So Rachel and I had an idea – or more accurately, I had an idea, and Rachel endorsed my crazy and agreed that it should happen and she’d help make it so (…Number One… sorry.)
…I wondered if there was some sort of consolidated calendar or website listing all the conferences, conventions, concerts, tweetups, meetups, and other random events and gatherings which draw the geeky masses… and for lack of a better search term, googled “nerdy events” (true story).
Through that Google search, I discovered WordCamp Philly, a couple good sites to keep an eye on for certain types of nerdy events in my area (and corresponding ones for many other interests and locations), and a sudden desire to move to Portland or Seattle or Vancouver… but no big consolidated calendar of assorted geekery!
But surely, there must be something!
Geeks, by the now-consensus definition, are really enthusiastic about the things we like, and have been known to… enthuse… together. In groups. On specific, pre-planned occasions.
A possibly substantial-if-stereotypical subset of us are the sort who like to collect, organize, and display Doctor Who memorabiliainformation.
AND the internet is basically our homeland; a disproportional number of us have some capability to produce a website.
Surely, those characteristics had overlapped in at least one person crazy enough who thought it worthwhile to create such a website.
So, I kept an eye out for one.
I asked around. I periodically repeated said googly search and many variations thereof.
I found:
. . . Many, many good websites and calendars for nerds of a particular locale.
. . . Many for certain geeky/technical professions.
. . . A veritable crazyton of genre/fandom convention calendars.
. . . Half a gazillion nerd-relevant groups on MeetUp.com.
. . . Nerdy musicians and authors and internet celebrities list their tour schedules.
But nowhere that WordCamp Philly and San Diego Comic Con and a Marian Call show and a monthly table-top gaming night and a NASA Social might all make appearances on the same website!
“Darn. Somebody should do that.”
And then I realized, No, I should do that. It would be a hellalotta work, which is probably why no one has, but it should be done, I know it can be done and roughly how to go about doing it and can learn the rest… and the thought wouldn’t leave me alone. >.<
A few weeks ago, I mentioned it to Rachel, and she agreed: This is a thing that should exist.
So, we’re doing it. 🙂
As we sort out the details and get going, however, we’re in need of some outside input from other folks who would potentially use/enjoy such a website.
We’ve talked to a few geeky friends about it, and I’ve scrabbled vaguely at twitter for name inspiration, and now we’re going to slightly-more-systematically ask you for some ideas and opinions, kay? Could you spare a few moments to share the contents of your brain with us?
If I tried to list everything I’m thankful for, it would end up being either really abstract (silliness, grace, love, freedom, etc.) or downright molecular (oxygen, water, carbon…)
(Also, infinitely long… moreso because I’m a super-analytical, detail-oriented perfectionist, than actually because I’m grateful for that many things. I mean, I am, but what would really kill the list is the precision and thoroughness with which I would list them, and 2 feet of text later I’d give up, having only described the things that I’m thankful for that are presently on my desk.)
I’m obviously incredibly grateful for the big things like my home and my job and those abstract and molecular things, and most of all, family and friends and puppy obviously top the list, so we’ll skip them for this list, and I’ll attempt to avoid listing components and prerequisites and broad categories, SO…
Thirteen specific, tangible(ish), pretty random things that I am particularly grateful for at this relatively arbitrary moment in time! Alternately titled,
(in no particular order, just as they come to mind. ):
My dog, Rocky.
Ok, I just said I wasn’t going to list the dog, (twice, since he is also family… or maybe thrice since he’s also my friend!) but he is fuzzy and cuddly and delightful (and in snuggle range as I start typing this post), so apparently he’s getting included anyway. He’s a Bichon Frise, almost 12 in human years, and an impressively good communicator for someone who neither speaks words nor writes. Sometimes he’s a bad dog, but mostly he’s just a big fluffy pile of love and adorableness.
Apple Soy Chai Lattes
A couple months ago, I discovered Burlap & Bean offered apple among the many flavor syrups available to add to your coffee or whatever beverage. I thought, “Hmm, I bet that would be good in chai…” and holy hello was I right! It instantly became my “usual”! It is also amusing to see the baristas react, as I seem to be the first to think of it (there, at least), and they’re all intrigued, always saying, “Ooh, I’ll have to try that!” and today one guy told me he finally did, and confirmed it is absurdly delicious. Also, the one girl calls me “Apple Soy Chai Girl,” which makes me smile!
