there. After he realized it was working and didn’t cost quarters to use, we spied on the moon and admired its craters and rays.

One time when I stepped up to the telescope to look again, I was puzzled to see a thin smear across the moon. My eye followed the smear to a black object racing towards the limb of the moon, and I recognized it as the silhouette of the tail and fuselage of a jet airliner! The smear was due to the engine exhaust, and it quickly faded. Neither Sarah nor Rich believed me until we saw the airliner’s navigation lights next to the moon moments later.

After spotting some satellites, we drove down to the moonlit Valley and stopped in a few places for Sarah to take some long exposures of El Capitan and a few other features. We learned Rich hated “They Might Be Giants”. And we finally got back to the hostel a half hour after midnight, stumbled into the showers, and collapsed on the bed.

Sunday morning we drove to San Francisco and spent a few hours driving through the Presidio and Golden Gate Park. It was nice, except that several weekend road closures in the Park made it a little frustrating to try to drive through it. Then we caught a plane back for Denver and boarded this one for Houston.

It was a fantastic trip, Yosemite is now one of my favorite places to hike in the United States. Jen and I will have to go there and spend a few days. Now it’s back to work for a few weeks until we leave for western Washington.

Homeward Bound

The conference was mostly a success. We succeeded in our aim to heighten the awareness of public safety in spacecraft operations. The plenary speaker the morning before our sessions mentioned ours, as well as a number of other topics, as some of the interesting things going on at the conference. Attendance to our sessions was pretty good for such a ‘new’ field, typically between 20 and 25 people. I suspect some of them were AIAA who wanted to see who this person was who had organized the special sessions on public safety.

My talk went well except for one point. It had become clear to me in the weeks preceeding the conference, as I prepared our paper, that our efforts were ingeneous but not yet developed to the point that we should be bragging about them. There are a few important aspects that our methodology must be able to account for, and one of them is validation with the Columbia debris. In my talk I made a flippant remark, meant in jest, that this was all great theory but that it wasn’t possible to validate our methodology. I then explained it was because there isn’t an accurate or complete dataset to do so. This is true, but I should have phrased my initial remark differently. When I said that, I caught the dismayed expressions on a few faces in the audience from experts in our field. I believe our methodology can be developed to the point where its shortfalls are no longer any greater than those of other methods. And I think the experts are intrigued by its potential as well. But I need to work on how I handle myself in a public forum like this; mistakes such as my flippant remark are not often forgiven.

The discussion I moderated at the end of the day didn’t suffer from such mistakes. I hadn’t prepared much except a list of discussion points. The group discussed a few of these, mostly beneficial, and then I concluded with a thank-you to those attending and participating. Many told me they hoped we did something similar again, and that we include some of the spacecraft producers, such as Boeing and Lockheed, next time around; a marvelous idea.

Thursday morning Sarah gave her paper on Mars abort determination, which she delivered very well and it received a lot of interest at the conference. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 40 or so attending her talk. Thursday afternoon we checked out of the hotel, rented bicycles at Fisherman’s Warf, and biked along the bay coast across the Golden Gate and back. It was great fun and we got to see a lot of San Francisco that way. Sarah and I detoured on the way back to make a quick stop at the Palace of Fine Arts. San Francisco has many examples of architecture or monuments that feel much more classical (European) than modern (American?). Perhaps some cities on the East Coast do the same; I haven’t visited them.

Thursday night we all arrived at my grandmother’s house for dinner with her, my parents, and one of the students. It was a very pleasant evening. My family rocks. The only complaint I had was that the fog didn’t lift before sunset or in the morning, so Rich and Sarah were not able to see the fantastic view my grandmother's house has of the bay.

I’ll have to relate our tales in Yosemite in the next entry. We’re now descending into Denver, where we’ll meet Jen and then fly on to Houston.

Arngh!

15 minutes until the meeting described in my last post. I still don't know what I want to do. WHAT DO I WANT TO DO??!!

Moment of Truth

I knew it was going to happen. I've known it for weeks. But now it is staring me in the face. A all-but-certainty. Tomorrow I am going to be asked to make a move at work. It is not a bad move. In fact, that I am being asked to make this move is a huge compliment. It is something that I always had in my head as a "maybe someday" and, like so many things that have happened to me professionally, someday is just sooner than I ever expected. I'm going to say yes, I'm sure, because this move will fill a personnel hole that needs to be filled and will probably be very good for my career.

