As the world burns…

For the moment, I’m sitting next to Celeste on a dust-covered couch - one of many in this covered pavilion at the center of Black Rock City, Nevada. Lots of whimsy,  nonsense, dust storms, and the American Dream are alive and well here in this god-forsaken desert. Somehow I found wi-fi access and am taking this brief moment to let you know that our gang is healthy and having fun, and we’ll be back to Maryland faster than you can sing a commercial jingle.

A little while ago, on the walk here, we heard someone reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas over a P.A., for anyone within earshot to enjoy. Tonight, we’re going hippie fishing. If you’ve never heard of it, just know that it involves fishing line, a glowstick, and confused ravers in the dark.

Live in Reno, Nevada

I found myself in a hotel bed in Reno this morning, only slightly hung over, and a mere $50 in the red.  That included $20 dropped on black for one spin of the roulette wheel - it landed on red. Today is the day we run around the city gathering supplies (food, water, etc) and preparing for the final three-hour trek to Black Rock City, Nevada. We’re going to rent a second car; there’s absolutely no way we could fit all the gear into my Prius after picking up our fifth camp-mate (and her rediculously oversized suitcase) at the airport yesterday.

The drive across North America to get here was beautiful, as usual. I’d post pictures now, but we’re in a bit of a rush to get checked out of the hotel. More to come! I’m optimistic about finding wifi internet access on the playa.

The Perseid Meteor Shower

The Perseid meteor shower is near its maximum right now, and stargazers with a good view of the night sky and low light pollution may see meteors as frequently as once per minute! Really, the maximum was a couple days ago, but there should still be activity from this shower up until August 24.  I’ll be out with my binoculars tonight, weather permitting.  I have been busy lately and haven’t blogged much… next Wednesday, though, I’m leaving for my vacation to Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada. I hope to post some updates from the road whenever I can find WiFi hotspots, so stay tuned! I also may get around to writing something later today or this weekend. Good luck stargazing - leave a comment if you saw a Perseid meteor!

Phoenix lands undamaged on Mars!

I’m a bit disappointed in myself for not posting anything on this earlier. Most of you already know by now that on Sunday, NASA’s Phoenix probe successfully performed a rocket-assisted landing on Mars’ northern arctic plains.  It was the sixth successful attempted (of twelve total, worldwide) Mars landing.  Phoenix is a joint project of a number of international universities and space agencies, and its primary goal is to analyze the water ice covering much of the ground near Mars’ north pole.  In doing so, it will help researchers look for evidence of past or present Martian life.  I think we are on the right track with robotic exploration, as the ethical complexities involved in manned missions to Mars (at least in this technological era) are very limiting.

Anyway, the landing occurred at 23:53:44 UTC; that’s the Earth-received time.  That means the time that mission control received the first radio signals.  The landing really took place 15 minutes and 20 seconds before that, which is the amount of time it takes radio signals from Mars to reach Earth.  Forget what you know about relativity; Earth and Mars are too close together in space, and the relative speed between them is too tiny a fraction of the speed of light for relativity to matter in this case.  As far as we need be concerned, the Earth-received time minus 15m 20s is simultaneous to Mars time.  That’s one of the dilemmas that any future human Mars explorers would face: it would take over a half hour, at least, to receive any reply to a message radioed to Earth.  Keep in mind too that Mars’ and Earth’s orbits around the sun are not synchronous; the half hour delay is the best of scenarios!

A bit more info: Phoenix was launched on August 4, 2007 atop a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  It took nearly ten months to complete the 680 million kilometer journey to Mars.  How about a picture of the launch, you ask?  Why, I’ve got one for you right here:

And so, dear readers, space exploration marches on!  I know it’s perhaps just a little unlikely, but I’m still crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to land on the moon before I die.  I know that may seem to contradict what I said a moment ago about robotic exploration being the right track, but things may change for the better.  We may discover safer, less expensive ways to escape Earth’s gravity, and better portable protection from solar radiation.  I don’t even care if it’s not really all that safe.  If I’m 45 or older, and I’m offered a seat on a moon shuttle, you better believe I’m going.  Hell, I’d go to Mars, too.  Apart from the obvious atmospheric differences, the terrain doesn’t look too different from the Black Rock Desert where I’ve camped at Burning Man several times now

The first image of Mars’ horizon sent by Phoenix:

The Black Rock Desert, Black Rock City, NV:

Until next time, kiddies.  Keep watching the skis… I mean, keep watching the skies!

An adventure to the great outdoors.

If the trend of the last few weeks continues, this weekend will be here before I know it. I’m looking forward to it especially, because for the first time this year I’ll be going camping! My brother, some of his friends, my friend Don, and I (and others are welcome to tag along!) will be at Green Ridge State Forest. In my opinion, it’s Maryland’s best public camping area, with Assateague State Park in second place (because they don’t allow pets). There are great semi-primitive campsites with relative privacy (you typically can’t see your nearest neighbors) and backpackers are allowed to do real primitive camping.

I hope the weather cooperates so I can do a bit of stargazing. I want to camp as much as possible this spring/summer/fall. Who’s with me? Other places I’d like to camp soon include Buchanan State Forest (Pennsylvania) and Sky Meadows State Park (Virginia).

From South Dakota…

A real update will follow tomorrow, I promise, and replace this one. You’ll get pictures and science and maybe even some enthusiasm. Tonight I’m poised to actually get a few hours of sleep, which to me is a big deal. Goodnight, blogosphere!

San Diego

Over the past two days, Don and I have been traveling around the San Diego area (mostly just downtown S.D.). We got here on Saturday, and we saw Bad Religion at the House of Blues that night and last night. Both shows were phenomenal, and included a lot of songs from their older albums. I got a decent bootleg of Saturday’s show which you can download here. We gotta check out of our hotel now, so I don’t have time to write more - I’ll give you a better update tomorrow!

Man, vacation is great. Even if it’s just three days.