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Posted by: nasaman58 Apr 18 2005, 01:52 AM

I just joined this community last night, and I'm just curious about some of the people here. I'm only 19 years old, but I'm more interested in all things space than anyone I've ever met. Just out of curiosity, what are people's ages in this forum?

Posted by: dilo Apr 18 2005, 05:34 AM

Probably a complete database do not exist, but you will find some hints from this recent tread :
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=44&st=105

Posted by: nasaman58 Apr 18 2005, 11:47 AM

Thanks for the pointer. Interesting how a discussion of manned spacefight made it on UNmanned spaceflight! It's cool, though. After reading some of that, I guess a lot of people are younger than I thought.

Posted by: djellison Apr 18 2005, 12:06 PM

I'm a sprightly youngster at 26, and I started this whole schbang


Doug

Posted by: Marcel Apr 18 2005, 01:49 PM

I'm a 36 year old dutch physical geographer (that also studied aeronautical designing), and find witnessing actual landings of hardware (and the science it produces) on other planetary surfaces one of the most fascinating aspects of my life, besides the existence of my wife and 2 year old twin girls...

Obsession ? No, it just IS great !

Posted by: djellison Apr 18 2005, 02:05 PM

Oh heck - careers as well - I'm a medical animator for www.ocbmedia.com - I also begun to move into project management.

Doug

Posted by: odave Apr 18 2005, 02:21 PM

I'm 36, a software engineer in industrial robotics. I'm also an amateur astronomer and space nut, so the MER missions are right up my ally!

One other thing I do is coach a http://www.firstlegoleague.org/ team at our local elementary school - FLL is an organization that has yearly challenges involving LEGO Mindstorms Robotic Invention Systems for kids aged 9-11. Our team did not compete this year, but we did play around with the 2003 challenge called "Mission to Mars".

One of the missions in that challenge involved building and programming the LEGO robot to clear "dust" in the form of small LEGOs from a model of a solar panel. When Spirit had its panels scrubbed by wind last month, it gave the kids a clear example of how important and applicable the problem solving they're doing can be.

Now if only we can get the funding to launch one of our LEGO robots...

Posted by: Gray Apr 18 2005, 02:27 PM

One of the lesser members (in number of posts), I'm a 53 year old paleontologist. Gray is the color of my hair.

Posted by: David Apr 18 2005, 02:53 PM

I'm 36 (an Apollo baby!), my profession has nothing to do with space, but I've been following unmanned space flights with great interest since... um... Viking 1 & 2 in 1976. I come here to stare in awe at the technical skills and attention to scientific detail exhibited on this board. And to watch the maps of Titan and Saturn's other moons being assembled. And to look at pretty pictures.

Posted by: aldo12xu Apr 18 2005, 03:16 PM

I'm 43, worked as an exploration geologist in the 1980s but now I make short films and video promotions for punk bands. My day job is in the financial services industry but allows me to do my Mars research in between calls

Posted by: tedstryk Apr 18 2005, 03:24 PM

I am 26. When not playing around with space images, I am a professor of philosophy and English.

Posted by: DEChengst Apr 18 2005, 03:29 PM

Nice. Presentation time

I'm DEChengst, a 29 year old from The Netherlands. Yes, that's the country Hansje Brinker saved by putting his finger in the dike. Well not really as Hansje Brinker is just a story we tell to gullible tourists. Ofcourse after the tourists have gone the tourguide breaks down in laughter because they'll all believe it really happened. The city I live in is called Rotterdam and has the biggest seaport in the world. Other famous spots are the Erasmusbrug, the Euromast and ofcourse the Keileweg. If you're interested in the more liberal side of Holland you'll also find plenty of coffeeshops.

I earn my living by being a system administrator. The most important task I do is keeping all the UNIX boxen running. I'm also responsible for managing all Sybase database. Since a year or so I started supporting the OpenVMS boys. My final task is taking care of our SAN systems. It must be pretty clear now that my job is the geek's dream job. I get to "play" with huge and expensive enterprise class hardware while getting payed for it.

