Rockets and Oscars

ROCKET, MAN:  The kids had an amazing Saturday at the National Association of Rocketry national convention at The Museum of Flight. 

They started their day by spending two hours in a model rocket building workshop led by volunteers from the Washington Aerospace Club. 

Here are the finished rockets. Annabelle chose to leave the factory stickers off hers to do a custom decoration job later.  CJ declared they should have serious 'astronaut faces' for the photo below.

The kids were invited to go launch their rockets at 60 Acres Park next Sunday. If the weather's cooperative, we'll be there!

After the rocket build, the kids got to spend an hour with astronaut and physicist Jerome "Jay" Apt. 

Incredibly, it was just Christian, CJ, Annabelle and one other little boy with Dr. Apt for the luncheon. So, they had a wonderful opportunity to ask Dr. Apt questions about physics and space travel. 

Here are some of CJ's recollections of the meeting: 

On January 20th, I went to have lunch at the Museum of Flight with Jerome Apt, a former NASA Astronaut who went aboard the STS-37, STS-47, STS-59, and STS-79 space shuttle missions. At the lunch, sadly, there were only four people (not including Apt) who were there, and they were my dad, Annabelle, a young boy who had been dropped off there by his parents, and I.

One of the questions I asked Dr. Apt was the likelihood of the Mars One program succeeding, and he said that it wouldn't happen due to the fact that the people working on Mars One don't have the technology, equipment, or plans to be able to get to Mars.

Another question I asked Dr. Apt was about the possibility of a black hole rocket, a theoretical kind of spacecraft that has an artificial black hole in an area with the Hawking Radiation emitted by the black hole powering the ship. Dr. Apt also said that it was unlikely, due to the fact that Hawking Radiation is hard radiation and that it would be difficult to keep a black hole under control.

And here's what Annabelle has to share:

On February 20th, 2015, I went to the museum of flight to have lunch at NARCON. But this wasn't any lunch; I got to have lunch with astronaut and physicist Jay Apt! The lunch followed a rocket-building workshop and I had fun! Let me tell you what I learned.

As soon as the lunch started, we started talking and asking questions. My brother asked a lot of questions involving science and physics, while the only other boy there was mostly quiet. Some of the questions he gave a surprising reaction to. For instance, when my brother asked if Apt thought the Mars One mission would ever be successful, he responded "no! "My dad even talked to him a little about how correct certain space movies are. I got to ask a couple of questions, but I felt more like listening then asking.

I'm glad there weren't too many people, because that way we got to ask a lot of questions. I was also very glad we were able to have lunch with him. Overall, the lunch was fun and I really liked talking with Dr. Apt!

RED CARPET:  Sunday night brought the Oscars awards. We had an invite to an Oscars party, so we got all dolled up (no photos, drat!) and took some cookies, of course.

 Envelopes, popcorn, Oscar statuettes and movie reels a must, of course ... 

More fun were the best movies cookies. 

The party was fun, and we were glad we 'crammed' on Oscar nominees prior, so we had some background and talking points. :) 

TENNIS, ANYONE?: It was cold, but sunny, this morning, and so we decided to go to court. more specifically, the tennis courts at Discovery Park. Turns out, we were a little rusty. There wasn't a whole lot of serve and volley today. Mostly, it was serve and curse and chase, ha ha. 

TERRIBLE NEWS:  Top of the Seattle Times' feed this evening is news that the amazing Native American themed murals at the former Wilson Pacific School have been horribly vandalized. Awful, awful. :( 

Just last week, we finally toured the site and marveled at the mammoth murals.  We were impressed that they had remained almost entirely untouched in the years since they were installed by artist Andrew Morrison. 

However, this weekend, an idiot or idiots were horrible enough to disrespect and deface them. The only "good" news is the idiot was stupid enough to tag them with his name (we're looking at you DAPKILO). So, it's just a matter of time until the perp is tracked down. Suffice it to say, whatever the fine is for the defacement, it's not enough.