Crochet/Knitting
I sometimes say my attention span is as long as my yarn. My Grandma taught me the basics of crochet when I was like, 6 or so, and I figured out how to knit a few years later, so I’ve been making things with yarn long enough that it’s second nature– the simple repetitive motion only occasionally requires conscious thought, but keeps my hands busy while I pay attention to other things (teachers/presenters/tv/conversations/etc.). It provides a point of focus — a sort of tether to reality, keeping my scatterbrain from wandering — and you get a scarf or something out of it! And I’m the sort who mostly makes up my own patterns, so the figuring out a project/design is a fun, half art/half math puzzle to solve!
Graph Paper
For the aformentioned design puzzling, not just for crochet projects, but for sketching out layouts and all sorts of ideas!
Comfortable Shoes
Almost every day, I wear either my tan sneakery shoes or my black sandals. The sneakers are barely sneakers… soft lightweight almost sock-like sort-of running shoes with elastic instead of laces. The sandals are near-magical slides which I’ve worn pretty much nonstop when its warm-ish for the last 5 years, including a month in Taiwan where we walked way too much, and they’re holding up really well, and perfectly molded to my feet. Every time I wear any other shoes, I’m reminded of how awesome these two pairs are! They feel less like shoes, and more like hugs for my feet.
NASAtweetups and such
NASAtweetups, CSAtweetups, NASAsocials, rogue tweetups, really any gathering of “people from the internet” is bound to be a good time! I’ve written about this before, but I’m especially and specifically grateful to NASA and CSA (and other space agencies doing the same that I haven’t been to yet) for hosting us spacetweeps, educating and entertaining us — and showing us how amazing both the universe, and mankind’s endeavors to explore it, are. And generally making field trips for grown-ups a thing that exists.
Electric/Heated Blankets
The heat in our house doesn’t really reach upstairs (which is confusing, since I was pretty sure heat rises), so a blanket that actually produces heat is very welcome in my bed!
Netflix/Hulu/TV on the internet in general
I love tv, but I can never remember to watch current shows when they air, so I’d miss at least half the episodes if that was the only option. And since I’m all about character development and the long-term plot, I can’t stand seeing episodes out of order or missing them, so I’d pretty much just never watch anything good until it came out on DVD. And since I’m broke, that wouldn’t happen either. So Hulu and individual networks’ steaming video (and occasionally filling in the gaps with sources of questionable legality) are miraculous for keeping up with current shows. And if it’s too old for Hulu, it’s probably on Netflix or will be soon. I can mad marathon all previous seasons of as many shows as I want (and movies too) for a very reasonable $8 a month (which I have now roped my parents into paying, since the whole family started using my account)!
My Car, Neil
I like him. He is cute and shiny and blue and has a cd player and everything works! But I’ve already rambled on about that a bit too… it’s nice having a car that isn’t perpetually breaking!
Tote Bags
There is something to be said for purses and computer bags and cases for various things — consistency and organization and such. But I’m a big fan of simple tote bags. Like one giant-ass pocket you throw everything you need in, sling it over your shoulder, and off you go! Any shape/size/color/design you want, they probably make that tote bag, and if not, you can get one printed! And they’re cheap, so you can keep a bunch handy! And if you spill something on it, or something leaks inside it, just throw it in the wash and dump your stuff in another one. Plus, unlike more structured bags, which stay pretty much the same size whether they’re empty or full, a simple cloth tote bag only takes up as much space as the stuff inside it! *magic*
Connectivity
Ok, this is getting dangerously close to that abstract territory I said I’d avoid, but it’s simultaneously astounding and easy to take for granted, so it’s worth a mention. It’s tangible in smartphones and tablets, anyway. So many places have WiFi, and cellular data networks are finally getting fast enough to be worth using, so the internet is accessible pretty much anywhere, any time! And with technical connectivity comes human connectedness. A certain amount of paradoxical disconnectedness too, but things like Twitter and Skype and Wikipedia and Coursera and Trello and a thousand other sites and apps connect me with people and books and knowledge and tools in every area of human experience and the world geographically! Clearly, I’m a nerd about these sorts of things (and all the things!) but it makes me happy!
Ukulele!
I got a cheap but decently nice uke off eBay a thousand years or so ago, and mostly it has sat on a shelf collecting dust, but lately I’ve been playing it more, and while I still suck, it’s fun! Small enough for my stupidtiny hands to handle easily, and only four strings to keep track of, so I’m having better luck learning than on guitar. I wrote a song for/inspired by Rachel’s sweet kiddo, Gwenny, about a sassy pterodactyl, and managed to figure out a suitable chord progression for it! And theoretically, some day, I will know more than 4 chords! It’s fun!
Cup-a-noodles
Yes, instant ramen in a styrofoam cup. For 50 cents or less. I am poor and like hot food at work. Don’t judge me. Mmm salty chicken-flavor noodles of cheapness.
