Sunday, August 23, 2009

Poof! And Then There were Astronauts



Saturday afternoon three of the astronauts that flew the Space Shuttle Discovery on its maiden voyage in 1984 were here to celebrate the 25th anniversary. It was a hectic day, but very good.

It was well attended, which made me feel good about the publicity we did. We've been having great attendance at events. And I think everyone had a good time. They did a presentation and then signed autographs before doing a private reception for premium members. I was there to take pix at the reception and Chris kindly asked them to pose with me too.

Beside me is Charlie Walker, payload specialist on that flight; then Hank Hartsfield who was the Commander; and Steve Hawley, a mission specialist. Hawley is from Kansas, and now teaches at the University of Kansas.


I didn't get a chance to visit with any of them except Charlie Walker and he was a real delight. I was sorry I didn't get to meet his wife who also seemed wonderful, but she was busy visiting and I didn't want to interrupt.

It was a nice afternoon, and I think everyone who interacted with them came away feeling great about it. KAKE did a really nice piece about the event on their 10 o'clock news last night.

Today I've been trying to motivate myself to work on things around the house. I've made some progress, but not as much as I had hoped. Next weekend we're doing the Wichita Air Show so I won't get much done then, either. It's starting to get pretty bad in here.

But, this afternoon Mark called. He was driving back to Kansas City after a vacation in Colorado with Carl and Kris and asked if I'd like to meet him in Salina for food. So, Greg and I drove up there and met him. Our timing was perfect. We say him walking in from his car as we were pulling into the parking lot.

That was my third trip to Salina in a week. I was there last weekend for Kansas Dialogue, then on Wednesday to do a social networking training for one of the Sampler Foundation's groups, and then again today to meet Mark. Fortunately, it's only an hour's drive away.
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Cosmosphere's Starry Night Party



Friday night was the Cosmosphere's Starry Night party. It was a really cool event. I can say that because it wasn't my idea - it was well underway before I ever showed up on the scene.

We started at 5:30 and it went until midnight - past the 10:30 stated time. We had kid's activities of various sorts, speakers, rocket demonstrations and star gazing. I've heard nothing but wonderful comments about it.

My main job once things were underway was to take photos to capture the event. I hadn't even touched the Cosmosphere's camera before Friday, but fortunately, I got some decent ones.

My favorite is these kids watching them make liquid oxygen ice cream. I particularly love the photo below, which is just a crop of this little boy who is experiencing pure joy.



You may notice he has an alien guy tattoo on his arm. I had one on my hand, too. We were doing these temporary tattoos and I experimented on myself to see how they worked. While I was trying to read the instructions and figure it out, a kid - about nine years old - came by and told me I was doing it wrong and gave me advice.



Thank goodness, YP volunteers were there to do them for the kids since, obviously, my skills in this regard were lacking.

I was eventually successful in my experiment, and sported a glow in the dark alien all night long. When I brushed my teeth last night I thought... hmmm... I better scrub this off. When I went to bed I reached over to get something and thought, "what is that light?" I had missed one little sliver of glow in the dark and my hand was giving off a green glow. All I could do was chuckle.

Martin Ratcliffe, a contributing editor to Astronomy magazine spoke to the crowd about what they could see in the night sky.



Kids could build and launch air rockets. That was a popular spot.



There were also rocket demonstrations. There must have been 60 kids running after the rockets as they were setting them off.



Volunteers brought out tons of different kinds of telescopes and let people look through them at various things. It was a great time to see Jupiter.



Some of these were beyond what I think of when I hear "telescope."



All in all a very cool event. Although, I have to say, I've become convinced that it's hard to beat the sheer entertainment value of liquid oxygen ice cream.



And then you get to eat it too.



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Subscribe for free to Patsy's Ponderings in email or your choice of a reader.

Check http://www.patsyterrell.com/ for the blog, art, cooking and more. Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk and other social media sites of your choosing.

All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.