So why do I sound freaked out, you ask? Well, I've been thinking about that. I think I'm freaked out because this move is going to take me out of my comfort zone. A place that I've really only been living in for a less than a year, and I'm still not completely comfortable anyway. But this move is going to put me WAY outside my comfort zone. This is the other half of why I'm pretty sure I'm going to say yes to this move. Having realized that my reluctance has a lot to do with fear, I will not let the fear rule me. I MUST NOT GIVE IN TO THE FEAR!

So, I'm sort of watching the clock now until I'm sure Gavin is out of his conference session so that I can call him to freak out verbally. So like me - I don't need help to make this decision, but I do need to let the freaking out happen before I go see my boss tomorrow. Then he can offer this opportunity to the calm, collected, competent individual that he expects to see (you know, the one he wants to offer this job to) instead of the woman in my head that just keeps chattering "Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod".

Doldrums

During a Shuttle mission you spend two weeks working long hours under stressful circumstances. You quickly lose track of whether it is light or dark outside, what day of the week it is, and when you had that dentist appointment scheduled. Your world becomes one of Mission Elapsed Time (days/hours/minutes since launch), and the only thing that matters about tomorrow is whether it is an EVA day (spacewalk) or a cargo transfer day. After a missed weekend and half way through your second 60-70 hour work week, you start wondering what your friends and family have been up to and when are you ever going to get your laundry done. But, your are doing your job. In my case, I was actually doing the job the government has spent 3 years training for for the FIRST TIME.

Post-mission doldrums are a well-known phenomenon. After getting to participate in human spaceflight for two weeks, going back to the office and editing training documents is a poor substitution. During normal mission frequency, this period of low motivation would last a few weeks and then things would start ramping up toward the next mission. Now, however, I'm anticipating months of office work before I get to do it again. MONTHS.

So, I'm glad I'm going to Wyoming on Thursday. I'm very excited to see Caroline again. Do you think it is too ambitious to try to teach a 1-year-old to say "Aunt Jen" in 3 days? :)

Red Flags

Defective Yeti had a pretty interesting comment string going about relationship red flags.

I really liked this one:
If after the first date, you say to yourself, "Gee, he's kinda geeky," be honest with yourself on your own geek quotient.

I'm not so crazy about this one:
If a guy you are dating signs his notes to you 'cheers' then you should immediately forget about anything long term.

This just means he wants to be Brittish. Gavin always signs things 'cheers'. And he's a long-term kind of guy.

Exciting Weekend - Or Not

I'm very amused that Gavin posted 3 times in the last 2 days. That has got to be a record for him. :) It sounds like everyone is having fun in San Francisco. I got a kick out of Sarah right before they left. She was in her normal pre-trip freak-out mode. That amuses me so much. I relax almost instantly when I get in the car to leave town.

Well, while the conference goers were having fun in one of the best cities in the country, I was catching up on housework. After dropping Gavin off at Rich's on Saturday I went to Walgreens to get some random toiletry items. While there, Cari called me to ask if I wanted to have lunch at the Rose Garden Tea Room. Hmmm, go home and clean, or meet Cari, Becca, and Rachel for lunch at a place I've always wanted to try? Lunch! After lunch I went back to Becca and Cari's to meet Rachel's dog, Sierra, who I had been told looks a lot like Zoya. Well, not so much to a "mother's" eyes, but she was a sweet dog. Then it was back home to clean the house after 3 weeks of neglect. Got that mostly done and called my sister, which of course turned into a 2 hour phone call (short for us) and effectively forestalled any attempt I may have made on the lawn.

Sunday I watched some Friends videos and paid bills. Then I went outside to mow the back yard. Our lawn mower sucks. I tried to bag the clippings so that I could mow the grass shorter, but the chute kept getting clogged. Like every two feet. Eventually I gave up and mulched on the highest setting. So the yard still looks a bit raggety. Maybe I'll make another attempt before I leave Thursday. While I was mowing, Cari called and invited me over for dinner and Jane Austin. :) She just bought Sense and Sensibility, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. It was a good time to have a Jane Austin night since Becca wasn't around. Got home very late, fed the dogs and went to bed.