It is a very strange feeling to drive to a government building – in a foreign country – in the middle of the night. Felt slightly mischievous, but the security guard didn’t seem to mind! Magalie led me to the press auditorium, where I found a familiar face (@datachick) and an even more familar view – a NASAtv view of a mission control room projected up on a screen!
JPL Mission ControlThe traditional launch peanuts
We heard a bit about the APXS, Canada’s contribution to Curiosity’s assortment of science instruments, from Director of Space Exploration Projects Stéphane Desjardins (the fellow on the right), but it was hard to pay attention to much other than the feed from JPL when we were just minutes away from Curiosity’s actual “7 minutes of terror!” – which, by the way, if you haven’t seen the “trailer” yet, seriously, go watch it immediately. Or better yet… here:
Schrödinger’s Rover
Mars is far away (in case you didn’t know 😛 ). So far, in fact, as they mentioned in the video, that even traveling the speed of light, signals take 14 minutes to reach earth. It was kind of nutty (besides the traditional peanuts being passed around mission control) knowing the little rover actually was on Mars for seven minutes before we even heard she’d entered the atmosphere… we knew she’d reach the surface around 1:17am (Eastern), but we wouldn’t find out whether she had landed safely or crashed until 1:31! Eep!
So 14 minutes delayed, JPL narrated Curiosity’s Entry, Descent, and Landing. Heartbeat tones, cruise stage separation, more heartbeat tones, entry interface, guided entry bank reversals, ballast jettison, parachute deploy (applause), wrist mode nominal, heat shield separation, back shell separation, powered flight, standing by for skycrane, skycrane has started (cheers), “Tango Delta Nominal,” touchdown confirmed – and the room exploded in applause, cheers, hugs, tears, and high-fives! Curiosity landed safely on Mars!!!!!!!!
Hugs all around! (Photo Credit: Brian Van Der Brug / LA Times)Steltzner is the man. (Photo Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls)Awww… (Photo Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls)All the emotions! (Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
It was perfect. Curiosity went exactly where she was supposed to go, arrived at Mars right on course, the crazy/brilliant EDL sequence went exactly how it was supposed to, the Odyssey orbiter was exactly where they hoped it would be to relay data all the way down, and Curiosity was safe and happy as pie on the surface of freaking Mars, very close to the center of the target landing zone, and communicating right away! Woohoooo!!!
I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL
And all of like 30 seconds later… “We got thumbnails!”
One of the rear hazcams sent a 64×64 pixel thumbnail photo showing one of the wheels and the horizon of Mars! Seriously, it’s been 30 years since anybody was that excited about a thumbnail image! (But hey, it was entirely probable they wouldn’t get any images for at least 2 hours, and we started seeing them just minutes after landing, so they/we are allowed to be excited!
It was quickly followed by the full 256×256 version, showing a wheel and the Martian horizon as clearly as the dusty dust cover would allow… and then another shot from another hazcam – this one showing Curiosity’s shadow!
Bill Nye when Curiosity landedWe tweeps at the CSA, along with the team at JPL, and I’m sure space nerds round the world, clapped and cheered, and clapped and cheered some more, as a Mini-Cooper-sized spacecraft-turned-roving-science-lab plopped onto another world, and promptly sent back a handful of tiny black and white photos of dirt. And we were never so excited to see dirt. BECAUSE IT’S MARS DIRT. AND CURIOSITY IS ALIVE AND SAFE AND AWESOME.
Bobak is leaking. Joy. And awesomeness. (Photo Credit: Brian Van Der Brug / LA Times)
=)
Eventually the broadcast ended and we left to go get a bit of sleep before the rest of the tweetup! After some coffee with the security guards and a nice man with a crow bar resolving the slight glitch of my keys being locked in my car, I made it back to my hotel and somehow managed to get unconscious for a couple hours.
As I was leaving the restaurant, I remembered I needed to get gas, so I poked the “Gas Station” button on the GPS and followed its lead… but the place it took me was not a gas station… looked more like an airport rental car place, so it probably did have gasoline, just not any to share with me.
So I tried again… and this one didn’t even vaguely resemble a gas station!
No longer trusting the gorram gizmo, I looked at the map of all the places it was claiming were gas stations, and saw that two of them were on the same road. I figured at least one of them had to actually be for real, so headed that direction. I arrived at the first one, and lo and behold, an actual-factual gas station! Slightly shifty and deserted-looking, but a gas station nonetheless, so I pull in and go to get some gas… but there isn’t any. The pumps were on and functioning, there just wasn’t anything to pump. -_-
So I got back in and continued on to the next place, which finally actually had gasoline for my sad little car. Filled up, got back in, punched in my uncle’s address, and headed out.
