Orion and Pluto

SCENTSATIONAL: Every time we drive through Sodo (the stadium district, south of downtown), we roll down our windows on Fourth Ave S. at Lander in hopes of catching a whiff from the Franz factory. 

This morning, on our way back from Kent (yes, there again!), we drove by Franz and the kids knew the drill. 

"Can you smell it?! Can you smell it?"! Annabelle urgently asked CJ as they powered their windows down.

Fortunately, the ovens were on, and we got a great big whiff. Mmmm ...

As we sat at a red light next to it today, we noticed a sign in the building's window that said he production of bread at the Sodo factory in one week would span 17 miles if the loaves were placed end-to-end. That's a lot of bread.

I've heard that Franz gives bakery tours. I'd definitely like to check that out some time. 

PLOP PLOP!: Today, water impact testing continued on the Orion capsule. An 18,000-pound (8,165 kilogram) test version of the spacecraft was dropped in a pool at NASA's Langley Research Center this morning.

                                                                           Image Credit: NASA 

Last summer, we watched Orion's swing drop testing at the Hydro Impact Basin. During those tests, the capsule slid down into the water in a lateral  motion.  In these latest tests, Orion is being dropped vertically into the pool for the first time.

The capsule needs to pass the tests as Orion and the (heavy launch) Space Launch System are NASA ticket back to manned spaceflight. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low Earth orbit and enable exploration across the solar system.

Here's a short video of today's test. 


In other space-y news, for the last couple of nights we've enjoyed watching nice long bright fly-overs of the ISS. 

BALANCING ACT: We took another field trip to Kent this a.m., tagging along with Rick on yet another job interview. While he got grilled, we shopped at a WinCo!!! We used to shop at a WinCo all the time in Vancouver, and I miss WinCo desperately. (Well, really, mostly I miss WinCo's prices.) So my heart sang when we spied the Winco sign near our destination. We shopped for 45 minutes and $125 worth. Then, to kill the time while waiting for Rick, we amused ourselves in the parking lot, having balancing competitions, finding pennies and so on. Good times.

SAD ANNIVERSARY: Today is the fifth anniversary of Pluto's "Dwarf Planet" reclassification.  As Neil deGrasse Tyson Tweeted today, "May the little fella RIP (Revolve in Peace)." 

My reaction surrounding this reclassification tragedy was captured nicely on this TeeFury design: 

STUFFED: Once again this year I headed up the ticket orders and distribution for the Puyallup Fair's educational ticket program for the Seattle Homeschool Group. Mercifully, the (free!) Puyallup Fair tickets arrived today, so this evening we stuffed order envelopes as we bounced back and forth between watching the Mariners (lose) and the Seahawks (win).

It's very generous of the fair to donate these tickets, and we send them a thank you note every year. 

I sure am glad to have this commitment/project over with. Now I can concentrate on my parents' 50th anniversary party.

Morning Report

MONOPOLY: Apologies for not getting around to publishing last night. I hope you were able to sleep without an update as to our daily grind, ha ha.

Truth of the matter is, all our our MPA computers were monopolized. We're down a computer now, and CJ and Annabelle were in the middle of something Very Important on two of the PCs, while Rick was using a third to prep for a couple more interviews tomorrow. And frankly, after they all finally abandoned post, I was too wiped out to post.

Until next time ...

Garden Harvest

BOUNTIFUL: We continue to pluck things off plants 'round her. Today's harvest = a couple of squash (I forget what kind, but Christian says they're cucurbita pepo, or 'grey zucchini.' Now I have to figure out what to do with them. They don't look grey to me. And I think this is going to be the extent of our broccoli, so we better savor it. 

Meanwhile, the corn and tomatoes continue to grow. Here's hoping there's enough summer left for them to be seen through to fruition. 

ON THE MOVE: Big news from the Red Planet. The Mars Science Laboratory is on the move! For the first time since touching down Aug. 5, Curiosity has put its wheels in motion and did some motoring around. 

It was announced today that NASA approved the Curiosity science team's choice to name MSL's touch down site Bradbury Landing, in honor of the  the late author Ray Bradbury. He would have been 92 years old today.

Making its first movement on the Martian surface, Curiosity's drive combined forward, turn and reverse segments. After the test drive, it was roughly 20 feet (6 meters) from the spot where it landed 16 days ago. Here is a post-run photo, taken by a front Hazard-Avoidance camera, which has a fisheye lens. 

Image:  NASA/JPL-Caltech 

THE GREAT OUTDOORS: Yesterday, we accompanied Rick on his rounds to a couple schools to the south where he had job interviews. While he got grilled, we played in neighboring parks. 

