Monday, January 30, 2006
My Final Entry
I had such a great time on this trip, it's hard to write a closing entry for this blog. Unfortunately, Dom had a terrible time. His had an earache and his sinuses were bothering him, he didn't sleep well in the hotel, he hates meeting new people, and, although he enjoyed many of the sessions at the conference, he's not fond of the conference schedule with so much information packed into such a short period of time.
One of my favorite parts of Day 2 of TAM4 was the presentation by Carolyn Porco, a scientist from the Cassini Imaging project in Boulder, Colorado. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Cassini, it is a probe that NASA sent to Saturn to take pictures of the planet along with its rings and moons.
The pictures are absolutely gorgeous (larger versions are available on their website). I wish I'd be around in 500 years when it might be possible to take a flight to tour the Solar System!
As far as talking about the politics of science, Carolyn discussed how scientific missions in space can be threatened by manned space-flight missions. I'd never thought about this before, but she says the manned missions are very political and that they are hugely expensive. Because they are publicized so much, they become the priority of the space program. Any time these large projects run out of money, they siphon funds from smaller programs. Unfortunately, the manned space flights are often not focused on scientific exploration, but rather on PR.
I'd like to write more, but I'm really tired. We got home at about 11, after getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic going through Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70. There was a little snow and ice, enough to require trucks to use chains, but it wasn't really all that bad. However, we hit the area just in time to join all of the weekend skiiers on their return trip to Denver. Poor planning, but we were stuck. We did make it home eventually, and immediately crashed in our own comfortable bed.