Final Summary (June 22 - August 31)
The Academy in Retrospect
The Partial
FINAL
Summary!!
Eric Bean
It's tough to bring ten awesome weeks to a close, but here's my stab at it, hittin' the high points. ..
We had all arrived by the evening of June 22nd and gathered for a barbecue at Doug's. Fortunately, warming up to everyone was not a problem. One thing I learned from this was that normally cool people usually appear cheesy on paper-time for a bit of self reflection.
And the summer progressed .. .fast! Surprisingly enough, we did not adopt Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" as our Academy theme song while away from the French Hotel. That award should go to the Hanson's "Ummm Bop", but the there may be a hung jury (Andrea).
To begin our many road trips we headed to San Francisco our first weekend. After the museum curator came out to congratulate me on my impressive climbing skills we decided to leave for the Golden Gate Bridge. Most memorable quote: "Let's take a short walk across the Golden Gate Bridge," -J.W. in her expressive style. Most memorable event: Kathy crossing the bridge-remember, look both ways. The Academy, The Bridge, a gun, a weirdo, and the police all were in the recipe for adventure.
By now we were really diving headlong into our PI projects, oh, no we weren't, that happens in August. Back to the road trips…
We drove down to Pasadena to experience the "worst smog ever". Would anyone like a little air with their smog? For the weekend of July 4th we had been highly recruited to run the Sun Workstations, the fate of the free world rested on us successfully completing this task. However, Sun didn't share this view. The fate of Sun rested on us transporting boxes from one end of the convention center to the other. After our 45 minutes or so of work was completed for the extended weekend, we were free to enjoy Planetfest, catching all of the excitement as the Pathfinder landed on Mars, hanging on to every word that rolled off Dan Goldin's tongue (my personal highlight-paper bag anyone?), exploring all of the booths, auditing several lectures (especially Bob Zubrin's-this guy should do stand-up), conversing with Story Musgrave about space, dreams, and experiment possibilities, and, of course, shopping at the Banana Republic.
July 4th brought teraflops of excitement! The Pathfinder landed successfully-I was impressed! But most importantly it was Pat's birthday! Kathy had become the object of some New England Revolution player's desire and she hooked everyone up with tickets-if everyone means Kathy. So while Kathy enjoyed the game front and center, her compatriots squeezed into general seating where the Galaxy fan in front of us was more entertaining than the game. After the fireworks we headed directly-or, for those in Kim's van, took the scenic route-if scenic means a place where you don't want to be when the sun goes down-back to the hotel for the real celebration. Myself, Pat, and Kathy, after being inspired by Zubrin's book The Case for Mars, decided to begin research for our own book The Case for Bars . On July 5th we decided to discontinue this research.
During our stay we had the opportunity to meet the Goddard Academy at Duke's Saturday night-let's keep it small Doug. It was here-and I'm proud to say I was present-that Don officially became The Don by proclaiming that he had the strength of not one, not two, but EIGHT men! The next day we headed back north. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief-although we couldn't see the air we were breathing-about being back-just in time for the Sunday evening traffic jam.
We were back at the French Temporary Living Establishment for five whole nights now. We rested up and were excited about the opportunity to begin (again) some PI work. We were still bouncing around ideas for a group project. Nellymar decided to conduct some research of her own on Telepresence to present at the ICES conference. However, she and her co-I, Tato, are still gathering funding from AT&T.
Many of the Astrobiology Panelists "bombed" and our ICES session was canceled. Those of us who were to be on the panel now had more time for the casino. There' s always next time Nellymar.
The weekend before ICES we made a pilgrimage to Tahoe. Clear skies, clear water, running and biking trails galore, sun, mountains, and beauty (Juliet!) everywhere. I scared all novices with my mad skiing skills because I made it look soo hard. Kevin, myself, Don, my friends Kelley and Tracy, and their dogs Scooby and Shana all went for a blaze-your-own-trail hike up the side of a mountain. It rocked! On the way to South Tahoe we all stopped at Za' s for some good eats-if good means greasy.
At the casino's "it was ON" and we were so "money". Everyone walked away a winner.
At ICES we learned the 1st Law of Conferencedynamics-half the sessions are always canceled. Oh well, more time for the casino. Everyone did manage to find a least a few lectures that tickled their fancy.
We returned to La Maison Francaise on Tuesday. Don and I left early with Doug, and we hit Geoffery Beene on the way. Back "home" Don donned his new wardrobe and I went for a run. I had a great workout by the way-I'm sure everyone want's to know.
It was again time for a short week of PI work. A week is one and one half days in Astrobiology Academy time (it's all relative you know-we're going fast.). Dryden arrived for a visit Thursday and we were off to tour Stanford's engineering labs-aeronautics, GPS, satellites, neat stuff. The plan for Friday was another tour, of Ames this time. The highlight occurred at the educational outreach center when we were taught about state-of-the-art concepts such as conservation of angular momentum-just don't spin too fast because someone's going to freak out (but wouldn't we all of liked to see Heath fly off?).
Friday evening…Doug's .. .barbecue .. .good! While Heath finished his book in the back of a van the guys were off to the park for some b-ball, Ames vs. Dryden. Team Ames had fun stuffing "Shorty" and then decided to let Dryden win-they are our guests you know.