Of course, instead of taking me back to where I’d gotten off the highway near Glenn, it took me further into Cleveland (pretty much the opposite direction of where I really wanted to go, only I didn’t realize that for a while) and I never quite figured out what it had in mind, because when it got me back near anything resembling a highway, half the turns it wanted me to make were blocked off for construction!
Eventually, no thanks to the GPS, I found my way to a road pointed in the general direction of my uncle’s and found my way back. Oy!
[Insert sleep here.]
To Canada!
The following morning, I loaded up and headed off again, Canada-bound! About 11 hours on the road… not much to report! I-90 is long. (And boring. Thank goodness for audiobooks! (Or really, just the one since it turned out to be really long!)) Followed it along Lake Erie for the rest of Ohio, through the weird little nub of Pennsylvania, and into New York. I thought about detouring to Niagara Falls, but decided it was gonna be a long enough day already without a 2 hour side trip, so just kept on I-90 over to Syracuse, and then 81 up to Canada!
For some reason, they let me in 🙂 so I kept going! It was kind of wacky to see everything marked in kilometers and kph… luckily they also included miles for the first while for us silly southerners. Soon every sign in sight was in French, and it really started to feel like I was in another country! (Which is kind of hilarious, because in the grand scheme of Canada, I was barely over the border!)
By the time I was driving through Montreal on the “Autoroute Transcanadienne” it was dark, and the moon was hanging low and huge and gorgeous, right in front of my face, honestly the biggest and deepest colored I’ve ever seen it… it kind of felt more like another planet than another country!
At long last, I made it to my hotel, (assured the girl at the desk I had not, in fact, cancelled my reservation,) got to my room, showered, and crashed! Nice room, comfy bed, epic sleep.
I didn’t have to arrive at the Canadian Space Agency for the first installment of the CSA tweetup and Curiosity’s landing until midnight Sunday night/Monday morning, so I slept in Sunday and it was delicious.
I thought about going into Montreal to explore/sightsee, but couldn’t figure out what I wanted to see, and figured with my luck with the GPS lately, I’d spend most of the day lost, and I was still pretty beat, so I just hung out at the hotel for the day, watching the only thing on TV that wasn’t the Olympics or in French (or the Olympics in French) – which turned out to be “Say Yes to the Dress” and then “Toddlers in Tiaras”… so, not terribly interesting, but addictive in a train-wreck sort of way – and tweeting and reading and generally relaxing!
I made it to my uncle’s house in Akron without incident. My spine was definitely sick of that car seat by the time I got there, but it was not a bad drive! It did, however, seem like the entirety of both the PA and Ohio turnpikes were marked as construction zones, with only 2 patches actually undergoing any construction… o_0 So I was happy to get there, go out for a late-ish dinner (Mexican!) with my aunt and uncle and cousins and then head for bed before too long. Of course, we all know you can’t get proper sleep the night before a tweetup/social, but being horizontal and reading until I eventually dozed off for a couple hours sufficed! Then there were alarm clocks, coffee, and sunlight (in that order) and I was off to Cleveland!
NASA Social @ Glenn Research Center
A slightly frantic arrival, in typical “me” fashion, because (though I left on time) I didn’t see the meeting point, and took a little detour through GRC’s parking lot before finding my way across the highway to actual registration, but I made it just in the nick of time! On the bus heading to the briefing center (back across the road where I’d just been!), I discovered that @KelleyApril was also present, by way of a tweet saying she’d seen me arrive! (Funny thing, being sufficiently busy between work and planning a fairly last-minute tweetup/Social trip that I missed most of the Twitter/Facebook chatter about who was going to be at which Socials, so neither of us knew that the other’d be there!)
Anyways!
GRC’s Center Director, Ray Lugo, welcomed us with a couple of fun facts I didn’t know about Curiosity, including:
Before coming to Glenn, he had worked as the Launch Services Program Director at KSC, and was actually the person who selected the Atlas V rocket as the launch vehicle for Curiosity! That seems to have worked out pretty well. 🙂
The rover was named by a then-6th-grader from Kansas, Clara Ma, who submitted the winning contest entry – Curiosity!
(He got to head out to JPL for the landing… “Perks of being Center Director!”)
Then we got a brief hello from STS-134 astronaut Greg Johnson, also known as @Astro_Box! I was hoping he’d stick around for a while so I could say hi and maybe get a picture with him, since I got to watch his launch from so delightfully close! But when he asked if anybody had any questions, I couldn’t think of an actual question (my brain was slightly overloaded with excitement!) …and apparently nobody else could either! Unfortunately, by the time I realized it was now or never, he had surmised nobody had any questions, and had another event to get to, so I never got the chance to properly meet him! 🙁 It was still very cool that he took the time to stop by though! (and take/tweet a quick picture!)
