Third of July

DAISY DEW: Summer weather seems to be on hiatus the past couple of days. The dozens of daisies all along our driveway were covered with dew this morning.

The good news is, our waterways and forests can use the rain, and it might even help keep some Fourth of July fireworks fires at bay.

GRAND DESIGN: Here and there, I see stories about Detective Cookie's Chess Park, and I'm still blown away seeing so many people wear shirts with Annabelle's design on them. They look great (said the unbiased mother)!
https://southseattleemerald.com/2019/06/24/kids-take-home-the-win-at-chess-competition-against-seattle-police/?fbclid=IwAR1xqCm_5wpgJXlvmFVBF65nNKA6efyOF7jxspiqa0OHcNj9Yns1jku5NCU

NASA NEARBY: News from NASA - our nation's space agency has launched a new website where you can find NASA connections close to home.

Called NASA in the 50 States, the site allows you to click on any state on a map of the U.S. to see how that state is important to the study of space and Earth science.

From it, we learned that at least seven NASA astronauts have been born in the state of Washington. They are: Michael Barratt, Bonnie Dunbar, Richard Gordon, Gregory Johnson, Anne McClain, Stephen Oswald and Dick Scobee.

You can check out the site here: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/nasainthe50states/

HOLEY MOLEY: There's trouble on Mars. Specifically, with the "mole," or digging instrument on  NASA's InSight lander. 

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)n Mars.

The "mole" started digging back in late February of this year. However, it soon appeared to be stuck, which forced the mission team to command the mole to sit idly by while engineers worked toward a solution. 

To that goal, on June 28, InSight's robotic arm was used to remove the mole's surrounding support structure, giving the team a look at the mole, which they hope will help them figure out what the technical difficulties are. 

To date, the "mole" has only been able to dig down about 12 inches (30 centimeters), nowhere near the depth it was designed to dig.

Meanwhile, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has speculated that the Martian soil may be posing problems. Specifically, the material where the lander is may not be giving the necessary kind of friction that would allow it to balance the recoil from the mole's self-hammering motion. Instead, it might be bouncing in place rather than digging, said a NASA expert.  If that's the case, that could be a formidable challenge to overcome.

Winging It

FLIGHTY: Yesterday morning we headed to Raisbeck Aviation High School, a next door neighbor of The Museum of Flight.

It was our first time in the school, so we had big eyes checking everything out. Our purpose for being there was for the orientation for the private pilot ground school program CJ and Annabelle started yesterday. Monday through Friday through June 22, they'll be attending class from 8:30 to 3:30.  

It was a packed house in the small school gym. There are 104 students in the program this year, twice the number that there used to be when it started four years ago. Yesterday, they spent some time in The Museum of Flight's flight simulator. CJ and Annabelle both happily reported that they did not crash their computerized planes. 

One of the cool things about being at The Museum of Flight so often, is that we often see unusual (to us) aircraft during our visits. Case in point: We caught the take off of a Brazilian Air Force jet on Sunday afternoon.

ORION: Early Tuesday morning, NASA successfully conducted a test of the Orion spacecraft’s launch abort system at Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Fortunately, the demonstration showed that the system can outrun a speeding rocket and shuttle astronauts to safety during an emergency during launch. (Unfortunately, the retired space shuttles had no such system, resulting in disaster for the entire crew of the Challenger back in 1986.)

Called Ascent Abort-2,the test lasted about three minutes. The test vehicle was atop a modified Peacekeeper missile procured through the U.S. Air Force and built by Northrop Grumman. The  Orion test spacecraft traveled about six miles high, which meant it was under high-stress aerodynamic conditions expected during ascent. When the abort sequence triggered, within milliseconds, the abort motor fired, which caused the crew module to pull away from the rocket, and a jettison motor fired, which released the crew module and sent in on a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

You can see video of the test below.


RARE SIGHTING: Have I mentioned we have a gecko living with us for a bit? Stevie is a low maintenance pet. You hardly ever see her. She mostly just hides out in the hollowed out log or UFO in her enclosure, but last night she was totally out and about.

Not sure what got her going, but I'm guessing it was food (she's standing right over it in the photo), or maybe she was thirsty.

Mission to Mars

LIFT OFF: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, CJ has spent all day (from 8:30 to 5:30 p.m.) at The Museum of Flight for his Western Aerospace Scholars summer experience.

Below is a schedule of events for those three days.

In a couple of hours, we'll be headed to the closing presentation and awards ceremony. We're eager to see how his Mars mission stacks up! He wasn't feeling super confident when he left this morning, but hopefully today he and his team got some real progress made. Time will tell. ... 

COMPLETE: CJ has completed his first ever Perler Bead art project.

He carefully followed the pattern, placing each little bead just so, and in the end he produced this colorful Boston Terrier.

Once all the pieces were in place, it was time to melt them together with an iron. Once that was complete, the piece was mounted to a canvas using spray adhesive, and it now hangs in CJ's room.

I think he really enjoyed doing this, and hope that he tries another project again soon.

IN BLOOM: Yesterday we spent a couple of hours out in the yard, mowing, and weed 'eating,' and such.

I stopped several times to admire the blooms around this place.

And where there were blooms, there were bees!

Little bumble bees seemed to love this lavender.

And I spied our honeybees out and about, as well! I love the detail of the wings in the photo below.

I caught the bee below in flight.

And check out the eyes on this guy (below)!