Game Time

AIRTIME: The photo above looks like a Fourth of July, but it's actually an in motion graphic of live flights over the United States (and then some!) this morning around 10:45 Pacific time. It's from a screen at The Museum of Flight.  We were there dropping off a photo of mine that will be on display as part of their "Spirit of Flight" exhibition for six months or so. I can't wait to see it hanging in their gallery.

As always, our visit to the Museum was a good one, and we saw new things. For instance, today, we got to explore their glass-sided elevators (as I'm still a bit hobbled). And we really enjoyed our time spent up in their control tower. We saw helicopters and planes take off and listened to chatter from the Boeing Field control tower.

Out one window we had a lovely view of a row of American flags.

Just outside the control tower, Annabelle listened up on important info about becoming a pilot. I wonder how long before she'll be asking to enroll in flight school ...

In the meantime, Bee and CeeJ make fine stand ins for hot air baloon pioneers.

Inside the kids' area of the museum, they played around with the important flight principles yaw and roll.

And they read up on how to fuel a rocket, and how jet engines work.

BLOCKBUSTER: Tonight, we got an email which we've been looking forward to for months. It read,

"Great news! LEGO has begun shipping us the LEGO Minecraft Micro World playsets that you pre-ordered. We will begin shipping orders the week of June 10th in the order that they were received.

We know that you are anxious to get your hands on these (as are we!). Rest assured that we will ship this product out the instant that we receive stock from LEGO.

Happy building :)"

Altogether now: w00t!

GAMERS PARADISE: This afternoon brought an event that has been on our calendar in BOLD LETTERS for a long time. It's the annual Northwest Pinball and Arcade show.

It's a wonderful weekend - so many games, it's a sensory overload!

According to the event's Web site, the show draws between 2,500-3,000 attendees. It began as a small annual event held by Washington pinball collectors, but in 2008 became regional convention featuring hundreds of pinball machines, plus arcade games and electro-mechanical games. There's also a full slate of speakers, plus vendors and tournaments.

For the first part of the afternoon, CJ and Annabelle were shepherded over by their brother Kennedy, who has been know to play a game or two in his time. Later, Christian arrived and joined the revelry. Good times were had by all.

That's my girl. ;)

And here is a pair of pinball wizards.

BEING ELMO: In the not too distant past, our morning were filled with Sesame Street. I love that show. It's been a part of my life since it debuted in 1969, and Jim Henson is one of my heroes. 

These days, we don't watch Sesame Street. Now, the kids prefer the sarcasm and wackiness of SpongeBob and the drama (?) of Pokemon, but I have no doubt that they, like me, will forever have a soft spot for Sesame Street in their hearts. In that vein, this morning  our "cartoon" was "Being Elmo," a wonderful documentary about Kevin Clash, the man who made Elmo come to life.

It's the incredible tale of a child with an affinity for puppets that grows from a hobby to a vocation. The documentary follows Clash, an African American, from his boyhood days in Baltimore up through his teens as he pursues his puppeteering dreams. As we watched, I couldn't help but compare his path to those of Olympic athletes. The talent, the passion, the hours, the successes, the stalls - it was an amazing journey.

I would heartily recommend this movie to anyone of any age.

I LEAVE YOU WITH THIS: All over the Internet tonight, I saw links to a "mash up" featuring Fred "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" Rogers.

I found the auto tune thing a bit off putting, but I have to admit, overall it's nice to see Mr. Rogers again. It's been a long time since he's been in the neighborhood.

Winding Down

TAKE HOME TIME: Next week will be Annabelle's last art class in Shoreline. Given that, the art teacher was having the kids take home all of their to-date projects.

That meant Annabelle had a box of six clay projects. I took some crappy photos of them. Below you'll see a turquoise dragon, a red triceratops and a green corythosaurus.

And here we have a bear paw print with handle, a devil, a Beyblade battle arena and a Minecraft dude.

REMARKABLE: This morning, while driving to Shoreline, I put a CD in the stereo and the kids read along to "Harriet Tubman: A Picture Book" by David A. Adler. (And can I just stop a moment here to say  that any biographical book for children by Adler is worth checking out?)