We had a few minutes to mingle and check out some of the exhibits in the lobby, and then we were off on a whirlwind tour of Glenn Research Center! – which is painfully punny, since my group’s first stop was at the 10×10 Supersonic Wind Tunnel (which just means the test section is 10ft high and 10ft wide, and uses compressors and the shape of the tunnel rather than just big fans to get the air flowing faster)! It was cool to see another wind tunnel after visiting Langley Research Center in the fall, where we saw their transonic wind tunnel, which operates right around the speed of sound – whereas this supersonic one typically runs at 2-3 times the speed of sound – and that one was cryogenic (they could cool the air for more accurate testing on small-scale models), while here they can heat the air to test how air flows in jet engines or during atmospheric entry! (As they did for one of the initial parachute deployment tests for Curiosity!) 😀
The coolest part was we got to go inside the test section, since it wasn’t in use at the moment. It was all very, very, smooth metal, because any little glitch in the surface would create a sonic line or somesuch and throw off the results! Also very nifty: they can change the contour of the walls leading into the test section, with a serious of giant hydraulic jacks that could actually move the 1.5inch thick stainless steel walls in or out by several feet, with a ridiculous degree of accuracy! So neat!
Next we were off to a Physical Sensors Instrumentation Research lab, where they are working on developing more heat-tolerant sensors to for detecting pressure, light, certain chemicals, or whatever else in jet engine tests and other high-temperature environments. Normal sensors use silicon-based chips, but apparently silicon can only withstand temperatures up to 200 or 250 degrees, and the inside of a jet engine goes upwards of 700 degrees, so that’s not going to cut it! To solve that problem, they’re working on using Silicon Carbide instead, which allows the sensors to keep functioning at much higher temperatures. The process requires certain bits of something to be exposed to UV light and not others (something about polymers that went over my head!), so there are all these storage containers and windows covered in those orange UV filters… and they’re made with microscopic precision, so everything’s done in clean rooms wearing bunny suits!
Then we saw the Stirling Research Lab‘s “Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator” – a power system they’ve developed to provide electricity for future deep space missions, rovers, and satellites! Curiosity runs on a similar nuclear power system, but this one will be much more efficient. (It’s advanced after all! 😛 But seriously.) It’s powered by a little bit of plutonium-238 (which, we are assured, is much more stable than the plutonioum-239 used in nuclear bombs!) producing a lot of heat energy, that the Advanced Stirling Converter converts into usable electricity, with four times the efficiency of current systems. It’s designed to provide power for 17 years, and the test model we saw in the lab has been running nearly continuously for 4 years already.
There are three proposed missions NASA is currently considering for development, and two of them would use this power system (a “Comet Hopper” and a… well, basically a boat, that would land on one of the methane seas of Titan to study the “water cycle”-like methane weather patterns!) so they’re obviously hoping one of those two gets selected (the other is a Mars lander that would be solar powered) and now, so am I! 🙂 (UPDATE: The selection has since been made, and they went with the Mars lander. Still awesome, just not as cool as sending a boat to a moon! 😛 )
The last stop on our tour was to the SLOPE (Simulated Lunar OPErations) Facility – a giant sandbox! It’s full of special sand designed to resemble the surface of the moon (but without the very fine particles that would create epic dust clouds every time anything moved) or Mars to test the traction/behavior of different tire designs and rovers! Awesomes.
Their goal when the facility was built was to pick up where Apollo folks had left off… they wanted to test the moon buggy tires and go from there, but obviously the ones actually used are still on the moon, and the rest are all sitting in museums somewhere… but they managed to get in touch with one of the guys who designed the tires, and he “just happened to have a spare sitting in his closet at home.” With his help, partnering with Goodyear, they managed to replicate the original design and manufacture 12 new ones, which they did use for research and as a starting point for new designs!
We got to see/poke/squish/roll a bunch of the designs they’ve been testing, and he drove the prototype rover that was in there around for us! It was really neat… each of the four wheels is on a sort of arm thing, and has its own motor, so they can both drive and position each independently, which makes for some neat tricks! (Including “inchworming” up hills, tilting the rover in relation to the ground incline to keep it level and improve stability, and all sorts of fancy “getting un-stuck” maneuvers!) And I got to pick up a handful of fake moon sand! 😀
That concluded the tour, and the bus took us over to the cafeteria/employee center for lunch and gift shop time! I had a pretty tasty cheeseburger and fries (which I think is becoming a tradition, since that’s what I ate at Langley, and I’m pretty sure also at KSC during 134), and a lovely chat with a fellow spacetweep who’s a police officer in Wisconsin! That’s one of the things I love about tweetups/socials – hanging out with people with whom you’d probably never even chance to cross paths, much less sit down and have an actual conversation, otherwise!
