Quick Post: Just Another Day

A long day! We got underway as the sun rose this morning, spent two hours cruising down the St. Johns River and then four running all-out to make our planned rendezvous well out to sea with a cruiser and a couple of destroyers. By the time we'd finished pumping fuel to all customers it was nearly sunset. NOW I'm on duty on the bridge--I'll get off-watch at midnight and grab a few hours' sleep before we kick off another busy one tomorrow. And THAT, my friends, is how we in the naval logistics biz get it done!

Photo of the Day: Cruiser!

USS Philippine Sea surges through the chop as she makes her approach alongside USNS Leroy Grumman for Replenishment at Sea (RAS).  In a few minutes she'll be passing shot-lines and messengers, and then the fuel and cargo rigs will deploy across two hundred feet of surging water to provide CG-58 with the fuel, provisions and stores she needs to keep her in the battle.  I've deployed with "Phil Sea" many times now and the old cruiser never fails to make a good impression.  Quite photogenic, too!

Smoke On The Water...

The Gulf Stream--that powerful warm-water engine that drives so much of weather and climate in the Atlantic Ocean--snakes its way up the U.S. east coast.  Off the coast of North Carolina it collides head-on with the colder waters of the northern Great Ocean.  Here, in this meeting of widely-different temperature gradients, are often born the violent and unpredictable storms that batter Cape Hatteras and give this area the title of Graveyard of the Atlantic. So many ships, so many sailors have died here over the centuries, died battling the capricious zephyr and crashing surf that could change a voyage without warning into a nightmare.

Today, as our tanker crosses this region that has claimed so many we find no tempests, no squalls; only steam curling from wave-crests and pooling in troughs as warm current mixes quietly with cold beneath our keel.  This sea-smoke is one indicator of our arrival in these waters; there are others as well.  Water drawn from the sea to cool our diesel engines is suddenly much warmer; our engineers must adjust the cooling systems in order to avoid burning-out delicate controls and damaging condensers.  The helmsman reports that more rudder is required to keep the ship on-course; the powerful Gulf Stream is pushing us bodily northward.  And the sea-birds, only occasionally visible 'til now, fill the skies as they circle and dive after fish that swarm beneath the surface.

This is the North Wall.  At times a mystical realm of steaming seas and teeming wildlife, at others a screeching Hell of impossibly angular waves and tearing winds. Always different, beguiling or menacing depending on the sea's mood.

But always, always beautiful.

Quick Post: Ammonites and Meteorites

Lucy examines the wares of an interesting gemologist from Hawaii

Today Lucy and I went to the "Treasures of the Earth" gem and mineral show at the Convention Center in Hampton. One of the Center's halls was filled with booths displaying jewelry, stones, fossils and other mineralogical goodies from within the Earth--and without! Part shopping expedition, part museum, and a nice way to enjoy a Sunday afternoon. Lucy ended up finding an ammonite ring which almost exactly matched her earrings and pendant, and I walked away with yet another Campo del Cielo meteorite fragment for my small collection. We thought about the cast of a Mosasaur jaw, but decided against it as potentially furniture-breaking as well as hideously expensive; even so, we had a good time!

The Wings of Daedalus

Daedalus First Stage Separation

Project Daedalus was an engineering study carried out by members of the British Interplanetary Society to determine if interstellar travel is possible using current (1970s) technology. The concept developed was an unmanned space probe which would detonate helium and deuterium pellets using electron beams fired from diodes located around the base of the engine nozzle. This near-continuous series of fusion detonations (approximately 250 per second!) would provide thrust to accelerate the probe for it's half-century voyage to Barnard's Star, a fast-moving red dwarf star only 6 light-years distant. With no way to decelerate the Daedalus would streak through the Barnard's system in a matter of days. (Quite a similar mission to NASA's New Horizon probe to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt...except that Daedalus would take fifty years to reach its target rather than ten!)

I'm a huge fan of such studies as Daedalus and the somewhat similar Orion program (an actual practical R&D effort by General Atomics in the late 50s-early 60s); these amazing flights of fancy reflect hard-headed science and engineering in an ivory-castle fantasy world where budgets are inconsequential and no R&D program is ever canceled by Congress.

Someday we will reach the planets, and perhaps even the stars...maybe someone will dust off the Orion or Daedalus plans when the time comes to make that next "Giant Leap".

Daedalus with a Saturn V for scale

Quick Post: Night At The Museum

Last night was the once-monthly laser show/star party at Virginia Living Museum's (VLM) Abbitt Planetarium, and I was quite happy to help out.  For a change, however, instead of being outside manning a telescope I was inside the Education Center lobby with my orrery set up on a solid table, talking to guests about my little brass object of obsession, the history of such model solar systems, and planetary science in general.  I had a blast, and for once didn't tempt pneumonia by being out in the 17 degree f weather outside!

Everyone has a "happy place", and mine is at the VLM sharing the wonders of the Universe with visitors to the Museum. That'll work!
 

Quick Post: Planetary Parade

After a long dry spell...

A few minutes ago Lucy and I stood on our back porch, bundled against the morning chill (18f), and enjoyed the parade of planets (including Mercury) in the pre-dawn sky. Weather and distance have kept us from viewing them together up to now.

Worth the wait, I think!

(Simulation produced using Stellarium freeware planetarium)