Laika has Landed

PUP TOUCHES DOWN: Yesterday's blog was fill with weekend activities and made no mention of how we spent our Monday. I'll fix that now.

Monday morning we were up with the sun and on the road at 7 a.m., southbound. Destination: Puppy Farm (sounds nicer than breeder/puppy mill) to pick up a new furry companion for Kirby and the rest of us.

We reached our destination (LoveLink Havanese in Brush Prairie, WA) at 9:58, two minutes ahead of our projected arrival time. The drive was easy, though a bit foggy. Here, the sun tries to burn through a heavy, low cloud cover over Kent (near where Rick teaches school, BTW). 

We were back on the road within 17 minutes, back northbound, whining puppy in crate. About 5 minutes into the jaunt I couldn't help but wonder, "Why the hell am I doing this?"

However, Laika quickly settled down and we made the trip home without incident. She even went wee-wee at the rest stop along the way. Good doggie.

When we got home instead of immediately bringing Laika in the house, we brought Kirby outside to meet her in the yard. That was interesting. 

Kirby hasn't met a dog she doesn't like yet, and she did take to Laika right away - but that doesn't mean she didn't bum rush her. ;)

Kirby didn't waste much time letting Laika know she was here first. And she was much, Much bigger. 

Once that was established, they got along swimmingly for the most part. 

The wee one is named after the first living creature to orbit Earth.  Launched on Sputnik II on November 3 of 1957, Laika was a stray dog that made the (ultimately fatal) error of hanging out 'round the Baikonour Cosmodrome. She was conscripted into service as the first cosmonaut. 

There are conflicting reports about how long Laika survived her flight. Some say it was days long and she was killed 'humanely' (via a gas or poisoned food) in flight. However, that seems super doubtful reading other accounts. It might have been more like a matter of minutes or hours.  

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: Marvelous Curiosity continues to amaze. Here is a photo (courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) taken at three different distances by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI). It's nested close-ups of the Rock named Jake Matijevic. 

Here's a long(er) distance shot of the same rock, taken on Sept. 19th (the mission's 43rd Martian day).

The rock is about 10 inches tall and 16 inches wide, and it was deemed a suitable target for the first use of Curiosity's contact instruments on a rock. 

I couldn't help but wonder about the rock's name, and so through the magic of the Internets, I learned it was named for a man who was the surface operations systems chief engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory Project and the project's Curiosity rover. Matijevic  (1947-2012) was also a leading engineer for all of the previous NASA Mars rovers: Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity. What an amazing body of work. 


The color image was taken at three different distances on Sept. 23. Jake Matijevic was chosen as a target because, per a NASA press release "it allowed the science team to compare results of the

Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument, both of which provide information about the chemical elements in a target."

The ChemCam, as you might remember, is the super cool tool that shoots laser pulses at a target from the top of the rover's mast. Awesome! Hope there's video of the laser shots soon!

LEAFY GREENS: Today the kids finished all their outside class homework for the week. They did a little extra credit for their science class, making some prints by applying paint to the backside of leaves. 

Annabelle (correctly) noted that all of the leaves they collected and used today had a pinnate vein patterns.