Source: National Portrait Gallery, photo by  H. Seymour Squyer, 1848 - 18 Dec 1905

The book followed Harriet from birth through her childhood, her nearly life-ending injury at the hands of a slave owner, her first marriage, her flight to freedom, her work as a leader of the Underground Railroad, her second marriage and later, her establishment of a home for African Americans in need.

We weren't halfway through it when I heard CJ marvel, from the backseat, "She was a GREAT woman."

After the book was finished, CJ noted how next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the year Tubman died. Last night we were talking about how our house was built in 1908. I pointed out ot the kids that when our home was built, Tubman was still alive. How about that?

MORE TITLES: Over the past couple of days the kids also read a couple of Seuss books that were new to them (Gerald McBoing Boing and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back), as well as a couple of Knuffle Bunny books (the first and third in the series), by Mo Willems. The Knuffle Bunny books are cute - I'd think they'd be a real big hit with toddlers and preschoolers.

Speaking of books, the kids registered online for the Seattle Public Libraries Summer Reading Program. If they read 10 books this summer (not a very lofty goal, eh?), they get a prize. Today they updated their books read list. They're more than halfway to goal already, and they just started a couple of days ago. We're going to have to add some long novels to their list for good measure!

LAST LEGOS: This afternoon marked the last building LEGO class of the trimester. CJ had just started a pretty big build last week - a car wash. So, knowing today was his last chance, I stayed in class and helped him power through the kit.

We didn't get every single piece in, but I'd say we got 90 percent of it done. He was pretty happy about that.

Meanwhile, Annabelle worked on a "free build." She make "like a robot," she tells me.

ANNOYING AD: Don't know about your neck of the woods, but we've seen this billboard ad a couple of places around Seattle. And I can't stand it!!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Letsmove.gov and that program's mission, but this ad ... aaargh.

First of all, I dont' like its message that you need to or should lie to your kids to somehow 'trick' them into eating healthy food. (CJ and Annabelle both took major exception to this element of the billboard, BTW.)

Second, suggesting that watermelon is astronaut food is about the dumbest thing ever. Anyone who knows anything about spaceflight provisions knows that their food is made as lightweight and condensed as possible, in order to save space and fuel. Pound for pound, a watermelon would be about THE least efficient type of food to take to space.

Ray of Light

R.I.P., RAY: The first news I saw this morning was that one of the deans of science fiction, Ray Bradbury, had died.

The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles ... and so many other stories and books of Bradbury's helped spark my interest in science years and years ago. Immediately after reading the news, I decided I needed to get my hands on a copy of R is for Rocket to read to/with the kids as bedtime stories.

Today, the kids' science teacher started the class speaking about Bradbury and what an influential and important writer he was.

I was happy to be able to share a germane Bradbury quote with the science students: "The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance -- the idea that anything is possible."

This afternoon, we watched a half-hour television documentary about Ray Bradbury (1963) by David L. Wolper. What a delight it was. It was about the business of being a writer, and it included a dramatization of a story Bradbury was working on, "Dial Double Zero." It was about a telephone system with what seemed to be a growing intelligence.

After the video, I asked the kids to write something - anything about what we watched. It could be about Bradbury, about writing, about sci fi, about Bradbury's story.

I found it interesting that both of them chose to write primarily about the story presented within the interview. They were both really intrigued by its content. I think Mr. Bradbury would have liked that. :)

Annabelle on Bradbury:
I learned about Ray Bradbury in a YouTube video today. It was about his story called "Dial Double Zero" and about some of Ray Bradbury's life. He was very imaginative and loved writing.

Ray Bradbury's story, Dial Double Zero, was very inspiring for me to write my own story like his. The fact that the voice from the phone was sinister just added suspense and mystery, just like a good story should. The story was about a person who had a voice on his phone when he tried to call anyone, and the voice mimicked whatever he said!

He started to try to tell his friend, Ralph, by phone, about it. But he noticed the voice could have heard him. As he kept calling, the voice got smarter as it learned more language. After a couple of calls he decides to go up the telephone pole to discover what it is making the calls. The cops come, he opens the phone box, he saw what it was, but discovered it had won. That is all of the story I know.

