an age of discovery and chilling consequences

well last week i was at one conf. and now it's time to get ready for another one in puerto rico in a couple weeks. i'll be talking about an idea for visiting several moons of jupiter. seems the Multi-Moon Orbiter idea I've worked on caught someone's attention in the Bush Administration. there was a recent news release: NASA Set to Unveil 'Jupiter Tour' Mission. hot diggety!

as i said, last week i was at a conference in maryland, at the univ. of maryland, college park. the conf. went well. i relaxed, heard some cool talks, met old colleagues, visited a huge centrifuge... that's right, a huge FRIGGIN' CENTRIFUGE at nearby
Goddard Space Flight Center. In the picture at right, a Hubble instrument is about to
be tested (on a tilt table to the left of the picture). this massive facility can be spun at up to 20rpm, leading
to a speed of over 100 mph. the hardware then experiences 15G's of acceleration (but can go up to 30G's). for scale, note
the test technician standing on the movable platform. while I was there, they were testing the rollover susceptibility of SUVs. that's one hell of a ride.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: there're also incredibly scary spacecraft test facilities, to simulate the harsh environment of space: thermal-vacuum chambers, a vibration platform, and an acoustic test chamber -- a 4-story high room with speakers the size of a VW Bug.

while not at the conference, i spent most of the time staying at an
aunt's house in faux-rural northern virginia, near the would-be home of
the homeland security building. it was devastatingly cold... chilling
one's extremities to the bare bone. but an invigorating cold, one that
makes you want to run and shout madly. i stupidly got my rental car towed
in DC while I was visiting museums last thursday. had to go on a
cross-town adventure trying to get that dern car back, but i met all sorts
of characters along the way, like the unamused parking attendant and the
wacky foreign cabby. i learned you gotta pay extra special attention to
them tricky east coast parking signs.

and while in dc, i tried to get
involved with the political system by visiting the supreme court on the
30th anniv. of r. v. wade. it was quite an experience being there when
both the pro-life and pro-choice groups were in full strength. not too
much dialogue going on between those camps, though i did see quite a bit
of shouting. it's such an emotionally charged issue. i've thought of getting involved with California Students for Life (website broken?) or other groups.

I also paid a visit to donna and leon rhoads in oley, pennsylvania, the parents of the former mike rhoads, my old friend. the last time i saw them was with fay about a year and a half ago. it was good to see them again. they seem well. i had a talk with the dad about how he's been dealing with his son's death. he's thought about reincarnation, etc., primarily from the writings of psychic Sylvia Brown. He says it makes more sense to him than the hell/heaven dichotomy. I didn't challenge him, but heard him out.

i also saw an older cousin jim i hadn't seen in a decade and visited the battliefield at gettysburg, pa, to pay my respects to those fallen so long ago.