JPL and Mars Rocks!

Wednesday-I worked Sunday to Tuesday so today feels like Thursday if that makes any sense. Daryl, Maurissa, Christian (an old co-worker, who's been very helpful in helping us get work here in LA) and I went to the Jet Propulsion Lab today for a tour. Our tour guide was Louise who is a friend of our friend Mike Flemming. She is quite literally a rocket scientist, and had wanted to work at the Jet Propulsion Lab since she was a little girl and saw satellites and spaceship launches. The campus looked just like a college campus, but we're not allowed to take any pictures except for the buildings on the outside. We had to provide proof of citizenship and and our names before we even got there, and then on the day of the tour we had to show our ID's and people had to check our trunk. So, sort of like your everyday normal college campus, but with security clearances. Since we were with a friend who worked there, we got the tour that the normal tour doesn't get. Louise took us to see their Mars Rover room (which we all thought was cool, but most of the people at JPL are a little bored with), their historical satellites room, and the "Control Room" (Just imagine the scene in Apollo 13 where people on earth were all at computers in a room where everyone faced a screen showing trajectories, data, etc., trying to figure a way to help the astronauts. Yeah, that kind of room.), where we learned that Arnold Schwarzenegger insisted on being in the middle of, even though he only got in the way. He refused to stay in the observation room for VIPs that overlooked the "Control Room". I guess it was more dramatic for him to be in the way. In any case, much of the actual work done there can be done elsewhere, even remotely from people's homes, but that room has the most secure computers. We saw some fun mock-ups of satellites and Louise gave us some fun facts like, this satellite was stored for such a long time the lubricants on the mechanism to unfurl a screen dried out, and therefore, never opened when it was in space. Stuff like that. We also got to hear a lecture on why there was life on Mars, that sort of sounded like, "See this rock, see how it's like this rock, and see how it's like this other rock, and see how it's like this other rock...And that's why there was life on Mars.." etc. Needless to say, we left that lecture early. Maurissa nearly fell asleep listening to that. Aside from that it was a fun day for all and I thank Louise for giving us a great tour. Daryl took a picture of us outside in front of some rockets, which you may find a picture of on his blog.