Look at how much fun we had! Here, Annabelle lies in the grass moaning, after falling off a(na actually really neat-o) spinning piece of equipment and bruising her tailbone.

And here, CJ looks like he's miserable and in the pokey. He's actually on a play structure, promise.

Though the pictures don't prove it, we did have lots of fun and got some good exercise.

Fit for a King

SUPREME COURT: Tonight's post is just a placeholder. I'm too tired to recount all of today, but from 5 to 10 p.m. we were at Safeco Field for a special celebration. It was the first start ace pitcher Felix Hernandez has made since he pitched his perfect game last Wednesday.

The Mariners decided to throw Felix a party, so we had to be there. The first 34,000 fans to the game would get free commemorative t-shirts and K (for strikeouts) poster cards, so we wanted to be there when the gates opened. We weren't the only ones with that idea. The lines stretched 'round the block even before we parked the car.

Fortunately the lines moved quickly, all six of us got our shirt and K cards and as a bonus it was Mariners trading card day, so we got those, as well. Sweet!

We sat in our usual spot - the top row above the third base line.

Usually when Felix pitches at home, there's just one section of Safeco designated as the "King's Court," where fans get the t-shirts and posters. But tonight, the entire stadium was Felix's kingdom. It was odd to see Safeco Field awash in yellow. Usually it's mostly various shades of Mariners' blue and gray.

The atmosphere was electric for nine innings and ffortunately, the party ended the right way. Felix pitched a gem and the Mariners won. We got to seem some great defense, and some tape measure home runs, to boot. Good times!

Mars, Mud and More

 

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE BALLARD:  Caught this pic of Bee's feet tonight outside Hale's Ales, where someone has stamped a long yellow brick 'road' alongside the south end of their building. Annabelle started skipping down it immediately. :)

BON VOYAGER: Today marks an amazing aerospace milestone - the 35th anniversary of the launch of the Voyager 2 space probe. It's interesting looking at this launch photo.

PHOTO: NASA/JPL

Perched atop a Titan/Centaur rocket it looks so retro, and at 35-years old I suppose it is. But what's gobsmacking about it is the damn thing's still going.

Over the past 35 years, Voyager 2 has passed Mars, Venus, the asteroid belt, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and beyond. Right now, Voyager 2 is about 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away from the sun, heading in a southerly direction. And even as we 'speak' it's exploring interstellar space and making toward the next solar system! Unfreakingbelievable!

It's the longest-operating NASA spacecraft ever. NASA/JPL managers estimate Voyagers 1 and 2 spacecraft will have enough electrical power to continue collecting data and communicating it back to Earth through 2020, and possibly through 2025.

MUDDY: This weekend was another Mostly Very Not Fun one spent working around the house. Specifically, installing drywall/plasterboard in the addition. Boo hiss boo! Of course, Annabelle thought it was fun, begging to screw on drywall and mud and tape. CJ kept his distance. Smart boy. ;)

CAPITALISM 101: It's interesting - CJ doesn't spend as much time playing online games as he does studying them. For instance. while Annabelle would play Roblox 24/7 if we let her (exploring all the servers, chatting up a storm and such), CJ is busy memorizing the history of the Web site, reciting bios of its founders and so on. On the site, players can outfit their virtual bodies with gear and I think CJ has the whole catalog memorized. Many items are limited in the number sold, and once they're out, their value often climbs. This weekend CJ started doing some speculative buying. When an item went on sale that he thought would be popular, he'd buy it and then turn around and sell it - for a profit - a bit later. Since his first three stabs at venture capitalism made him some "Robux" he's a bit giddy with the for-profit possibilities. I think this counts as math education, right?

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity continues to phone home and its news is remarkable. The compact car sized rover is working wonderfully!

Have I mentioned MSL has a frickin' laser?!?? This weekend the red rover vaporized some Martian rock. Oh yeah!!!


Its target was a fist-size rock called "Coronation." The laser is built into the MSL's Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument. It his poor, defenseless Coronation with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second. Take that, Mars!

Per a NASA press release, "The energy from the laser excites atoms in the rock into an ionized, glowing plasma. ChemCam catches the light from that spark with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers for information about what elements are in the target."

By all reports, ChemCam is performing beautifully. "It's surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio," said ChemCam Deputy Project Scientist Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie (IRAP) in Toulouse, France. "It's so rich, we can expect great science from investigating what might be thousands of targets with ChemCam in the next two years."

Exciting stuff!