CJ on Bradbury:
I like how Dial Double Zero Begins with thinking about a possibility that human kind could live in electricity. Another thing I like about Dial Double Zero is that the phone mimics the person talking in it. At one part in the story, the phone overheard the person talking about something to his friend Ralph. (The phone, if I am correct.)

Ray Bradbury wrote many other great stories, to. One of them being R is for Rocket, and another being 451 Fahrenheit. Do you know what Ray Bradbury used to write? well, He had to use a typewriter. (It was hard to edit with typewriters)

You should check out many other Great Ray Bradbury Books, too!

ONE IF BY BOAT: So, this is how our shuttles travel these days by barge. 

Here's a NASA photo by Bill Ingalls showing Enterprise, the prototype for the space shuttle fleet, being barged up the Hudson River for delivery to the Intrepid Museum in New York City today. It will be housed in the museum's Space Shuttle Pavilion, which opens to the public on July 19.

Though it's hardly the explosive excitement of watching a rocket fueled launch, it sure would have been cool to see Enterprise traveling through NYC this way. Wish we'd planned a field trip for it!

DARE TO DREAM: Today, a Facebook friend pointed me in the direction of a video that won the "Why Explore Space" contest hosted by The Coalition for Space Exploration. Watch it.
It's short and powerful and, trust me, you don't have to be a space case to appreciate the message.

Helloooo, Venus!

Photo: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory

IN TRANSIT: Today was the day we've been waiting for for a looong time. It's the day Venus passed in front of the sun - a rare solar occurrence. In fact, it won't happen again for 105 years.

Photo: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory

This morning, we had NASA TV on and there were several segments about the Transit of Venus, including a live report from astronaut Don Pettit onboard the ISS. He'll be watching the transit and taking photos from the space station's cupola. Can't wait to see those photos!

We watched live coverage from NASA EDGE on a special-for-this-event Web site: ttp://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/

We also tracked real time images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory online here: http://venustransit.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Before the big event, we had a little fun with our food. Here is a blueberry Transit of Pancake ...

We got a patch of blue sky from 3 to 3:09 p.m. - JUST before the transit was set to begin. Then clouds clouds clouds. We went back inside and watched NASA coverage. About 3:54 I told the kids I wanted to drive to the top of the hill so we could see out over the bay and Sound and see what weather was headed our way. As we drove, I noted it was getting a tiny bit lighter and I could see the sun behind the clouds. I told the kids to get their viewers ready, that I might pull over at any second. About 3:55 I did just that and within 30 seconds or so, we could see the sun clearly enough through a thinnish cloud that we saw Venus! It was a tiny, all black, sharp edged dot in the 12 o'clock position. We caught a couple of glimpses of it, maybe for a total of 10 seconds, but that THRILLED us given the quilt of gray clouds overhead. We feel very, VERY lucky.

The Seattle Times posted a photo of the transit *exactly* as we saw it. They must have snapped their shutter at the same time we were all jumping up and down going, "I see it! I see it!"

On the way back home, a very satisfied sounding Annabelle said, "Some day we can tell our kids we saw the Transit of Venus with our own eyes!"

CJ quickly shot back, "I'm going to be a bachelor."

SWEET SCIENCE: Yesterday's blog post was so long from this weekend's Science Expo that I didn't even try to include info or photos from a field trip we took yesterday afternoon to Theo Chocolate.

Located in Fremont, just a couple miles from our house, we'd been meaning to take a Theo tour for years now. When I saw that a special science-focused tour was part of the Seattle Science Festival, it was enough to make us finally quit thinking and start doing!

Our tour started at 4 p.m. We were a few minutes early, so we killed time eating our way through their retail store. So. Many. Samples. It was delightful - and interesting. There were the standards like dark and milk chocolate, but there were also wild combos like "Fig and Fennel" and "Coconut Curry." 

They had a nice big Seattle Science Festival poster in their retail space. 

Before we went into the factory, we had to don hairnets.

The tour started off with a lecture about the history of Theo Chocolate. We learned that it was founded in by Joseph Whinney, and that it's a "bean to bar" operation. We also heard about how Theo is the first organic and Fair Trade chocolate factory in the United States. 

We saw photos of cacao pods growing on the trunks of trees, heard about how they're harvested, and how the pods are split open and the beans are taken out. They are fermented for a few days, and then dried. Here's Bee checking out a bowl of dried beans.