My first hobby is autosports. Ofcourse I like Formula One the most, with DTM being a good second. I'm totally not interested in American races that only drive on ovals. I really can't see what's so great about driving around in a circle. Ovals just pale in comparison with circuits like Spa Francorchamps. There is no greater sight than seeing the likes of Michael Schumacher and Senna drive a Formula One car at Spa in heavy rain. The car twisting and drifting at every corner as it's being driven around the track one or two seconds faster per lap than the entire opposition.

Ofcourse as a visitor of this forum I'm also a space geek. I like planetary missions the best. To be honest I always get nervous if an important event, like the MER landing, is about to take place. The night before the event I'll be so jumpy I hardly can get any sleep If the mission is a success you'll find me checking the web every five minutes to check if the first results are in. As soon as they are I quickly download them and try to out Photoshop NASA by creating mosaics out of them

Another hobby of mine is computers. I own a nice collection of old server hardware. Most people consider them junk but to me they are my treasures. As you may have gathered from my nickname the systems I like most were made by the Digital Equipment Corporation.

I own a nice collection of DEC computers:

-Alphaserver 1000A 5/500 running Tru64 UNIX 5.1B
-MicroVAX 3100/80 running OpenVMS 7.3
-DECsystem 500/260 running ULTRIX 4.5
-Infoserver 100 NAS box

In my spare time I'm a high priest of The Holy Church of DEC. Some of the daily rituals I have to perform, are praying while I face Maynard and geeking around with my serverpark. During my preaching you can hear me rant about how holy DEC is and how evil Compaq and HP are. This is one of my prayers I say on a daily base:

There is but one true laptop !
It's called the Alphabook One!
Bow before it's divinity!
And thy shall not commit blasphemy against it and insult it by using any other device which acts like a laptop but is not a divine Alphabook One !

Here you can see me pointing out one of the objects I worship:

Posted by: Deeman Apr 18 2005, 03:35 PM

Age: 35. Profession: Cabinetmaker.

Posted by: dilo Apr 18 2005, 04:28 PM

My God! Is incredible to see all this non-specialist people so deeply spaceflight involved!
Anyway here my short presentation:
Age: 42 (definitely older than average!)
Profession: Process Engineer in a WaferFab...

Posted by: Chmee Apr 18 2005, 05:26 PM

I am 32 and a logitics manager at an electronics company in Kentucky. Though I went into business, I have always had a very keen interest in space and space exploration.

Posted by: SFJCody Apr 18 2005, 05:40 PM

I'm a 23 year old ex-student and part-time lazybones living in Farnborough, Hampshire. In october I will be a grad student.

Posted by: Roby72 Apr 18 2005, 05:50 PM

I´m now 33 and my interest in space mission goes back to Voyager 1 and its encounter with Saturn in Nov. 1980. I was only 8 by this time. This inspired me so much that I want to have a telescope to see this planet and the other ones with my own eye. My grandfather did fulfil my dream then !
In the following years I develop techniques in photographing the planets and stars (deep sky) with my telescope and camera (later digital) and have much success in it.
In normal live I construct parts for escalators as an engineer.
I live in Vienna/Austria and also like classical music.

Posted by: Edward Schmitz Apr 18 2005, 06:18 PM

I'm a 41 year old software engineer. I write software to control chambers of various sorts. I have a keen interest in planetary exploration.

My biggest claim to fame (with regard to this group) is that I actually saw MER being assembled at JPL. I was there to automate another chamber that was in the high bay with MER. The chamber is being used for the SIM mission. It was one of the greatest thrills of my life. I was no more than 30 feet from one of the vehicles. In fact, one of the people working on the rover came over to my group and pointed to the back shell that was behind us. He said we were TOO close to it and asked us to move farther away. I was actually TOO close to MER.

I have been following the mission closely since then. I only recently discovered this forum after the article on spacedaily.com referrenced it. I am very impressed with the quality of the posts. Thanks to all of you.

Posted by: Jeff7 Apr 18 2005, 06:48 PM

As I hang my head in shame, I'll reveal my place of employment, and job.