The dogs get very alert and protective when I'm at home alone at night. They woke me up 4 times last night barking at nothing. And Zoya didn't go to the bathroom before bed, so she woke me up another time to let her out. I'm a bit tired, and I have a headache this morning. Plus, I have to go get cavities filled at lunch. Blah.

Conference time

This morning we toured Stanford, courtesy of Sarah. Nice campus. Then we picked up Kara from the airport. It’s really fun to see someone as excited to be here as Sarah and Kara, their enthusiasm frequently uncontained as they talk about being in San Francisco or going to the conference.

I gave Jen a call when we started walking through the city this afternoon. Over the last six years or so, every time I’ve been in San Francisco I’ve been with Jen. I think it’s one of our favorite cities, up there with Seattle. Anyways, this time it feels sort of weird to be here without her. Rich, Sarah, and Kara are fine company, but, you know…

After walking along the Embarcedero to Ghirardelli Square, we stopped for some pricey (but good) Boudin sourdough bread bowls with clam chowder. Then we stopped at the famous ice cream shop. I learned a tragic fact about Kara, she’s been lactose intolerant since birth. So, she’s never really had much ice cream. At all. She says it’s okay, that she doesn’t really know what she’s missing… but that’s just it! She doesn’t know what she’s missing! Very tragic. I’m still disturbed by it.

We caught a cable car up Hyde over to California, then strolled down the hill to our hotel. We picked up our conference packets early this evening, tonight we’re picking out which sessions we want to attend tomorrow. It’s fun. I like coming to conferences and learning what is going on in the world. Many times we’ll see NASA papers by JPL or Langley. It is rare, I think, that you see as many papers from JSC as this year. Most of the JSC papers are related to Return-to-Flight of the Shuttle, the changes we’ve made in various aspects of mission planning or operations. Usually it’s just a handful of papers from engineering and maybe one from our group. I hope that will start to change in the next few years, as JSC begins to transition from Shuttle and Station to Station and beyond.

I think later tonight or tomorrow I'll start working on my presentations for Wednesday... the paper is done, just have to make slides. You'd think after 5 years of this I'd be better prepared but all that seems to be happening is I'm just more busy with less time to prepare for things. I liked that at first... not so much now. I prefer to do a few things well than lots of things not-so-well.

Second Leg

We’re approximately halfway to San Francisco from Denver, aboard a 747-400. Sarah is pretty excited, this is her first 747 and she’s amazed by the size of the airliner. She grabbed a phonecam shot of the stairway leading to the upper deck. We spent some minutes while waiting in the air terminal admiring the lines of the aircraft, the way the wings taper as one looks outboard, and the immediately recognizable ‘hump’ a 747 has near the nose for the upper deck and cockpit. We were annoyed that we weren’t going to fly non-stop from Houston to San Francisco, but today I don’t really mind much.

Tonight we’ll stay near Stanford, hopefully we’ll tag up with our friends Chris, Ron, and Buzz for dinner. Tomorrow morning we might job through campus, come back, shower, pick up Kara from the airport, and then drive into town to check into the hotel and see the city for an afternoon. Then Monday we get to sleep in a little bit, since we managed to get rooms in the same hotel as the conference! Very nice.

I’ve made it about a third of the way through Botting’s book, it pleasantly diverges from the Graf Zeppelin’s record flight to recount how Eckener and Count Zeppelin met, how the Count suffered from failure after failure and yet the German public and press (through Eckener’s efforts) rallied behind him and each time rescued the Count from the brink of financial ruin. As with practically every war since the American Civil War, the innovation of technology accelerates at a furious pace. During World War I, the airship evolved from an ineffective and unwieldy reconnaissance craft into a strategic bomber within two years.

The zeppelin bombings of England during this war had a great psychological impact, not to mention the diversion of resources to counter the airship threat. The actual bombing was more or less ineffective. One of my favorite stories is how a German naval airship gets lost trying to bomb Edinburgh, instead bombing an abandoned castle in the Highlands, flying low over the North Sea beside a German steamship to ask for directions, and then crashlanding in a fjord in Norway. The British eventually devised an effective and final counter to the airship: the high altitude airplane equipped with incendiary bullets. The book includes a somber picture of a flaming airship plummeting from the sky. The later airships of the war were over six hundred feet in length, approaching the scale of the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. The technologies and techniques learned during the war led to the successful (if limited) commercial airship trips in the 1920s and 1930s. World War II did much the same for the strategic bomber, allowing commercial airplane travel to become widespread after that war.

