NASA Field Trip

On May 5th, I chaperoned Ezra’s class at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View. After an initial mixup on our entry time (we were early and they wouldn’t let us in) and an impromptu lunch on the outer grounds, we finally checked in and made our way over to the educational building. The day was split up into three stations; our first taught about wavelengths and light.

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Really, though, the thing I found most interesting was that they had a model of LADEE, the spacecraft that flew Bruce’s error correction code for the laser communications terminal. Ezra and I were more than a little proud of Papa.

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The next station had a few spinning things. Unfortunately, the guide didn’t explain what was happening, but the kids had fun anyway.

There was a third spinning demonstration — two people sitting in chairs on what looks like a seesaw. While the whole thing is spinning, the two participants try to throw a ball back and forth. It’s very hard. To the delight of the first group of students, their teacher leaned too far back and the chair snapped, throwing her off the seesaw. Sadly, it was out of order after that, but the kids didn’t mind because one of the chaperones had been filming so everyone got to see Ms. Darrow go flying. Luckily she wasn’t hurt and, as usual, she was a great sport about it.

The third station was a mockup of the International Space Station. Each of the kids had a different job. I don’t remember exactly what Ezra’s job was, but here he is.

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All in all, a pretty informative field trip!