Overnight stocker at Walmart.
There, I said it.

I do hope to get back to college this year for engineering, probably mechanical or industrial. I hope it's the right line of work; I've always been good at fixing things I know nothing about. And then there's my http://www.jeff7.com/projects/scanner%20pc/scanner%20pc%20page%201.htm. I don't know if that shows skill or a mental illness, but there it is.
I already did 2 years at a community college, for Cisco networking. It turned out to be programming though, just on routers. I can't stand programming. That, and I'm like Michael in Office Space, for those who have seen it. Always missing some mundane detail - and when you're working on securing a network, that's not a good thing.
Oh yeah, I'm 23.

Posted by: Nix Apr 18 2005, 06:59 PM

29, father of two children and two big displays; just to look at Mars and getting something out of it. I sleep about 4-5 hours a day between children and Mars. I do not work at this moment, I'm too busy with Mars.
Nice to meet y'all too!
Oh and I live in Belgium, that little country somewhere in Europe.
I'm having a beer in my hand right now.
Cheers!

Posted by: avkillick Apr 18 2005, 07:26 PM

Age : 42 Occupation: SW Engineer
Location: Mesa, AZ
Online status: Lurker
Vision for Mars: Advanced robotic explorers paving the way for human explorers with
in-site resource utilitization, habitat construction and general infrastructure development.
If man goes to Mars - he should stay. I don't want a repeat of the moon missions. If someone
in 1972 said we would not visit the moon again before 2015, they would have been laughed at -
but it's a sad and true fact.

Posted by: DEChengst Apr 18 2005, 07:41 PM

Newton would have said:

"The size of Belgium is inverse to the proportion of the greatness of its beer."

Posted by: mhoward Apr 18 2005, 07:43 PM

I'm a 34-year old software engineer and occasional Zen student. I created some Mars viewing software because I wanted to see Mars in 3D, and because my day job is frustrating as all git-out (hi, guys!).

> As I hang my head in shame, I'll reveal my place of employment, and job.

No shame in having a day job.

Wow, there sure are a lot of software engineers on here.

Posted by: ilbasso Apr 18 2005, 07:45 PM

48, red-headed MWF professional seeking... Oh, yeah, wrong forum.

One of my earliest memories: seeing Echo I (HUGE 100-ft. diameter mylar balloon) inflated a hangar in North Carolina in 1960, and then watching it fly overhead several months later. (seehttp://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary/Echo/DI55.htm)

I was avidly interested in space ever since then. I remember watching Alan Shepard's flight, Ed White's spacewalk, and seeing the photos from the Mariners and Rangers come in on TV. I was in Okinawa in elementary school when Gemini VIII (with Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott) made its emergency landing near there.

On a 8th-grade school tour of the Smithsonian's Silver Hill aircraft restoration facility, I was introduced to a man at the Smithsonian who had heard from my teacher that I was one of the most space-savvy kids he knew. The guy had 4 Lunar Orbiter photos of the moon that he couldn't identify. To help him out, I earned money by doing odd chores (like chopping wood) so I could save up to buy what was then NASA's only book of Lunar Orbiter photos and thereby identify the pictures for the fellow. (Wish I had had the Internet and the helpful folks in this forum back then!!!) I asked him if he could recommend me for a tour guide position at the National Air & Space Museum, and I then became the youngest tour guide there. One of my favorite experiences there was watching the Apollo 16 moonwalks and film-retrieval spacewalk in the NASM library with Michael Collins, Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot, who was at that time the NASM director.

Went to Carnegie-Mellon for a year, hoping to become a physicist or astronomer, but I wasn't able to cope with being a good student but still not being able to get my mind around some of the weirdness of physics.

Had my first professional brush with the space program 11 years later as the Contracts Manager on one of Boeing's contracts with NASA for what was then called Space Station Freedom, the predecessor of what eventually became ISS. Worked on a project to design a mentoring process at NASA Headquarters last year, and had the pleasure of interviewing Orlando Figueroa, who was heading up the Mars program...so that was my closest brush with MER, shaking the hand of a guy who had touched MER hardware.