We’re experiencing a little turbulence at the moment. The captain just cut off a radio call as he realized he was broadcasting to the passenger cabin instead of the air traffic controllers. For an experienced 747 captain to do that, I imagine things must be busy up front.

Anyways, sometimes I wonder on the parallels between the airship and the Space Shuttle. I’m not the first, I know others have posted similar ponderings online. The airship was a magnificent engineering accomplishment that inspired all who saw it, but it was eventually replaced by more efficient aircraft who could transport people or materials across large distances in hours instead of days. The shuttle is perhaps the most complicated system ever built, from its intricate main engines that carefully mix the liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants during ascent, to the reinforced carbon-carbon panels lining the sharper edges to protect the spacecraft during entry. I know the Shuttle inspired me to become an aerospace engineer, as I recounted earlier here during Discovery’s flight.

The days of the Shuttle are numbered, as the spacecraft grow too old to fly safely and cost too much to operate when NASA is beginning to transition from mere human spaceflight back to human exploration. The successor to the Shuttle will probably be more efficient and, from the perspective of exploring beyond low Earth orbit, more capable. But the spacecraft itself probably won’t be as inspiring to watch launch or land as the Shuttles Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, or Endeavour.

The vehicles used for space tourism might be pretty neat. Spaceship One and White Knight certainly looked very cool and sleek. I’m interested in seeing if, in ten years, some of the development for space tourism has spread into systems useful for rapid suborbital transport from one location to another. FedEx via space, for example. I think that is probably a commercial application that will be less reliant on the whims of the global economy unlike space tourism. I wonder if we’ll see anything at this conference that hints in that direction.

The captain has just announced we’re landing in 20 minutes or so, so I think I’ll shutdown and return to Botting. I expect he’ll wrap up World War I shortly and return to the crossing of Siberia by the Graf Zeppelin. That flight took place a year after an Italian airship crashed attempting to reach the North Pole, with heavy loss of life. Consequently, much of the world was waiting with baited breath to hear if the Graf Zeppelin had safely made it to Tokyo.

North by Northwest

We have left Houston behind us, soaring through clouds as we head towards Denver. Rich and Sarah are both working on crossword puzzles, as I type away on my issued laptop. The battery looks like it will hold a charge for up to two hours, which is a nice surprise. I had been expecting twenty minutes from the stories my coworkers have told me.

Earlier in the flight I began reading “Dr. Eckener’s Dream Machine” by Douglas Botting. The book retells the amazing journey of the Graf Zeppelin in 1929 as 61 people embark on the first circumnavigation of the globe from the air. Eckener called it the proving flight of all proving flights to demonstrate the airship’s safety and potential for commercial use. Onboard are names familiar to the Hindenburg disaster eight years hence, such as Dr. Eckener himself, USN Commander Rosendahl who captains the airship USS Los Angeles, and the future commander of the Hindenberg, Lehmann, who is the Executive Officer of the Graf Zeppelin. A Russian, several Japanese, a Scottish countess, a few Americans, dozens of Germans… the collection of 20 passengers and 41 crew has representatives of nearly all of the global powers at the time.

The book begins by relating the events the night before the Graf Zeppelin leaves the German town of Friedrichshafen. Many are celebrating the early morning departure by partying through the night. At three in the morning they are mustered to the airfield, so the airship can launch safely near dawn when winds are least likely to occur. Botting writes a wonderful description of the passengers’ reaction to their first sight of the zeppelin resting lightly in its mammoth hanger, softly illuminated by thousands of lights. I can tell the author is one who is as enamored with the romantic notion of the airship and how it ‘swims’ through the air as I am. I’m looking forward to reading more on this trip.

After an hour or so in Denver, we’ll be on our way to San Francisco using the efficient successor to the airship, the subsonic winged airliner. While airplanes certainly travel faster than airships, I doubt any do it in as much style. Except perhaps the Concord, which was retired a few years ago. Perhaps I’m getting old, everything in the past seems to be more grand than some of the achievements of today’s world. For example, the best that human spaceflight can hope for in the next fifteen years is to recreate the achievements from the Apollo era. Hopefully in a manner that will be cheaper and therefore more sustaining for the exploration of space.

