Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Episode 11: Philadelphia and a Mutiny

I had an amazing week this week. Between the flight simulator tournament a bunch of the interns are having, to my day trip to Philadelphia, and a mutiny by the interns over Air and Space's social media accounts, this week seemed to fly by.
Philadelphia

You might think I went to Philadelphia to experience the history of being in our nation's first Capitol, right? Wrong, I went to see a big boat. For years, I've been interested in the SS United States. This ship has an incredible story - she holds the record for the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing, doing in 3 days what used to take 7. The Titanic could do 21 knots; the SS US could do that in reverse. She was a favorite of celebrities and presidents, and was known as "America's Flagship." For good reason: Besides the name, having those bold red, white, and blue funnels on the world's greatest ocean liner was a distinctive symbol of how Americans in the 1950's were going places.

 
The SS United States

 In 1969, after making 400 voyages, she couldn't avoid the punishment the jet airplane put on the shipping industry. She was laid up, never to sail under her own power again. After a series of false-starts, she ended up in Philadelphia in 1996, where she has been ever since. Here she is today:






Yes, I eventually went to Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the Ben Franklin Museum, but I really went to Philly to see a rusting metal hulk. I've attached a lot of emotion to this ship. She has an uncertain future, but I'm pulling for her.

On my way back downtown, I stopped at the Independence Seaport Museum, which has two old vessels on display. The first is the USS Becuna, a WWII sub. It's docked adjacent to the USS Olympia, a pre-WWI battleship. It was part of the "Great White Fleet," fired one of the first shots in the Spanish-American War, and it's final voyage was to bring home the Unknown Soldier to be interred in Arlington National Cemetery.


The great thing about these ships were how authentic they were. They had very minimal modifications; besides roping off a few areas and gluing down all the switches, anyone who went on board got to experience what it was actually like to be on board. They didn't even widen the bulkheads on the sub.



Nope, you had to squeeze through them just like a submariner. This was not a tour for everyone.

Here's the cool thing: Someone else who just happened to be walking through right behind me actually served aboard the Becuna! How can you top that? That's better than any guide. Even if I happened to have an official guide that served on board, that wouldn't be as cool as a chance encounter with someone with a personal history with this vessel, who just happened to choose today to visit with his grand kids.

On my way back to Independence Hall, I stopped at the Ben Franklin museum. It was OK, but I already knew a lot of his story, they were a bit short on artifacts, and I was tired by this point.

But, I stopped by the print shop. It's a recreation of his print shop, but they were printing copies of the Declaration of Independence using the plates made the same way, the same sort of ink, and a printing press of the same designed Franklin used. And the printed copies were for sale! As my sister said, I got "practically the real thing!"




That will look nice when I have it framed.

Finally, I made it to Independence Hall. Like any historic place, it's hard to believe you're standing in the same place where these important events happened. You stand in these rooms and try to imagine the Declaration of Independence being signed, or the Constitution being debated. You try to picture yourself in the same room as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin, and John Hancock. It doesn't seem real, but it is. Here's some pictures I took:

 In 1776, the people in this room said, "Goodbye, England," and committed high treason. In 1789, the Constitution was written in this room.



George Washington sat in this chair as he presided over the Second Continental Congress.


Then, I took the late, late, late train back to DC. It was so worth it.

A Mutiny
Our NASM interns are a crazy group. Today, we had an uprising and took over all the social media for the museum.

 

Actually, it wasn't really an uprising. We had permission. But they trusted us - that was their mistake. 

We'll be "good." We "promise."
Actually, we didn't misbehave. We were good. My favorite was when I took over the @SIObservatory Twitter page and gave some education about the Sun.
 


The fun was about to begin.

 














But then, it was time for the fun to end. #SadFace


And that is the story of this week. After I get through Thursday and Friday, I'm going to the Zoo on Saturday, and I'm renting a car to go down to George Washington's Mount Vernon on Sunday. Can't Wait! After that, it's just one week until my triumphant homecoming to Indianola. See you all there!
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Monday, July 21, 2014

Episode 10: The 5 Best Air and Space Museum Artifacts Nobody Knows About


Hi Folks

 First off, I really appreciate the Record-Herald for running a story on my internship. That's the sort of thing that can only happen in a great small town like Indianola. As much fun as I am having here in DC, there are moments where I miss Indianola, and the article gave me another great connection back home. 

