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Talk like a pirate day. LUNAR rocket launch day.
Pirate talk is self-explanatory, but the rocket launch showed me I was born 50 years to soon, maybe more. When I was a kid, rockets were highly experimental things which blew up more often than not, and strictly for rocket scientists. Today's rocket launch at NASA Ames was a very family-friendly event, with 6-year-olds on the launch pad placing their rockets on the launcher stations, sometimes with parental help sometimes with the help of peers and sometimes solo. The state of rocketry as a hobby has become that stable. It wasn't all kids, there were people of all ages there, but I'd say that for every adult rocketeer there were four or five children. I'd love to get into this hobby, but I don't have a place where it's safe to build or store rockets. And the club moves across the Bay starting next month.
An extra bonus, there were a couple of fighter jets on display on the runway with their pilots giving tours. We saw one take-off. Also saw a landing of a somewhat unmarked 737-ish plane. Photos are in the camera, I'll post a link to flickr if they are worth uploading. I experimented a bit - using the new D90, shooting raw mode instead of JPG. I'm not sure if raw will give me the Exif info such as GPS readings.
Nothing else planned this weekend. Yosemite Monday-Tuesday.
Pirate talk is self-explanatory, but the rocket launch showed me I was born 50 years to soon, maybe more. When I was a kid, rockets were highly experimental things which blew up more often than not, and strictly for rocket scientists. Today's rocket launch at NASA Ames was a very family-friendly event, with 6-year-olds on the launch pad placing their rockets on the launcher stations, sometimes with parental help sometimes with the help of peers and sometimes solo. The state of rocketry as a hobby has become that stable. It wasn't all kids, there were people of all ages there, but I'd say that for every adult rocketeer there were four or five children. I'd love to get into this hobby, but I don't have a place where it's safe to build or store rockets. And the club moves across the Bay starting next month.
An extra bonus, there were a couple of fighter jets on display on the runway with their pilots giving tours. We saw one take-off. Also saw a landing of a somewhat unmarked 737-ish plane. Photos are in the camera, I'll post a link to flickr if they are worth uploading. I experimented a bit - using the new D90, shooting raw mode instead of JPG. I'm not sure if raw will give me the Exif info such as GPS readings.
Nothing else planned this weekend. Yosemite Monday-Tuesday.
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