Skin Diving Santa Cruz Island

I just shot this photo of starfish clinging to a rock in a marine sanctuary off California. There is a whole domain of marine biology that investigates the fascinating world of the 'interface' between the sea and the atmosphere above the sea. These life forms do just fine at lower tide, exposed to air, as well as at higher tide, when they're completely submerged...

We shot video for a TV project for a week and I think we have some great material 'in the can'. Now, like all TV projects, we see what the Execs think of it :)

Incredible!

Fantastic!

From "Hyperion"

My favorite poet, John Keats, never disappoints! This is from 'Hyperion':

"As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-rob’d senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
Save from one gradual solitary gust
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave;
So came these words and went..."

When I am a broken shambling skeleton, staggering down a street, this--if I can remember it--will be my treasure, just as it is today! Nobody can take these words from my mind and nobody can rob me of this treasure.

An Exercise in Patience

Time to stop messing with plastic fittings, and move to metal (samples in lower image), which won't crack at low temperatures. This fitting, which I'm working with a large wrench, has given me a lot of trouble; it won't seal, despite my closest examination and cleaning of threads etc. Before I get the metal fittings, I'll finalize decisions RE how many and of what type I need. With these replaced, I'm sure I will knock out the final leaks. Right now the leaks are very small indeed, but I'm going to knock them lower.

Cockpit Mockup Build

Top photo: 'The System' overtaking my whole home! Lower photo: took apart the testbed and started building the cockpit mockup; this lays out controls and monitors in the flying configuration. A thousand details to attend, but it's coming along.

Review of "Going Interstellar" in Scientific American Online

My review of "Going Interstellar", now online at Scientific American.

Flight and Power Panel Rebuilds

Finally went to work on taking apart the flight instruments panel, and the main power control panel. Still not at a perfect configuration with the instruments, but it's a lot better this way and can now be mounted in the cage, above and in front of the seat (on a swing arm so that I can quickly get it out of the way if I need to bail out), so that I can start to run simulations of flight -- me pressurized in the suit, which is now very close to a 'flyable' state -- with a near-real arrangement of my basic indicators and controls. A close examination of the electrics panel reveals that it's not up to the job (loose fittings, chinzy fittings) and will be replaced, but that's a minor matter. I secured power lines with tiny zip ties to prevent 'jiggling' from disconnecting connections, and labeled the lines to make them easier to manage when the box is built around the switch panel. Doing this, I broke open one switch -- a headache to rebuild it, but now I know what's inside a switch, and can therefore make a better choice when I get the final switching panel.