 My parents visited over the weekend, and I took them everywhere. You know, all the big things people have to see in DC. It was great, but we are all worn out. I had a list of things I intended to do tonight... writing this post is the only thing I will get through. 

Also, DC Cab drivers can't find the Washington Monument unless you can give them the address. But, anyway...

This week, I'm looking forward to going to Philadelphia on Sunday. As long as I'm out here, I decided I would hop on a train to the birthplace of our nation. I'll see Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and make it a bit south to the SS United States and lay eyes on her before she ends up (hopefully not) being scrapped. 

 I'm making headway on the DCPS professional development plan I'm working on. Today was the most productive day I've had in a few days since all the pieces are starting to come together.

So, now, the Top 5 Best Air and Space Museum Artifacts Nobody Knows About. 

 This is just my top 5. There might be some artifacts still out there on display I don't know about. I figured everyone knows about Apollo 11, the Lunar Module, Spirit of St. Louis, etc. I put together a short list of significant but little-known artifacts people come across without knowing the significance of the artifact. 
5. Percival Lowell's Mars Globe

 Percival Lowell was an early-20th Century astronomer who studied Mars through telescopes. He saw lots of lines and ridges, and became convinced they were canals built by a highly-advanced civilization in order to channel water from Mars' poles to the rest of their drying planet. 

 From that description, you might have an image of Lowell as some turn-of-the-century Doc Brown, crazy hair and all. Lowell was no crackpot scientist, but was once regarded as the most brilliant man in Boston. In fact, although he didn't discover Pluto, he observed strange variations in the orbit of Neptune and determined they must be caused by some undiscovered planet. Pluto was eventually discovered near where Lowell said it would be. 

 This was probably a perfect example of someone having a preconceived notion and then fitting all the evidence into place to support that preconception. He grew up around canal builders, and had experience with the "alien world" of Japan. His life experiences and greatest desires convinced him that Martians were intelligent, and Mars was a perfect Utopia.

 Sadly, that is not the case. What he actually observed were canyons. But those canyons were massive. See for yourself: 
Easy mistake.
4. Stardust Probe



Given the time and resources, scientists will always find a way to prove (or disprove) their theories. It never fails. 

At the museum, all of our satellites and probes are either replicas, engineering models, or backups. Not Stardust - this one is the real deal, to space and back.

Besides being awesome looking, scientists think comets may hold the building blocks to life itself. We were certain comets are made from rock and ice. But, like almost everywhere outside of Earth, had no hard evidence.

 So, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center decided that wasn't right, and decided not to rely on the statistical probability that a comet will find it's way to Earth's surface eventually. 

 No, Ma'am. If something's out there, let's go out and get it!

 The Stardust Probe was launched in 1999 to visit the comet Wild 2 (no, the comet was not named by an astronomer with an unhealthy obsession over westerns... It's pronounced Vilt Two, after Swiss astronomer Paul Wild, who discovered it in 1978). 

 To capture particles of the Wild 2, the tennis-racket-like arm sticking out from the top was filled with a material called Aerogel, the least-dense solid known to (and created by) man. It is 99.8% air. People even call it solid air. The aerogel trapped the particles of the comet without damaging or contaminating them. 

Grains of dust in the Aerogel collector


After collecting the particles, the sample container was jettisoned on a path toward Earth, where it landed in the Utah desert.

Besides finding dust particles that were older than our sun, Stardust also found amino acids, the building blocks of DNA.

 How about that?
3. "Kaputnik," The Vanguard TV-3




This was supposed to be America's first satellite in orbit. Instead, it was an embarrassment. 

Everyone knows the story of the space race, and how the U.S. and Soviet Union were competing for every major milestone in space exploration. Project Vanguard and Sputnik were being developed in parallel. 

The TV-3 was supposed to be launched atop a Vanguard rocket. There was one problem: The Vanguard didn't work.