After the intro, we got to go into a little clear-walled room in the factory and meet the two Andys, a pair of chocolate scientists. We learned about chocolate on the molecular level, about how it ferments, how the cocoa is extracted from the beans and turned into liqueur and chocolate flake.  

The Andy in this picture is a Harvard trained molecular biologist. The Seattle PI had a nice story about him and chocolate awhile back. The time with the scientists was, by far, the highlight of the tour for us!

The Andys gave us some cocoa nibs to sample. Annabelle did NOT like the taste of those.  

The rest of us did, however. They tasted kind of nutty.

Just before exiting through the gift show, we caught a glimpse of Theo founder Joe as he darted through the factory carrying a Big Daddy.

Following are the kids' accounts of their experience yesterday.

The Theo Chocolate Factory Tour 2012 by CJ
The Theo Chocolate Factory Tour 2012 was a special event. In it, you could taste the different kinds of chocolate that Theo makes. Theo makes many different kinds of chocolate, You name it, they have it, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, mint. Yep, they pretty much have it.


One of the chocolate flavors I liked most was the flakes. Another flavor of chocolate I liked was dark chocolate with sea salt. When I got the chocolate liquor, I was expecting it to taste like Hershey's Syrup, But it tasted NOTHING like Hershey's Syrup.

To make chocolate, you gather some cocoa beans, Then, you roast the cocoa beans, Then, you crush the roasted cocoa beans. Then, continue the process of the next steps and you will have chocolate. According to Wikipedia, the earliest use of chocolate was in 1100 B.C.

But Theo says that the earliest use was in 600 B.C. It is unknown which source is right, but most say Wikipedia.


My Experience at Theo Chocolate by Annabelle
When I went to Theo Chocolate it was very fun. I got to taste samples, like some chocolate bars and cocoa liquor, cocoa flakes, and one piece of ginger chocolate. I loved all of the chocolate, except for the sea salt which mom and dad loved.


I also went through the factory. I saw all the machines used to make chocolate. They were very loud.

The people there were very nice and I liked the tour. We all said thank you afterwards and left. That was my experience at Theo Chocolate.
----------
And here's the way Theo describes their chocolate making process ...

So. Much. Science.

SCIENCE EXPO A GO-GO: We'd had Saturday June 2 circled on our calendar for weeks. It marked the first (annual, we hope) Seattle Science Festival Science Expo Day. It was held at Seattle Center and there was sooo much to see and do!

Our very first stop was at the expansive and inviting booth staffed by friendly Seattle University student volunteers (and a few of their profs, no doubt). There were lots of hands-on activities for the kids, including experiment using paper soaked in red cabbage juice. The kids then used pens filled with solutions with various pHs, and they learned about acids, bases and neutrals.


Another station involved completing some squishy circuits using a battery pack, some wires, bulbs and a dough.

Here's Annabelle's finished project. She called it a Christmas circuit due to the multi-colored lights.

There were also some manipulative puzzles. Annabelle had fun with tanagrams ... 

... and CJ worked hard on a stacking puzzle involving four donut-shaped wood rings stacked largest on bottom to smallest on top over a post and then there were two empty posts. The challenge involved moving the 'donuts' to another post, stacking them largest on bottom to smallest. Sounds simple, right? Well the catch was that during your moving process, you could never stack a bigger donut atop a smaller one. (Yes, I realize a photo of this would have been helpful. Sorry!)

We visited with folks from Bellevue's Tyee Middle School, which has a super neat-o near-space satellite program. They told us that they worked with Paul Verhage of NearSys, a multifaceted organization, with interests in near space exploration, microcontrollers, robotics, space, and astronomy.

At the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab booth, the kids got to take part in some "CSI" type action, pressing their fingerprints onto a strip of tape and then painting a solution over them. Then a WSP lab worker rinsed the strips, revealing the fingerprints, and another lab specialist mounted them on a card for the kids. Cool!

We learned more about nanotechnology from North Seattle Community College professors. We learned that NSCC is "Seattle's Hub for Industry-driven Nanotechnology Education" (SHINE). NSCC is also home to Seattle College's RST (Ready! Set! Transfer!) Academy, a program for supporting pathways to a STEM-related career. both good things to know. CJ and Annabelle will be college aged before we know it!