Yet there is hope for some fascinating space marvels from the private sector. Space tourism is attracting a lot of investment dollars and I suppose that is good. It can establish a ‘beachhead’ of development of space, which I think is better accomplished sooner than later. Perhaps I’ll write more on that later this week.

San Francisco will be fun. We’re attending an aerospace conference for the first four days. Then a day with my grandmother in Berkeley, where my parents will be as my dad is attending a geology conference at the same time as mine. Then Sarah and Rich and I are off to Yosemite, which I’m very much looking forward to. Never been. Then we meet up with Jen in Denver on the way back to Houston, Jen will be returning from visiting her family and niece, Caroline, who is a year old this month! Very cool.

As my ears pop and the captain announces over the intercom, we are now starting our descent to Denver. Sarah has a great STS-114 photo for the desktop of her laptop, taken of Discovery by the ISS crew as the shuttle was a quarter of the way through the ‘belly flip’ maneuver to inspect for any external damage. I’m jealous. I wish my issued laptop had stuff like that on it. But I suppose the people maintaining this equipment have other things to do than download cool stuff for the users to appreciate.

Bon Voyage

Gavin is about to leave for San Francisco to go to a conference for about a week and a half. For some reason, I'm regretting this separation more than I usually do. It's not as though we haven't traveled separately before. Maybe it's because I just finished working the mission on Monday and then I went to a ball game without him Wednesday, and we had social things Tuesday and Thursday nights. So basically, we've spent one evening at home together in the last 3 weeks. That could be it.

Anyway, I'm not sticking around the whole time anyway. I get to see my family and especially my niece on Thursday, so I'm pretty excited about that. Meanwhile, the house has 3 weeks of dog hair and other dirty stuff on the floor, so there's definitely some work to be done there. And there's a party I could go to tonight, but I'm not sure I'll be in the mood. Maybe I'll take the dogs somewhere cool instead.

In other news, although it's not official yet it really doesn't look like we're going to be flying another Shuttle mission in September. So, I purchased a plane ticket to Seattle for Labor Day weekend. Yea hiking in the Pacific Northwest! Now I just need to send out e-mails and see how many of my friends I can get to dinner the one day we're spending in the city. I expect I'll get a lot of flack because I'm not planning on attending the Huskies game while I'm there, but the purpose of this trip is hiking primarily. I can go see football in Houston (albeit not the Huskies) if I want, but there are no mountains to play in here.

Don't you just love coincidences?

We were walking out to the parking lot for lunch today discussing everyone's travel plans. Gavin, Sarah, and Rich are leaving for California tomorrow. They are meeting at Rich's place. This is how the conversation went:


Me: Well, I can drop Gavin off at Rich's tomorrow if someone will take him home when you get back. I'm coming back from Wyoming really late on the 21st.

Sarah: We're getting back really late, too. Sometime around midnight.

Me: Me, too!

Becca: You're probably on the same plane, you're both going through Denver, right?

Sarah: Jen's probably on Continental, though.

Me: Actually I'm on United.

Sarah: Really? I bet we are on the same plane!


Took a look after lunch, and yep! We are on the same plane from Denver to Houston. No pre-coordination required. Don't you just love coincidences like that?

Uh, oh

I'm starting to get the idea that I'm not just going to be busy for the next month, but that I'm going to be REALLY busy with people wanting data yesterday all the time and not enough time to answer all the questions that I'm being asked and not able to find the people I need to find to get the answers to the questions. I've worked exactly two days since Discovery landed and I'm already getting sick of the next flight! :P And despite what the papers say, I haven't been told that we aren't launching in September yet.

I'm tired, I have a headache, and I want a weekend. One more day this week.

I went to the Astros vs. the Nationals with Sarah and Jason last night. I yelled a bit too much, and have a slightly scratchy voice today. Oh, well, baseball is worth it!

My happy thought for today is that I'm wearing new pants, and I really like them. I don't find pants too much, and I think these are really cool. Plus, they match my favorite blue shirt perfectly. :)

Welcome Home Discovery

Well, the first real-live flight of my career is complete. I am at home enjoying my first day off since before Discovery lifted off the pad on July 26. It would have been nice if the weather at KSC would have cooperated to allow landing there, but any safe landing is a good one. I'm back to work tomorrow to start getting ready for the next flight, but at least we have a little breathing room now. Launch is currently no-earlier-than September 22. With the necessity of ferrying Discovery back from California, I expect that we'll end up having to skip the September season, but that isn't official. Of course, the program also has to disposition all the in-flight anomalies from Discovery's mission before we can fly again. In short, none of us know when that will be.