On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. When the U.S. tried to launch TV-3 onboard a Vanguard on December 6th, the rocket rose 4 inches off the launch pad, collapsed, and exploded. 


But here's the kicker: The TV-3 was designed to begin emitting a radio signal once it detached from the nose cone, which was only supposed to happen once it reached orbit. Unfortunately, the TV-3 didn't know the difference between Space and Earth. It was ejected from the Vanguard, landed in the nearby woods, and started emitting its radio signal from there.

The media called it a "Flopnik," "Stayputnik," and "Kaputnik."

All was not lost. Eventually, Explorer 1 became the first U.S. satellite, launched a few days later aboard a Jupiter-C rocket. A Vanguard would eventually launch TV-4, which is still in orbit to this day, and will be for at least another 180 years.


2. Apollo Sextant



Sextants have been used for navigation since at least 1750. You might be more familiar with models that look more like this: 





Sextants are used for celestial navigation. By measuring the angle between two points - usually either the Sun (during the day) or Polaris (at night), one can do a bit of fancy math and figure out where you are. 

 One would think we had moved beyond such rudimentary measures by the Apollo era. Surely they used GPS, or some more fancy method of determining their position than what Captain Hook used.

 This was not the case. Yes, Apollo had a gyroscope system that would keep track of every movement to help determine position, but this system had a tendency to become misaligned over time. The Apollo astronauts needed to do periodic checks with their sextant to determine their location in space. 

 Yes, the Apollo astronauts found their way to the Moon the same way John Paul Jones navigated his ship in the Revolutionary War - by taking sightings on stars. 

 And this was absolutely critical. During Apollo 13, an explosion aboard the space craft scattered so much debris around they could not tell the difference between the debris and the stars, making celestial navigation impossible. The best they could do was hope their guidance platform was correct... even when the math used to set the platform was performed while the astronauts were facing imminent death from a spacecraft that had just exploded.

 Eventually, Apollo 13 was able to take a sighting on the Earth and the Sun. Not ideal, since stars are much more precise, but it worked.

 Thank you, Sir Isaac Newton.



1. Mutch Memorial Station Plaque
Can you call something an artifact when it hasn't even been used for its intended purpose? OK, now that I've done the intro, go ahead and read the letter that accompanies the plaque that is displayed by the engineering model of the Mars Viking Lander.


 Yes, we have something that will someday be an artifact. Until then, we have it under safekeeping. One day, NASA will call the Air and Space Museum to inform them that NASA is going to come get the plaque, and humans will take it to Mars and place it on the Viking Lander. 

There's not much more I can say about that. This plaque is my favorite artifact that no one knows about.  
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Sunday, July 13, 2014

Episode 9: My Perfect Museum

I've been in the museum business for a month and a half now. In that time, I've gotten a lot of time to spend going through a lot of exhibits in a lot of museums, comparing the best and the worst experiences. It has given me a lot of time to think about what I really want in a museum. So, here are my top 5 features of a great museum:

5. Display of Challenges

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing, The Newsroom, and A Few Good Men, always discusses one aspect of his writing technique: "What are the characters trying to accomplish, and what is getting in their way?" A museum exhibit can do the same thing.

Sorkin's technique isn't that much different than most good writers - it's called "plot." It's the reason we watch movies and read books - we get emotionally involved with the goals of the main characters, and want to see how they resolve their challenges. Without challenges, there is no plot, there is no story, and we are not interested in the outcome.

Any sort of museum can display the challenges presented in their stories. Overcoming challenges is a vital part of history and science, the two most popular types of museums. 

Bad museums tell you about stuff. Good museums tell stories, and overcoming challenges are a part of good stories.

I have seen great exhibits showing the challenges of early astronomers, trying to build bigger and better equipment to see more of the universe. I love the Wright Brother's exhibit at the Air and Space Museum, where the story centers on their gliders, which didn't generate the lift their calculations said they should.

 I've seen great museum exhibits that address the challenges of communication, lack of cultural understanding, and unnecessary animosity. Challenges about a restricted press, challenges brought about by a lack of international trust. 

 Challenges make a great story. Stories make great exhibits.
This is a challenge...