At the EMP (Experience Music Project) booth, the kids were happy to have a chance to make some instruments. It was such a simple but great activity involving filling plastic Easter eggs with a combination of dry rice and beans. Slap a sticker on 'em to hold the egg halves together and presto! Instant percussion instrument!

Naturally, we had to check out the Aerojet booth. The company is a major space and defense contractor specializing in missile and space propulsion, and defense and armaments, and has locations across the U.S, including one in Redmond, WA.

From Aerojet, the kids got a free NASA coloring book and saw some models of spacecraft Aerojet has a role in. One of the models was of the Atlas V rocket, which is what was used to launch the Mars Science Laboratory last November. Turns out back in 2008, Aerojet shipped rocket engines for use on MSL. In fact, according to a 2008 press release, Aerojet provided propulsion for every phase of the mission Specifically, four Aerojet solid motors to provide one million pounds of thrust to the launch vehicle. The rocket's Centaur upper stage has 12 Aerojet 6 to 9-pound thrust monopropellant hydrazine thrusters to provide roll, pitch, yaw and settling burns and eight Aerojet retro-rockets for Centaur upper stage separation.

I thought it was interesting that Aerojet had signs telling people not to take photos of the models they had on display. I probably had a smirk on my face as I was thinking, "That's funny, cause I've taken photos of the ACTUAL SPACECRAFT."  Oh well. So, sorry, no photos of table top models. But hey, here's a photo I took of a real live rocket launch featuring Aerojet components!

Another business with a Redmond, Physio-Control, Inc. had a super high tech, automated CPR system on display at the expo called the LUCAS® Chest Compression System . In checking out their Web site, I learned Physio-Control was founded in 1955, and is headquartered in Redmond. Their site says they're the world leader in the development, manufacture, sale and service of external defibrillator/monitors and emergency medical response products and services.


We also checked out the large National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration display. CJ, especially, was captivated by it - specifically by a big ol' rockfish model they had on display. He had lots of questions about it.


From Seattle Department of Transportation employees, we found out about the need to replace the aged and increasingly decrepit old wood Elliott Bay seawall. It was built in the 1930s. Here's a photo of the construction. On the city's Web site, it's captioned "Piles and caps at Bay Street, May 14, 1934. Courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives #8835

Little did we know that all these years, "gribbles' have been eating away at it. What's a gribble, you ask? Why, it's a nasty little multi-mouthed crustaceans with seven pairs of legs that love to eat watery wood.
If you want to know more about Seattle's seawall problem and proposed solution, there's a whole lot more to read here: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/seawall.htm.


At an Explorations in Math booth, CJ and Annabelle had fun playing math games - and we got some cool swag, including a t-shirt and an Explorations in Math deck of cards that has a number of fun math games for the whole family. In case you're wondering, Explorations in Math is a Seattle-based non-profit organization working to build positive math cultures in elementary school communities. The deck of cards we received from them is a standard one, discarded by a local casino.  Love it!

This afternoon, we used the deck to play a game called Get to 100, where you're dealt a hand of 5 and you use your cards to create a set of one and two digit numbers to create a sum as close to 100 as possible.

On this hand, CJ got a swell sum of 99 - just one shy of 100.

At the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - Pacific Northwest Section booth, we checked out mock ups of jet engines and Annabelle and a Boeing engineer discussed wing stress tests. BTW, the AIAA is the world’s largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession.


Words of encouragement, tips and techniques were free at the "You CAN do the Rubik's Cube" booth. We took home a well illustrated solution guide and will be checking out their Web site, http://www.youcandothecube.com/.


While the vast majority of the booths we visited were outside, inside the Fisher Pavilion, all sorts of wonders awaited us!


A couple of very friendly guys working the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency booth were engaging and quizzed us on our environmental awareness. We won prizes (suckers and packets of sunflower seeds) for our (mostly correct) answers. The kids also played around with a slick game about air pollution, the ozone and more, called Smog City 2.

We picked up a Periodic Table of the Elephants from the American Chemical Society.   