After lunch, we headed back to the briefing center where we’d started the day (not the parking lot – after that) for the multi-center portion of this first-in-history Multi-Center Social!
JPL Social Media Manager Veronica McGregor kicks things off
It was basically a simulcast, broadcast from JPL to the other 6 centers tweetupping that day (at some point they added a 50th Anniversary social at KSC, conveniently coinciding with the rest!) as well as NASAtv!
(Oh! Sweet! Turns out it was also streamed on Ustream, which apparently keeps the recording available online for a while! So feel free to skip my rambly bullet points and just watch it for yourself!)
The program started off with a rapid-fire sequence of presenters, including:
A brief welcome from JPL Director Dr. Charles Elachi
A recorded message from NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden
Deputy Administrator Lori Garver spoke about why we’re going to Mars at all!
Dave Lavery, NASA Program Executive for Solar System Exploration, talked the difficulty of landing on Mars.
Clara Ma! – no longer eleven – read the essay she wrote to suggest the name Curiosity.
Doug Ellison showed us the simulation of Curiosity’s landing on Eyes on the Solar System (check it out!)
Stephanie Smith, part of JPL’s social media team (who came to our 134 tweetup and let us hold aerogel!) acted as host/moderator/MC for the panel discussions
The science panel – Ashwin Vasavada, of JPL, MSL Deputy Project Scientist; Pam Conrad, from Goddard Spaceflight Center, Deputy Principal Investigator for the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument; and Ken Edget, Malin Space Science Systems, Principal Investigator for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI – one of the 17 cameras on Curiosity, specifically at the end of the arm) – talked about why they chose to land in Gale Crater (largely the 6mi. high mountain of sedimentary rock at its center) and a bit about what the various cameras and instruments do.
The engineering panel – Rob Manning, MSL Flight System Chief Engineer; Adam Steltzner, EDL Phase Lead (@steltzner); Steve Lee, EDL and Surface Ops Engineer (@LeeCuriosity); and Anita Sengupta, EDL and Advanced Technologies Engineer (@Doctor_Astro) – kicked off with the “7 Minutes of Terror” video (which I’m sure most of those present had already seen at least once, but absolutely nobody minded watching again!) and discussed how complex Curiosity and her mission are, learning from and improving on past missions, actually getting to Mars, how they developed the rover and EDL systems, testing the different elements (since they can’t exactly test the whole thing together without being on Mars!), and how (and how soon) we’ll get data and pictures back from Curiosity!
A brief “interruption” by Astronaut John Grunsfeld (@SciAstro) just to sort of say hi and how excited he was about this mission!
…and time for some Q&A with both panels! That’s where it really got “multi-center” – each participating NASA center had a microphone hooked into JPL and the broadcast, so tweeps could ask questions live, regardless of which Social they were physically attending! What was particularly neat to me was how many of the question-askers I had met at prior NASAtweetups! (They’re addictive!) Seriously, I think I knew at least half of the folks who got to ask questions during the broadcast!
If you’ve ever wanted to see what this NASA Social/tweetup stuff is all about, or love tweetups but couldn’t make this one, or were there and just want to relive its awesomeness, you’re in luck! Almost 2 hours of NASA-y goodness are just a play button away!
The next and final segment of the NASA Glenn edition of the Curiosity NASA Social featured GRC’s resident Mars Expert, Geoffrey Landis. We had a whole hour to pick his brain, so covered quite the array of topics – everything from how rovers’ landing sites are selected, the weather on Mars, and a ton about Martian geography, to what it’ll take to get a manned mission to Mars, to how the Mars of science fiction relates to non-fictional Mars! As it happens, he has a pretty unique perspective on that last bit – being both a NASA scientist and award-winning sci-fi author! (Definitely going to have to check out his stories!)
We wrapped up, presented our lovely hosts with a poster signed by the tweeps, and hopped on the buses on last time to head back to our cars. A quick group photo with GRC in the background, and the our NASA Social came to its end… but only officially! Most of us just relocated across the parking lot to the 100th Bomb Group Restaurant for an early dinner and drinks and a few more hours of NASASocializing with our fellow spacetweeps! (Thanks once again to @KelleyApril for organizing!)
Okay, so technically one was a “Social” – NASA decided to start letting Facebook and Google+ followers in on the #NASAtweetup awesomeness, so they changed the name to #NASASocial – but Canada’s was still #CSAtweetup!
Two days after Thanksgiving, NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) “Curiosity” rover on an 8.5 month journey to our dusty red neighbor – a journey we knew would end, one way or the other, around quarter after 1am (EDT) Sunday night/Monday morning. In June, as we spacetweeps suspected/hoped, they announced there would be a NASAsocial for the Mars landing, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California (where Curiosity was built)! I registered, of course, but didn’t get selected.