  
4. Authenticity

 This is a no-brainer, and I haven't really seen any museums that don't strive for authenticity (except maybe for this Star Wars exhibition in Germany). 

Not Authentic.

There is an indescribable quality about having actual artifacts, not replicas, models, or illustrations. Every story has it's objects, devices essential to the outcome of the story. Seeing, and to a certain extent, interacting with these objects can be a visceral experience - once we're emotionally connected to the story and the outcome, objects give us the ability to become part of the story. 

But, especially in a science museum, I don't just want to know what the objects are - I want to know how they work. Which brings me to...

3. Multiple Levels

Every object should have multiple levels of information. A quick survey should give the viewer an overview of what the story is about (like a newspaper headline), and some other experience (reading, watching, or experiencing) should give a deeper understanding of how the story unfolds. This is sufficient for most people. Some people, however, want a really deep understanding - not a deep understanding of everything, mind you, but an artifact or plot element might capture different people's attention. Those people want to really dive deep.

 For example, at the Air and Space Museum, we have a control panel for both an Apollo Command Module and Lunar Module. I recognize the bigger parts (thruster controls, for example), but I want to know more about these. 

 I don't know what the switches do. I don't understand the acronyms on the panel. I don't understand the layout of the panel and why it was laid out that way... but I want to. Not everyone does, but the major storytelling elements and artifacts should have these multiple levels of detail.

2. Multiple pathways for enjoyment.

In education, we have what we call the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. They are:
  • Visual-Spatial
  • Bodily-Kinesthetic
  • Musical
  • Interpersonal
  • Intrapersonal
  • Linguistic
  • Logical-Mathematical
Educators use the Multiple Intelligences to differentiate our instruction, understanding that different people have different strengths - they are stronger with different intelligences. Museum exhibits should be the same way: instead of just using text and pictures/objects to tell the story, they should use a variety of the MI in the same exhibit. Besides text and pictures, exhibitors can use music, tactile manipulation, and discussion to tell the story.

1. Experiential

This is the biggest one for me. I have a pretty active imagination, and I want to gather as many experiences in life as I possibly can. I know there are many things in which I will never be able to participate, but museums can make it seem like more of a reality. 

I don't just want to see a spacesuit - I want to know what suit pressurization feels like, even if it's just on my hand or arm. I want to sit in a Gemini capsule, and then be told how Jim Lovell and Frank Borman sat in one like that for 2 weeks straight. I want to feel how the Saturn V shook on liftoff. I want to fly a Wright Brothers' kite.

I don't just want to know about George Washington's or Ulysses S. Grant's battle strategy - I want to learn about all the variables they had to deal with, design a battle plan myself, and see how it works out. 

I don't just want to see a diagram of how slaves were packed in a slave ship - I want to feel what it was like.

Experiences bring me closer to a true understanding of the story, which is the purpose of museums. Many museums advocate for something - advocate for protection of the environment, to not repeat the mistakes of our ancestors, to further advance the sciences. These experiences bring me closer to the reasons for which the museum is advocating those things. 

_____

This week, I got to go behind the scenes at the Udvar-Hazy center and see the work some of my fellow interns are doing in conservation. I didn't get out and do a whole lot during the week, but I managed to get to Old Town Alexandria on Saturday. I toured the George Washington Masonic Memorial and spent the afternoon reading on the shore of the Potomac. Good times!
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Sunday, July 6, 2014

Episode 8: The One Where I Complain (with GIFs).

I do really enjoy being here in DC, but there are many things that drive me crazy. I figured this would be a good place to explain those things.

I used to say I'm from Wisconsin. But, having spent my entire adult life in Iowa, I now identify myself as being from Iowa. And, oh my, some of the simplest things are tough to get used to here. For example,

Walking

This is what it's like to walk... anywhere.


Seriously. I'm beginning to think the entire population is being controlled from some central, sentient, evil computer hell-bent on placing objects in my path. Can no one walk in a straight line in this city?

Did I mention I have to walk everywhere?