On Saturday it was off to Sunset Beach-beautiful gray water, overcast skies, and drunk rednecks playing volleyball-beating Kyle and Pat, and then Jeff and Kathy … "sports fans stay tuned for other highlights coming in August, Astrobioloby Softball team trains for Olympics"-the Special Olympics.
Kevin played the role of head chef and we all enjoyed our dinner. Then it was time for S'mores and cards. Hey, has anyone seen Joe and Christen? Where are Mr. Mueller and Kim7 Hmmm…"Ok, this hand whoever gets the Jack of Spades has to put 12 marshmallows in their mouth" - just what you'd expect from dedicated students.
Data Table 1: Eric Bean's Pronunciation of "Chubby Bunny" as a Function of Oral
Cavity Marshmallow Content
Marshmallows "Chubby Bunny"
2 "Chubby Bunny"
4 "Chubby Bun_y"
6 "Chuuubye Buu_y"
8 "Chuuubyeu Buuie"
10 "Chubbbyeu Buu"
12 "Chubbb_Buuu"
After the excitement of the night was concluded, listening to the strawberries growing included, everyone retired to their tents except for the brave souls that slept unider the stars-really the mist. Joe M. and Kim were quick to lay claim to a two person tent and we all moved our tents out of ear shot and away from ground zero.
Sunday morning we ate the Don special, m&m pancakes, packed it up, and rolled home.
We were back for more PI work, three whole days worth, before heading to Reno, NV for visits to DRI, the U of NV-Reno, and the Governor's Mansion in Carson City for lunch.
A brief interlude about our group project: By now we had settled on a comparative study of astronaut dreaming as our group project. I decided to lead by example and conduct extensive research, sacrificing my own body and time. Paralleling the change of environment from terrestrial to zero-g in which we hoped to study the astronaut's dreams, I studied dreams in the varied environments of my bed, the conference room floor, and the auditorium. Kim, a consultant hired further into the study, used the Academy van as an analog to the closed environment of the Space Shuttle in much the same way that Antarctica is used as an analog for Mars. The highly anticipated manuscript is currently in progress.
Back to road tripping-We were off to Andrea's old stompping ground, Reno. We began our visit at the Desert Research Institute with many lectures and a quick tour. Everyone then piled into the vans for lunch at the Govenor's Mansion with the First Lady of Nevada, who surprised us all with her knowledge of each of us-except me. Lunch was excellent and we were back to DRI for more lectures. That night we saw a great show at the Planeterium and then got to party down with Andrea's show-girl friends!! On Friday we arrived at the University of Andrea for a lecture on some fellow' s use of the Nevada' s Space Grant Consortium's money for his educational outreach programs in image processing. He spiced up his talk with his theories on UFO's-anti gravity research vehicles built by Boeing, technology transfer lag time, and his disgruntled attitude towards the naming of rocks by the Mars Pathfinder Mission after cartoon characters.
It was then off to another spot of Andrea' s past, the bread shop where she used to work-excellent. Everyone shoved off for Tahoe unaware of what would soon befall one RA. The President and Vice presi~ent (and Secret Service) were in Tahoe for the weekend because of all the hoop-la about the pollution control bill. Little did they know Pat was there too. Pat, Doug, Boat, Water skis, Secret Service-a recipe for disaster. Pat broke his arm water skiing too close to the president. True story-just substitute hopping for water skiing and over a log for too close to the president.
yosemite, dryden, jpl,
The serious stuff:
For most if not all of us this has been the best summer of our lives. This summer was a new in terms of locale, environment, and people. The familiarity and freedom of home were a continent away, traded for the promise of a new adventure boasting excitement, education, and enrichment. I often longed for the luxuries I left behind-a phone, an answering machine, a kitchen, and transportation. Each of us at some point felt the strain of the limits placed on our flexibility, the lack of contact with friends and significant others, the slow dynamics of a large group, and a draught of peace and quiet.
When this whole experience is distilled it is about one thing, the future. Every student travelled to California, lived at Stanford, worked at Ames, and took many road trips to answer questions they had about their future. This occurred at the individual, the Academy, and the global level. Andrea and Cristen contemplated life in a cardboard box. Don thought about a perfect life at Boeing or in Montana. Pat looked into co-op opportunities at NASA centers. Joe, Nellymar, and myself considered crossing the fine science/engineering line and studying to save the environment. I 'm deciding on which graduate degrees to pursue and whether to apply to Stanford or Stanford. Melissa, Joe, and Kathy are likely to spend a year in Russia because of a program they designed. Hank is thinking about marriage, to whom no one knows. Kim is also thinking of marriage to Joe M. (sorry, I couldn't resist). Kathy is trying to decide if she wishes to pursue materials science/engineering. Jeff is trying to nail down a plan for working and graduate school. And finally, Kevin's mind is all over Juliet, and astronomy, physics, and SETI. At the group level we've had to decide on the future of our dream study. At the global level, for those that were there, Anne Erlich showed that there will be no long term future unless we decide to make it so.
So what is out there?? The eleven of us plan to figure it out at every level. I want NASA, Doug, Karen, Lynn, Juliette, Don, and all of the PI's to know that now each student is now better equipped to answer their questions because of this experience.
Thanks for everything!