I work now as an organizational effectiveness consultant and leadership coach in multinational companies. I live in Reston, Virginia, 7 miles from the final resting place of Space Shuttle Enterprise, which I visit regularly. When I'm not surfing unmannedspaceflight.com, I am a semi-professional singer. I am president of The Washington Chorus and have been on two Grammy-winning CDs. Last night I sang in a program at the Kennedy Center and met Julie Andrews!!

Cheers,
Jonathan

Posted by: dvandorn Apr 18 2005, 07:58 PM

Nothing to be ashamed of, Jeff. It's honest work. What else can you ask of someone?

I'm 49, going on 16... I'm a career technical writer / documentation specialist / training developer / what-have-you, and since a) the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the continuing economic recession here in America (especially in the IT industry), I'm working as a manager at a Pizza Hut.

For now.

As I said, there's never any shame in doing honest work.

My first memories include astronauts, Mercury capsules and Sputnik satellites. I recall watching Ranger IX coverage on live TV -- for the *very first time*, you could watch on your TV as live pictures from the Moon flashed by.

I was hooked.

1969 was my favorite year. Of my entire life. Not just because of Apollo, but also because of Mariners 6 and 7.

I want to see new horizons, new vistas. I want to see what's beyond every horizon -- and I want to see all of the different horizons that are out there.

I guess I'm just a sense-of-wonder junkie...

-the other Doug

Posted by: nasaman58 Apr 18 2005, 08:42 PM

Well, I started this discussion I never said what I do. I'm 19, like I said, and I'm a sophomore physics major. I'd like to go to grad school to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy or astrophysics. After some time racking up experience and maybe one or two master's degrees, I plan on applying to NASA's astronaut corp. Yeah, I know that sounds super ambitious, but I've wanted to be an astronaut since I was three, and I can't let go of my dream; I'm just too passionate.

It's been interesting to see what diversity we have in this forum. I'm actually a little surprised; I thought the ages would be a bit higher. The younger ages is encouraging, though; that means the inspiration of space hasn't been lost in the 1960s.

Posted by: imran Apr 18 2005, 08:52 PM

I just turned 25 today (happy birthday to me )
I am an Electrical Engineer working on projects such as JIMO/Prometheus, CEV, Space Shuttle, etc in an aerospace company near Chicago. Being a part of some of these projects is a wonderful experience.

Posted by: dot.dk Apr 18 2005, 08:58 PM

21 years old from Denmark
It is us who made the magnetic experiments that are on the rovers.

I finished High School last year and I'm now looking at what I can spend my future on

I'm very interessted in space and astronomy. I just started taking pictures with my telescope and digital camera. Need alot of practise though.

nasaman58 - Hope you ends up beeing the first on Mars

Posted by: nasaman58 Apr 18 2005, 09:06 PM

Thanks, dot.dk! Good luck in your future. Don't let up on your interest for astronomy/space!

Posted by: john_s Apr 18 2005, 09:09 PM

Interesting to see all the masks coming off!

48 year old planetary scientist in Boulder, Colorado (but an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to Mars- the outer solar system is where I get paid). I've been a space nut since Apollo days. Actually even before that- I remember writing an essay about Jupiter when I was eight...

Posted by: djellison Apr 18 2005, 09:15 PM

Farnborough eh - you should try and make it up to the BAA meeting on Sat

Doug

Posted by: Borek Apr 18 2005, 09:41 PM

I got deeply interested in astronomy in my childhood after watching landmark TV series in (then) Czechoslovak TV. Since then I wanted to be an astronomer, but unfortunately I have no talent for maths, so I ended up with computers. I am interested in many other sciences ranging from biology to linguistics, but astronomy and unmanned spaceflight is my real passion. My other hobby, that consumes most of my time is photography.
I am 31, work as a network administrator for a Czech mobile operator.
BTW, my favourite space probe are the Voyagers.