I don’t know if it was the plan all along, or if they were just overwhelmed by the response, but a couple days later they added 5 more NASAsocials, all at the same time (Friday, August 3rd) at different NASA centers! (The first multi-center NASAsocial!) Soon, the Canadian Space Agency announced they’d have a tweetup too, during the landing and the following day.
I, of course, registered for everything, figuring I’d probably worn out my welcome/luck by now and wouldn’t get in to any official events, but was fine too since there were epic #RogueTweetup plans in the works…
But then I got one of those lovely confirmation notices… from Canada! So the question was if I could get my passport renewed in time! …and then, I got ANOTHER confirmation notice, this one from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio!
Cue a moment of panic as I tried to decide which I’d rather go to – be part of the first multi-center social, or be in a space agency for the landing itself? (Surely I couldn’t go to both… two tweetups for the same landing?!)
But then the “Why the heck not?!” sector of my brain kicked in with the realization that this wasn’t exactly trying to be in two places at once (there’s a whole Saturday in between!), and neither NASA nor CSA had said anything to the contrary, so theoretically, I could do both… It was just a matter of sorting the logistics.
Sorting the logistics
I looked at flights, but then remembered I’m not quite old enough to make rental cars a viable option, and the thought of trying to mooch rides between airports and hotels and space centers in two different cities (countries!) when I wasn’t sure who I’d know where, plus getting home from the Philly airport at the end (since my family’d be on vacation by the time I got back)… well, it sounded like it would be less exhausting/stressful to just drive!
A quick consultation with the GoogleyMaps confirmed each leg of the journey would be a full-but-reasonable-day’s drive (about 8/10/8 hours, respectively), and I like driving and traveling alone… plus, I mean, what’s the difference between my typical work day, in which I spend 8 or 9 hours sitting in a chair staring at a screen, and spending those hours sitting in my car staring out the windshield?!
So I declared it a plan, and surprisingly, though they didn’t see the appeal, neither parent tried very hard to dissuade me. My dad informed me that my uncle’s house is within a reasonable commute to NASA Glenn, so I called him up and made plans to crash there for the first stop, and thanks to recommendations from CSAtweetup’s lovely organizer, Magalie, I found a nice and very reasonably priced hotel near CSA HQ, so I had the “somewhere to sleep” thing covered.
The only other question mark in this nutty plan was whether I could get my passport renewed in time for Canada to let me in at all, much less to a secure government building… an extra $60 and applying in person will get you a passport pretty quickly, but the earliest available appointment was Monday morning the week I’d be leaving, so I was a bit nervous, but it turns out, the Philadelphia Passport Agency is seriously on their game!
I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get there, park, find it, and get through security, so I left plenty of cushion time… and ended up arriving at 9:05, when my appointment wasn’t until 10. Despite warnings that they wouldn’t let you in more than 15 minutes early, and you could be waiting several hours regardless of your appointment time, they let me in right away, checked to make sure I had everything I needed and gave me a number, I waited about half an hour, had my “appointment” (through a bullet-proof ticket window), and was walking back to my car before my scheduled appointment time, assured my passport would be ready to pick up on Wednesday morning! (which it was, and the return visit took all of 3 minutes.) Solidly impressive for government bureaucracy!
Passport in hand, I *finally* felt free to get excited! I loaded up the iThing with music and audiobooks, threw some clothes and my toothbrush in the car, and roadtripped the heck out of Thursday!
I’d thought after the space shuttles retired, I’d be done chasing them… but then they announced their “retirement plan” would be moving them to various museums – Atlantis staying at KSC, but Discovery to the National Air & Space Museum’s annex outside of DC, Enterprise moving from there to the Intrepid Air & Sea Museum in NYC, and Endeavour heading out to California somewhere – all traveling via the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), previously used to life Enterprise for test landings and retrieve orbiters that landed at Edwards.
To move a shuttle with the SCA, they tow the orbiter into this giant crane thing and hoist it up, then drive this specially-rigged 747 under it, and lower the orbiter onto the top and attach them. And then they fly the 747 with a frelling space shuttle orbiter on its back to wherever, and reverse the process. Check out the three days of work it took to get Discovery mated to the SCA in this spiffy 2-minute timelapse video!
Seriously, planes playing piggy-back. I had to see that in person. So, I knew I’d be finding somewhere to watch Discovery landing at Dulles, and it turned out the Udvar-Hazy Center, where she’ll be replacing Enterprise, is right next to the airport, and announced they’d be open to the public for watching the flyover and landing, as well as for the official welcome ceremony a couple days later, so I told work I’d be out most of that week and made plans to crash at my cousin’s house!
