Hike, Hop & Blocks & Balls

DAY OF DISCOVERY: Yesterday's blog was full o' info about our big day at The Museum of Flight on Saturday, so I neglected Monday altogether. Hence, I'm playing catch up today.

The weather forecast yesterday called for rain all darn day, so imagine our delight when we awoke to gray but dry skies. We hadn't gotten a good hike in all weekend, so I marshaled the troops and declared we'd be going to Discovery Park for a jaunt. 

We parked in the south lot and took the South Loop Trail down to the beach. 

The way down is a rather nice 2.5 ish mile stroll, mostly downhill. We skirted the old fort/military part of the park, past abandoned buildings and along this great rock wall. We could already see the Sound from there (peek over CJ's shoulder).

We checked out the sand pit, high above the Sound. I always wonder how the sand came to be so high above the present-day beach level. 

We're still a few stories above the Sound at this point. Lots of stairs and slopes to go down. 

The water is as calm as it gets ... smooth as glass.

 Once we hit the beach, CJ and Annabelle immediately set about trying to build a teeter totter. 

They didn't quite get the physics of it all down right. ...

We found some neat-o forts built from driftwood. This was one of the bigger ones.

And, of course, if you're down there, you have to check out the lighthouse, right?

 
The way back to the car was a bit slower. So. Many. Stairs.

We were tired but happy after the hike. It was a lovely way to spend a Monday morning.

BUILDING BLOCKS: Big news from Mars. Remember the scoop of soil Curiosity recently drilled and analyzed? Well, the mobile science lab's CheMin and SAM identified some of the key chemical ingredients for life in the sample. Sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon were all detected Plus, the rock also contains clay minerals, which suggests that long-ago the area was an aqueous environment, with salty and neutral water.

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program said in a press release today. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."

Sure, it would be a lot more exciting if there was life there right now, but even the prospect that once upon a time there were, potentially, "Martians" of some (even the single celled) sort, is big news. MSL continutes to amaze. Go Curiosity!

HOPPING ROCKETS:  SpaceX was most recently in the news for its successful launch and resupply mission to the ISS. But they've got other amazing irons in the fire, as well, For instance, they are working on developing a reusable rocket. Grasshopper is a leap in that direction. Obviously, having a reusable rocket could be a huge money saver, not to mention making for a more Earth friendly space program.

On Mar. 7, their Grasshopper launched, hovered for 30 plus seconds, reached a height of 262 plus feet (24 stories) and then safely landed back on the ground. 

Check out the short video of the exercise here (nicely set to Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire.'): 
.http://spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=0

CRAMMING: Today we spent a lot of time prepping for the kids' unit-end science test, which they have tomorrow. We also made good headway on this week's lectures for our "How Things Work" physics class through Coursera.

Let me tell you, this class is challenging, and I'm not even talking about the quizzes, I mean just understanding the lectures. We take notes, stop the video, and talk about what we've heard throughout teach presentation. The videos we're watching this week all have to do with the physics involved when there are falling balls. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But when he starts spewing formulas like g times (time squared/2) = velocity, I get a little nervous. ...