Posted by: mhoward Apr 18 2005, 09:55 PM

Had to add to my post: Probably my favorite memory is watching the raw images come in from the Voyager Neptune encounter, on cable TV, for something like three days as I recall. Just like Star Trek: exploring new worlds - except in real life. But I don't know, MER may be my new favorite.

Posted by: Nirgal Apr 18 2005, 10:04 PM

yet another software engineer here.
Age: 37
living in Europe (south-west Germany, not far from Switzerland

have been fascinated by and following all the space missions since childhood.
(One of those books I've read back in the early seventies predicted that
"by the year 1986, huge nuclear powered manned space ships will fly to mars and back" ... I've waited for it to happen ever since
well ´... so the MERs are the next best thing to that

I'm also interested in mathematics, philosophy, artificial intelligence and
writing image processing software ... also dabbling a bit in space art
(my Idol: Don Davis

And apart from all the "head-stuff" I'm also doing quite a bit
sports like mountain biking/hiking (especially love the swiss mountains) and snowboarding

Posted by: wyogold Apr 18 2005, 10:51 PM

I am 34 I have an ex-wife and 4 kids. I work as an electrician. Wiring everything from houses to industrial plants. I've been interested in space forever. I used to lie in my back yard at night and stare at the sky to observe the rare passage of a satellite usually 2 or 3 a night. Oh how times have changed. I followed voyager with national geographic. I am an avid computer buff. I tend to fix computers after the "profesional" works on my friends computers. The pro gets the money and then i fix the problem after they leave go figure. I taught myself to program BASIC when i was 8 on a c64/tsr-80/apple. Oh how times have changed. I am a ham (amature) radio operator. I also prospect for gold and my most recent endeavor is Wyoming opal...Boy did i let the cat out of the bag... I love this forum and thank all involved for the wonderful intelligent stimulating discussions on here and the huge investment of time. bringing about the great pictures from mars that you can't get anywhere else. You guys rock. mmb rocks. This universe is a fascinating place.

It blows my mind to fathom we have a rover on another planet millions of miles away and here we are playing with the pictures, each in our little homes, and via the internet we are connected to each other and jpl and the rovers.

fascinating.

scott

Posted by: RedSky Apr 18 2005, 10:58 PM

Hi all,

I'm 51, and remember in the early 60's, in elementry school, carrying our little wooden chairs from our classrooms to the All Purpose Room (i.e., the Gym) to watch the launch of the first few Mercury flights on a grainy Black & White TV. But what really got me interested in Space was when we did the same thing for a live Ranger moon (crash) landing. I recall seeing the images coming in as the craft closed in to its ultimate fate. I found out that all but the last 5 images were easily seen in a typical amateur telescope.... So at age 12, I saved up and bought a Criterion Dynascope... a 6-inch reflector with a clock drive popular at the time (for $195.00).

I wound up getting a degree in Physics & Astronomy at the Univeristy of Virginia.... (my father used to say I went to college to *take up space*) but while there, I saw too many astro grad students leaving in the early- to mid-70's with their their MS's and PhD's only to have to get jobs as *scientific applications programmers* (using FORTRAN and punchcards! for those of you who don't know the dark ages). Space interest had really slowed down in the mid-70's with Apollo 17, Skylab, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

So went to Gradschool and got an MS in Atmospheric Physics (i.e., meteorology), bringing the science from my astronomy days *down to earth*, so to speak. For the last 25 years, I've been working on Natural Hazards... developing models to estimate damage and losses from natural catastrophes (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquake, etc). for an insurance research firm.

Also just wanted to say how lucky we are today (compared to the 70's and 80's) for the internet. Do you know how data-starved we were to find out anything about the Surveyors, Lunar Orbiters, Vikings, Voyagers, etc., back then? You might see a short story on the national TV news or NY Times for a day or two... then have to wait a month or two for Sky & Telescope magazine to come out to show a few good pictures and the real story. Today its sooooo fantastic with almost real time status and pictures.

I moved from Connecticut to central Florida a few years ago... and the first launch I ever witnessed in person (albeit 40 miles south of the pad) was the final flight of Columbia. I've made a point of watching almost every launch since then... including Spirit and Opportunity!