For example, I watched the fireworks on Independence Day from Arlington National Cemetery. I had a terrific view (see for yourself):

 

Afterward, I regret not taking a picture of the line into the Metro station. It looked somewhat like this:  
So I thought,

And then I thought, "You know, it's really not that far back to my apartment." You see, I figured it was a 30 minute walk to the Lincoln Memorial, probably about an hour from Lincoln to the Capitol, and 15 minutes from the Capitol to my apartment.

So, I decided to walk back to my apartment... in Eastern Market... from Arlington. I thought it would be like,


And it was for a while, but the further I went, it was more like,


The really cool part was, though, that everywhere I looked, there were fireworks going off all over the horizon. That was pretty cool. It almost reminded me of what it might have looked like in the first days after the Civil War with everyone celebrating. I stood on the George Washington Memorial Bridge for a while and just watched.

(Funny aside: As I passed the Washington Monument, there were a group of guys dismantling a stage. I heard one of them shout, "Box Coming!" I didn't think anything of it, but it seemed to be directed at the people walking past the stage. He said it again... "Box Coming!"

Then I saw a fox run past.

Oh.)

By the way, it only took me two hours to walk home, which is what I thought it would take. Not bad, actually.
 
 So, for the most part, walking bothers me... but that walk was actually pretty cool. 

The crowd was the same thing on my way to the Nationals game earlier in the day. I lost my sunglasses, so the trek to try and find them and eventually buy new ones caused me to have to take a later train than I planned. Here's a photo I took from my train:

 

Pretty sure we were past capacity. Don't know how that train even moved. There were 42,000 people in attendance; they were all in this car.

Grocery Shopping
After some effort, I did eventually locate a supermarket within walking distance during my second week here. It's just barely within walking distance. That's fine, I can tolerate it - a good chance to build my arm muscles, I suppose. However, the actual shopping itself is non-sensical.
For example, Black Beans don't seem to be deserving of the "Canned Vegetables" designations, and salsa and hot sauce apparently aren't "Hispanic Foods." I spend most of my time in the grocery stores walking around trying to find stuff!

I criss-cross the store about 10 times to pick up random items. Then, I come down to that last item. By the time I get there, I'm like this: 
 Where are the @#&% pistachios?!?!

Oh, I forgot... then this happens. 

   

 Then there's the line. Most places actually build places for people to stand in line. Hy-Vee opens new lines if there's more than 1 person in line (Dear God, I miss Hy-Vee). Not Safeway. If you want to get in line, you have to line up down the aisle where other people are shopping. Then you're in their way while they're trying to get food. And you have to apologize for just standing there. 

So, I get to the check out. I have little cups in which I will store my salad dressing for lunch. The register girl sees them and asks if I'm going to be making jello shots tonight. She wasn't joking. Neither was I.


Walking, Part II
 
The other day, I had a free lunch from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. It was halfway down the National Mall, and I intended to eat outside. By that point, it was too hot out for that to be a possibility, so I decided to carry it back to my office. However, with the book I brought out with me, and my stacks of food and drink... it was too much, and it toppled over on me.




 
I'm sure it must have been because there was an attractive woman watching me from somewhere.

Not to worry, the containers didn't break, so it was still edible.

 
Crowds
Besides the walking, crowds are everywhere. Shout out to the late Jon Brenner, my YMCA swim coach, who said he moved from Chicago to La Crosse because he "got tired of standing in line." I feel the same way here. 
 
 What I didn't expect was that the crowds would penetrate everything. Not just the usual places, but the places you wouldn't think of as well.
 
For example, you want food... there's a line. 
 
 
Want to ask the gas station attendant in the middle of the night if they have a map of the city (a perplexing conundrum in itself), get ready to stand in line. 


Want to go to the bathroom? You guessed it... take a number and get in line.





Being from Iowa, I'm too polite to do this: 




Get out of my way, slow person!
 
The Good Things
You know, if the only things that bother me are walking, grocery shopping, and standing in line, life is actually pretty good. I'm having fun and being productive at work, having experiences most people don't get to have, and spending too much money. 

I booked a day trip to Philadelphia in a few weekends, so I have that to look forward to. Before I know it, I'll be back in Indianola, gearing up for another school year.

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