(There was also an official “NASA Social” (they decided to let Facebook and Google+ count, so can’t call them TweetUps anymore) which I didn’t get into, but that wasn’t going to stop me! (Or anyone else, apparently!))
As ridiculously excited as I was to see Discovery flying in on top of a 747 and hang out with spacetweeps all week, it’s also really sad. Putting these lovely orbiters in museums makes the end of the shuttle program seem real. The final flight was sad, but Atlantis was still intact and flying on her own… but Discovery’s been stripped down, engines and other components replaced with mock-ups, and carried and towed to her final destination… as much as it’s celebrated as a “welcome” or “retirement party,” it kind of feels more like a viewing on Tuesday and a funeral or wake on Thursday… D,: waaaah.
Just have to keep telling myself that it is retirement, and like many old people, she’ll be hanging around in the museum to educate and inspire generations of youngsters to do great spacey things!
Flyover
We were told they’d do one big, looping flyby for photo ops with various landmarks and monuments before coming in for landing, so we knew we were going to get two pretty nice passes, but didn’t know exactly how close or where, or how much of the landing we’d be able to see. So everybody was terribly excited when we first caught sight of that double silhouette, and it appeared to be heading right for us!
And then there was a great deal of screaming and cheering as she flew right over our heads!
We waited excitedly for the piggy-back planes to come back around and land…
This time around they flew more in front of us than directly over us.
*squee!*
At which point we realized the SCA didn’t have her landing gear down, so she couldn’t be landing then, as we’d thought… We were gonna get another pass! We still weren’t completely sure what we’d be able to see when she did aim for the landing strip, but then, after another long loop around, we caught sight of this:
Sad to think that was the last time we’ll see Discovery flying. 🙁
After that I headed inside to check out Enterprise before they moved her out of her long-time residence, and take a peek around the rest of the museum.
She looks enormous from this angle!…Not so much from this one.
At some point, somebody mentioned we could go up in the tower to the observation deck, so we did, and guess what we saw?!
Discovery on the SCA! And a passenger plane landing right by them! And over to the left, the crane they’ll use to de-mount Discovery!
Swag Swap Dinner
Between the folks that were actually part of the official NASAsocial and the herd of us that just showed up and declared it a #RogueTweetUp, there were rather a lot of space tweeps in the area to welcome Discovery and give Endeavour a proper send-off! We thought we should have one big gathering at some point while we were all more or less in one place, so on Wednesday, the day between Discovery’s arrival and the welcome ceremony, after most folks spent the day sightseeing in DC, we made one massive dinner reservation and took over like half of a lovely Italian restaurant – family style, like the big nerdy space family we are!
Since many tweeps had brought little bits of swag to share, whether extras from prior tweetups or places of employment (NASA centers or otherwise) or other random geeky events, it had been declared this gathering would be the ideal time to swap some swag! (Thanks to @KelleyApril and @LibbyDoodle for organizing everybody and making the reservation!)
Official “Welcome Discovery” Ceremony
The next morning it was back to the Udvar-Hazy Center to welcome Discovery to her new home! I was up and out pretty early, but detoured to pick up @fedward and @EmilyKnits from the Metro, and then some very necessary caffeine from the Starbucks, so by the time we got there Enterprise (and half a gazillion people) were already out behind the hangar waiting for Discovery. I made my way to just about the front, and found AstroTimmy! (and @Stephonee, of course!)
Soon they began to tow Discovery around from her hiding place…
Discovery accompanied by a parade of her astronauts!…and followed by her support crew.
She was welcomed by the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, Astronaut/Senator John Glenn, other distinguished speakers, and thousands of adoring shuttle lovers!
Enterprise and Discovery reunited*ShuttleSnuggle* Crazy how worn Discovery looks next to bright shiny Enterprise!
”I
Eventually, it was time to move Discovery into the hangar, so they pulled Enterprise back out of the way, and then towed Discovery in!
But her tail wasn’t quite lined up right with the taller slot of the hangar door, so they had to back up and try again!
…and this time, they got it perfectly!
Popped inside then, and it was too crowded to stay long or see much, but I did get a quick glimpse of Discovery safely tucked into her new home! I’ll definitely have to go back sometime soon (and drag my Dad along) to hang out with this lovely orbiter more, and explore the rest of the museum properly!
SpaceTweeps are fun!
Most of us were planning to leave Saturday morning, so Friday evening a herd of us gathered once again… not quite as large a crew as the Swag Swap dinner, but a good bunch of very awesome people went out for drinks, and then gelato! And then we just kept chatting outside the gelato place for ages. 🙂