John (RedSky)

Posted by: PaleBlueDot Apr 19 2005, 12:06 AM

hi, long time lurker came here from space.com forums, must say i like these better, im 24, 2 years into my phd in robotics, some of my work is done at jpl, but im too new to have worked on mer. i guess my claim to fame is that ive actualy tested some of my robots in the mars yard.
~mike

Posted by: jamescanvin Apr 19 2005, 01:21 AM

Ok, so I'm 28 and come from the land of concrete cows and roundabouts. However I'm now living at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia (slightly differenent!) and 'sometimes' come into work, where I'm paid to try and understand extragalactic radio jets like this...





JC

Posted by: Bill Harris Apr 19 2005, 01:36 AM

I'm 55-ish, geologist/hydrologist for the past 30-or-so years. I was a space-nut even back in the 50's. In my late teens I wanted to be an astronomer. By college (late 60's) I decided that I favored planetary "astronomy" most and went into geology with the intention of climbing the degree ladder. The economy tanked in the mid-70's and I got into geotechnical grunt jobs to pay bills instead of grad school. In the early 80's I started a career in environmental assessments and mitigation of the impacts of coal mining and reclamation in the southeast USofA, where I have worked for 25-or-so years.

I still like planetary geology, but have less of the Buck Rogers fervor that I had in the early years.

--Bill

Posted by: MizarKey Apr 19 2005, 01:55 AM

It's been great reading about all of you...

I'm 42, my job is as a User Support Analyst for the Human Services Agency for a county in California...luckily I get a few hours each day at work to keep up on all things Mars / Space.
I became interested in astronomy around the age of 14, my first star map came out of a National Geographic. Somehow I managed to locate Saturn in the sky and it has finally gotten around to being is relatively the same spot in Gemini where I first saw it all those years ago with my department store 2.4" refractor.
Saturn was my first 'love', I even did a science project about it in 8th grade.
I became a Trekkie at age 15 and fully believe we are being prepared for eventual disclosure that we are not alone in the universe.
My interest in Mars actually started thanks to Richard Hoagland's book about the 'Face on Mars'. I have since discovered there are enough interesting things about Mars that you don't have to make stuff up about it. You could call me a reformed anomolist, much of it thanks to this board and it's practical level headedness.
While I wish our Space program was much further along (bases on the Moon and Mars by now...mining asteroids...that sort of thing), the Computer age is a great time to be alive. I've been able to say "Thank You" directly to people who have given me so much joy (Don Davis for his Space art, Gary Wright for his music, some authors for their books...), it's truly an amazing time!

Eric

Posted by: Bubbinski Apr 19 2005, 03:03 AM

Hey all....I'm 34 and I worked as a tech support rep (over the phone) for 7 years before moving into a quasi-supervisory position (listening in on other techs and coaching them) and am now in training for a pre-sales position answering questions about networking equipment. I got hooked on the space program by the Voyager flyby of Uranus and the Challenger disaster when I was in high school. I'd hoped to become an astronaut and/or get into a career in space science, but I had too hard a time with calculus

I live in Utah, but I've lived in some other places over the years as well. I've even been lucky enough to see a space shuttle launch in Florida (at night, no less, two miles from the launch pad) and I've seen the shuttle Enterprise in the Udvar-Hazy center. (Too bad the space hangar wasn't fully opened yet! I plan on going back to D.C. sometime and seeing that again, as well as lots of other spacecraft, planes, and things). And who knows, my dream of going into space may yet come true.

This board is awesome, and I enjoy keeping up on the Mars rovers, Cassini, and other space projects. I also enjoy building models of aircraft and spacecraft, and I built a paper model of the MER, which enjoyed a prominent place at my cubicle before I got transferred and sent to training for my current position.

Posted by: David Apr 19 2005, 03:30 AM

As of the last post, the median age was 34 and the mean 35. There is quite a cluster of us in our mid-30s (birthdates 1968-1974). I wonder if being exposed to the Vikings and Voyagers at a young age had a lasting impact, or if it was something else. But none of us is old enough to remember the Apollo missions.