For today, though, I'm just happy to have gotten a chance to participate in flying human beings in space. This is a moment I've been waiting for a long time. Welcome home, Discovery.

The End

I had to remove my first spam comment today. This is not as easy in blogger as I would have thought. Guess it's a good thing that my readership isn't too big, or I'd actually have to figure out Movable Type.

Tonight is the last shift of my first mission, assuming the weather in Florida cooperates tomorrow and the Shuttle can land. I'm glad, because I've been working for 14 days straight, and I'd kind of like a day off. Plus, since I was working in the afternoon and evening, I haven't seen much of my husband or my friends for the last few weeks. However, particularly with the uncertainty surrounding the next launch, I'm a bit sad that I'll have to go back to the office for a while.

This really gets my goat

All the new photography we are taking on this mission is targeted for engineering use. The pictures have been so awesome, though, that I find myself wondering why we haven't been taking pictures like these for years. One of the things I think NASA sometimes could do better is communicating the wonder of spaceflight to the world. I was astonished at the detail on the ground you could see in the background of the photos taken of the Orbiter from the ISS. See the pictures here.

I just had a very spirited but hushed "discussion" with a co-worker about society's attitude toward women doing dangerous jobs. According to him, if we weren't flying "mommies" on the shuttle, the average citizen wouldn't be so horrified and consternated at the danger.

Characterizing Eileen Collins, a test pilot and a senior Shuttle mission Commander as a "mommy" in that condescending way almost made me kick the guy. The implication that one of the most accomplished women in the world is primarily valuable for her reproductive capabilities is disgusting. The fact that there are intelligent, educated people that think that way makes me dispair of ever having a truly equal society.

When I expressed my disagreement with this philosophy, said co-worker throws out what he thinks is an iron clad arguement: No women in combat. At this point, I try to extract myself from what is obviously going to become an obnoxious argument. Nothing doing. This is another hot-button issue with me. I personally don't ever want to be in combat. However, the idea of telling women that chose careers in the military that they can't do certain jobs because they could get hurt is stupid, sexist, and another thing that shows how we still have not achieved a perception of women as equals in society.

I was getting preety worked up at this point, and then he starts expounding on the Responsibility of Society to Protect the "Weaker Sex". (Yes, he actually used that term.) I think laser beams shot out my eyes. I may have cursed a couple times. I think that it at least got through to him that he was treading on pretty thin ice because he quickly changed the subject back to work and then left.

I can't believe how wound up I got. It was really hard for me to concentrate for the next half hour. It's not like I'm suprised that this guy thinks like this, but I just don't get how he would think he could say things like this and I would just agree with him. I tried to give him an out several times, and he intentionally kept upping the ante. Argh, I need to stop or I'll still be writing tomorrow - oh, wait, it is tomorrow.

Blog in Space

Cool.

Icebox

Mission Control is an icebox. They keep the room at large at 70 deg F, and we sit right under the blowers. It's August in Houston, and I'm wearing a jacket, socks, and leggings under my skirt. And I'm still cold. I've started to put little snowmen on my handover sheets for the next shift.

My sleep schedule has started to slip later. The last couple nights, I've stayed up a couple hours after I get home reading. This is bad because it will be tough to get myself back onto a normal work schedule after landing. Which I really, really need to do because we are going to be going 110% throttle on getting ready for the next mission once we land. Since NASA hasn't officially slipped the STS-121 launch date, we have to prepare like we're going to fly on September 9. That means after landing (hopefully) on Monday, I have a long sim (5am-2pm!!!) Thursday and Friday of next week. The following Monday is Launch - 25 days, so we will be posting a bunch of data. Then a post-insertion sim, lots of meetings about cargo transfer, a rendezvous sim (on a Sunday!), and probably about 6000 things I don't even know about yet. I still hope to sneak out of town for Caroline's birthday, but I'll have to work hard to keep up.

Sarah in the news

Sarah was interviewed by the Denver Post about our aborted attempt on Long's Peak summit last year. Read the article here. So cool!