FAIRLY FIELD TRIP: This morning, we headed down south to deliver some artwork of Annabelle's for display at the Washington State Spring Fair in Puyallup.
We had a quick trip and arrived earlier than expected, so we had a half hour to kill. We've been to Puyallup before, but only for the fair, driving straight to the fairgrounds and back home. Today, we had a little tiny window of time to explore the place, and drove a couple of blocks north of the fairgrounds and, by happy accident, found ourselves in a sprawling, inviting park in the center of town.
How lucky is that?
While the playground was what caught our eyes first, upon exiting the car, straight off we noticed a statue in the parking lot (as captured in the photo at the top of the blog). The work is "Sudden Inspiration" by Cordelia Bradburn.
We also noticed a sign at the base of the statue, alerting us that we could take a cell phone tour of the art in the park, and learn more about the statue before us. We promptly dialed the number on the sign and the extension and ... the recorded message was a description about a piece of art, but not the one we were standing in front of. Oops and oh well. We abandoned the cell phone tour and just enjoyed what we saw, including "Giving Thanks to the Spirit of Recycling" by artist Dan Klennert.
This life-sized bronze statue appears to pay homage to the area's agricultural roots.
This carved-from-wood sculpture, "Endangered Species" by Pat McVay, blended nicely in with the park's mature trees.
This whimsical statue was called "Old Man Catching Birds in His Beard," by Richard Beyer.
You can read all about Puyallup's public art on a the wonderful Web site Artsdowntown.org.
BIGELOW DEAL: Tomorrow, SpaceX launches a resupply mission to the International Space Station, which is a big deal in and of itself. We'd be watching no matter what (1:43 p.m. West Coast US time) on Friday. However, we've been tracking one particular piece of cargo they'll be hauling for quite some time now: the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, a potential game changer when it comes to living and working off planet.
I'll let CJ tell you a bit more about it. ...
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, is a revolutionary addition to the International Space Station that is being launched up tomorrow. According to Bigelow Aerospace’s website, BEAM is an experimental program developed under NASA contract, under a patent conceptualized in the 1990s. BEAM is an effort to test and validate expandable habitat technology. According to NASA’s official Tumblr page, it is made up of layers of fabric that will expand when installed and equalize with the pressure of the International Space Station. During BEAM’s time on station, the airlock between BEAM and the rest of the space station will remained closed, and astronauts will enter only to collect data and help the experiment progress. BEAM is the first in a series of launches and missions that will help expand environments in space. BEAM will weigh 1,400 kilograms, and have a volume of 16 meters cubed, or about 52 ½ feet. BEAM is only a fraction of the size of the BA 330, an independent habitat that Bigelow Aerospace is working on, which will have a volume of 330 meters cubed, or about 1082.7 feet.
Here's a handy infographic from NASA about BEAM:
The launch will be played on NASA TV, as well as a Web cast from SpaceX (20 minutes before launch).
BEAM will be riding in the Dragon capsule's unpressurized 'trunk'on the way to the ISS. Inside Dragon will be approximately 250 science and research investigations that will occur during Expeditions 47 and 48. Altogether, it will be ferrying about 7,000 pounds of cargo.
Here's an artist's rendition of what BEAM will look like attached to the ISS.
ZIGGY PLAYED GUITAR: The kids were working on a song on guitar today, and with the first three chords they played, I observed aloud, "Those are the same three chords that start another song you know," that song being "Ziggy Stardust."
It was easy to find a guitar tutorial on YouTube, so they spent some time today starting to learn a David Bowie classic. https://youtu.be/wG34AqOahpc
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