Gmail anyone?

Such a deal!

OK, I now have a plethora of Gmail invites. Anyone who wants one simply post a reply to this and I'll send you one... no strings attached, (until such time comes that I run out of them of course). I'll delete this post and all of its replies when I run out of invites.

Engineer Joke

What's the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers

mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets. :-D

|__P COFFEE GOOD!

Goldstone tour

Ok so on my trip to Boron I managed a last minute tour of Goldstone. What can I say, well ...lots; a neat place about an hour away from Boron, CA, 35 miles north of Barstow. Goldstone is where NASA's Deep Space Network is headquartered and they have a bunch of antennas for communicating with our spacecraft all over the solar system. One of them is 70 meters in diameter and bigger that a 10 story office building. You wanna go on the tour yourself? read on.

Our tour began when Karla met us at the gate, only one other car showed up so there were only 4 persons in our tour, only one of us hadn't been out before, not me, Karla recognized me and my big old black car immediately. (I was the guy who made all the wise cracks and generally asked too many questions last time I visited) Oh and just to save you the trouble: No; they cannot let tour participants climb into any of the antennas, no matter how often you or I ask. No; not even if the antenna is off-line. No; not even if you'll sign a waiver. No; not even if you are a competent tech and will not break stuff. No; not even if you saw Huell Howser get to do it on TV...well you get the point.

So Karla brought us up to the meeting rooms where we saw a couple short films, we asked her lots of questions and saw the visitor center. Karla talked to us about a few of the current missions, there are currently something like 30 spacecraft not in earth orbit, a good number of which of which get talked to daily. There were great displays and models of half a dozen or so spacecraft and Karla was very patient with us all in answering all our questions. Then off to see some antennas, some old some new some bloody huge! Lastly there was the control room, a way coo tour. I'm deliberately leaving out all the details, the tour lasted like 2 hours, there were plenty of details and facts. There are several sites on the web where other tour attendees have made very detailed write-ups so if you want one of those then a quick Google search will find them. I'd much rather encourage you to go there yourself.

So, you wanna go on the tour?
There is a free tour and it's not hard to sign up for. You just need to make a reservation with Marie Massey (760-255-8687). You get in contact with her or Karla Warner and set an appointment for your tour. You need to be on the "guest list" at the Ft. Irwin south gate visitor center where you get a day pass for the base. Bring your drivers license, car registration and proof of insurance. Once inside Ft. Irwin you make the first left and go down the road until you reach the Goldstone gate. Park off to the right of the buildings and walk up to the guardhouse. You'll need picture IDs for each person going on the tour. (Marie or Karla can fill you in as to requirements if you happen to not be a citizen.) You'll get a card for your vehicle and badges to wear and if you have digital equipment they will want to read the serial numbers off it, (laptops, digital camera's palm pilots etc., its done to protect visitors from accusations of theft should they occur). Despite these procedures, it's actually quite casual and photography is strongly encouraged.

So if you ever get anywhere near Barstow get on the web in time to search for "Goldstone tour" and make the call. You'll love the tour.

Boron, California

Another Trip:

I just got back from another trip. This time to Boron, CA. Its a very nice, very small town at the northeast corner of Edwards AFB, just north of the Rocket Test Stands. I went to the middle of the Mojave for a couple reasons. first and foremost to get away from the office, family, neighbors etc., you get the picture, to get away from it all so to speak but there's neat stuff out there too.

I've been there before and one thing you can most always count on during a weekday is seeing some of the Edwards AFB flight research in action. Boron is right under the long approach to Edwards so no matter what or where the testing they always fly it over Boron when its time to go back to the barn if at no other time. Nice photo ops sometimes. This time There was no sound barrier breaking going on (there was a minor incident on the ground a couple hours before I arrived, broken glass, that may have changed the schedule) however a B1B apparently was doing something with his terrain hugging control systems as he was floating his way in and around the local hills several days. I was hoping to see some of the UAVs or UCAVs in flight but saw nothing of them. F22 was undergoing some high speed, sub sonic testing back and fourth east-west just north of highway 58. It also did some midair refueling other days and I'm not sure but maybe some turbulence testing or perhaps even a photo shoot with a B52 (a regular Air Force type, not the one with the launch pylon). I shot a few pictures but nothing to write home about, I get better shots at air shows.

Speaking of air shows... Edwards just cancelled its 2004 air show! NUTS!!

What Else At Boron?
Well, in addition to being a good central location to go to other stuff and a nice safe place to stay: There's a couple good restaurants in town, a grocery store and a couple decent motels too, the Liquor store sells ice cream as well as spirits. I'm kinda partial to the older Boron Motel just because it's where we've always stayed (and the old motel has the pool) but "Smokey" actually runs them both. Boron has two museums, the Saxon Aerospace (named for a former Edwards commander) and the 20 Mule Team museums, right next to each other. Ever heard of 20 Mule Team Borax, or Boraxo, or Borateam soap? They originated here at the US Borax plant 3 miles NW of the town where they also operate one of the worlds largest open pit mines. US Borax has a visitor center and I always stop in to say 'hi'. They don't make any consumer products anymore and even sold the consumer-side use of the 20 Mule Team name and logos off to the Dial Corp but Dial still sells some of the products and all the history is certainly here. The US Borax visitors center even has a full sized replica 20 mule team and real wagons.

Goldstone... Part of NASA's Deep Space Network. A really cool tour a little over an hour away from Boron. I'll make a separate post about just it right after this which will include instructions on how any U.S. citizens can go.

Also: I am trying to gain authorized access to the rocket test stands on the mountain to the south of Boron, I have some info and a name so I'll pursue that line on my next trip out there.

Trains: I hope you like trains, I do, because if you come to Boron you will have trains all the time. Personally I love them which is good because tracks run right through Boron both to support the borax mine and as a major rail artery and they thunder through town anytime, day and night. Sometimes as many as 20 trains a day will go through Boron, on this trip the lines were so busy that trains actually backed-up in a sort of traffic jam. We had trains 'park' in and outside town often. About 50 miles west is also the famous Tehachapi Loop, its easily accessed and just a few miles west of Tehachapi the city which has a few of its own attractions.

It was 100-110°F several of the days I was there in Boron (it is the Mojave Dessert in August after all), so I tried to spend as much time as possible bobbing in the motel pool with my camera setting nearby with a towel on it. I heard a lot more aircraft than I saw but that was just fine by me. It was very relaxing. I'd hear a plane, grab the towel, dry my hands and pick up the camera without even getting out of the pool.

Other days in The Mojave the weather was quite a bit cooler. We had thunderstorms and Boron even got trace amounts of rain, other places got hammered. One spot north of Mojave (city) got rain at over one inch per hour Probably similar at Victorville. The Dessert can't handle that kind'a water so the result was flash floods and large pools of standing water for days afterward. We were spared almost all of it though and just got a little dampening. just enough to make all the cars look bad by dappling the dust. 3-5 miles north and we would've been swimming. Sure was a good light show though, I stayed in the pool.

The overall goal of the trip was to relax and soak up some sun while soaking in the water, hearing and seeing the trains, planes and automobiles go by. By all rites, mission accomplished. I managed to take in some other sights too but basically took it easy. If it was one of those 'hard' vacations where you try to cram as many events as possible onto the adgenda then I could have probably done 3 times the number of activities, but then it wouldn't have been very relaxing.

Post questions if you wanna know anything more about anything out there and I'll post more details.