At the Washington Industrial Technology Education Association booth, we visited with a couple of new age "shop" teachers who are extremely involved in STEM. At their display they had a beautiful guitar built from scratch, and a whiz bang "printer" that engraves any image or text on wood. Here, CJ and Annabelle watch the machine engrave their names on a wood business card.

And here are their cards, pictured with their fingerprints from the WSP booth.

From members of the Microsoft Research team, we were introduced to KODU Game Creator. At first glance it looks like a mix of Scratch, Roblox and Minecraft. How could CJ and Annabelle NOT like that?! Per its Web site, the program "lets kids create games on the PC and XBox via a simple visual programming language. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming. Anyone can use Kodu to make a game, young children as well as adults with no design or programming skills." We watched some tutorials on their site today and it looks like a blast. We'll definitely be poking around the Kodu community in the days and weeks to come. In fact, Annabelle designed her very first Kodu game today.
 
Also from the Microsoft Research Team was a demonstration of KINECT for Windows WorldWide Telescope program. (Back during Husky Fest, we saw WorldWide Telescope used for their planetarium show.) There's a YouTube video demonstrating what it's like to have the universe at your fingertips. Check it out!
 
The DigiPen Institute of Technology had several laptops at their booth where people could play games created by the DigiPen community. We learned that the games could also be accessed via the Game Gallery portal on their Web site and checked them out at home. In case you aren't familiar with them, DigiPen is an education provider in computer interactive technologies. They offer graduate and undergraduate degrees, exploratory workshops and online for middle- and high school student, comprehensive high-school programs at locations across the United States and in Canada and continuing education opportunities for industry professionals. School reps told us there are about 1,000 students in their school at their Redmond, WA, campus. 
 
We chatted with Delbert Richardson, a cultural anthropologist and second generation story teller, of the American History Traveling Museum. He had a great display of inventions by African Americans.
 
At the Bellevue College booth, the kids dug for (real live dead) shark teeth in a sand filled kiddie swimming pool. There were also a number of primate skulls on display, and experiments involving magnetism. BC has a Science and Math Institute (SAMI). Turns out they even have a planetarium which offers shows to the public and all sorts of sciences events and activities for kids. We'll have to check them out!


And last but not least, outside, near the International Fountain, the kids got to walk through the larger than life colon. The colon/tunnel is named Casper, for Capture All Suspicious Polyps and Eradicate Rapidly.


TUESDAY TO DO LIST: Don't forget, Tuesday may be THE ONLY CHANCE YOU'LL EVER HAVE to observe the transit of Venus, a rare solar event.


Coming in in pairs separated by more than a hundred years, Transits of Venus are super rare. The transit happening this Tuesday is the bookend of a 2004 transit. So if you miss this one, you'll have to wait until the year 2117 for your next shot.


This transit will be widely visible around the globe. Cloud covering permitting, people on seven continents and even a small slice of Antarctica have a shot at seeing it. 

Graphic: NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory

If we're lucky, what we'll all be seeing (though a protective eye gear) is a red sun "punctured" by the circular disk of Venus.


The transit lasts nearly 7 hours, beginning at 3:09 pm Pacific Daylight Time on June 5th. According to NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, in the USA, the transit will be at its best around sunset. That's good, too.


If you plan on watching, remember - safety first. Do NOT stare at the sun. To check it out, you'll need a projection technique (like reversed binoculars onto a sheet of paper), or a solar filter (you can get them at some science supply stores, or a #14 welder's glass is a good choice, too). You can always check the Web, too, to see if a local astronomy club has an open to all viewing party.

You can also follow all the action online here: http://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/


CJ and Annabelle are ready - now we just hope the weather cooperates!

SIGNED ON THE DOTTED LINE: This weekend I finally got around to something I'd been meaning to do for weeks. I signed Annabelle up fora one-week Aerospace Camp Experience at The Museum of Flight. The week's theme is "Astro Gals"!


Here's the course description from their catalog: "If you can dream it, you can do it! Despite numerous
challenges, women have been an integral part of our journey to the stars! Campers will learn about the significant contributions that women have made to the exploration of the galaxy as astronauts, scientists, and engineers." Cool!


She'll be astro-camping August 6-10. She can't wait!