The 33 people who have answered so far fit neatly into 3 cohorts: eleven born before 1965; eleven 1965-1975 (actually 1968-1974, as above); and eleven born since 1975, who I guess are too young to remember Viking or even maybe Voyager at Jupiter. I wonder what differences in outlook that creates (if anything).

Posted by: Pete B. Apr 19 2005, 03:48 AM

Dropping out of lurker mode:

Although I am absolutely incredulous over this fact, I’m 55. I work as a government technical information specialist with the library at NASA Goddard. I’ve mostly spent the last 15 years managing the book, journal, and database/search engine collections and resources. Before getting into the library field, I got an M.S. in geology, mainly dealing with planetary topics: impact cratering and lunar soils. Another grad student and I worked on soils from Apollo’s 15 and 17, including a portion of this sample from the Station 6 boulder: http://store1.yimg.com/I/skyimage_1839_1990028

I grew up in Huntsville Alabama. My father started working for the Von Braun team in 1954, moved over to NASA Marshall in 1960 and stayed until he retired in 1990. I think, but am not entirely certain, that he fabricated and assembled the mechanical solar system model (orrey) that was a prop in the short films on space exploration that Walt Disney produced in the mid-50’s. He also fabricated some parts for the rocket that launched Explorer 1. From one end of our yard we could look out some 10-12 km to the Saturn V engine test stands for the several hot firings that were conducted at Marshall. I’ve seen 3 launches: the second unmanned Saturn V from some VIP stands (but not at the VAB); STS 8, and as we were driving south on past the Cape during a family vacation to Florida, a rocket took off, catching us completely by surprise. I later found out that it was Mariner 7!

One final comment, to echo what RedSky said – I attended a number of the Lunar and Planetary Science conferences in Houston in the 70’s. One of them was the 1979 meeting, which happened a few weeks after Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter. The poster sessions were the first chance that many of us had to see better photos of the planet and satellites than the grainy half-tone images in the newspapers. So all of you “youngsters” with your fancy-schmantzy web and jpegs and tiffs of Mars and Saturn on your computer screens every morning, you don’t know how easy you have it. In my day we actually had to drive or fly to other places to see that kind of stuff!

And PaleBlueDot – this may not be your kind of music but here is a clip of a song Pale Blue Dot http://vinylkings.com/palebluedot.htm .

Posted by: mike Apr 19 2005, 04:36 AM

I'm 28, and I've always been interested in the exploration of space, anything interesting, really. Space is nice because it is vast, infinite maybe, and so anything you can imagine probably exists, or did exist, or will exist, and amazingly enough, we can even fly up there and take a look for ourselves.

I got my B.S. in software engineering technology (designing and implementing software, basically), but I lost interest in that pretty quickly. Writing business apps so someone else can maximize their profit margin is not for me. And I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll run out of software to write, anyway.

I've moved on to fiction, turning my creativity to something a bit more human than an endless string of 1s and 0s, and I have a feeling my novel will soon be published, though I suppose it's technically feasible that there might possibly be some miniscule chance that I may be wrong, perhaps.

It's interesting to see the wide cross-section of people who peruse the boards.. oh yeah, and I vaguely remember seeing pictures from Voyager, I think, in National Geographic, but as far as remembering the actual events I only really remember Challenger. I had actually forgotten completely about Pathfinder until the MERs started getting coverage and the media brought it up. I doubt I'll forget about the MERs, though.

Posted by: CosmicRocker Apr 19 2005, 05:28 AM

Wow! When Nasaman58 started this topic, I never guessed it would reveal so much of the underlying fabric that makes this the best space forum on the web today. No wonder the quality here is so high. There is a huge diversity of people from all walks of life and from all over the planet, all with one deep-seated desire...to understand the universe around them and to communicate with like-minded individuals. What an amazing community this is.

I wasn't here when this forum started, but Doug created something almost magical here, and I feel privileged to have found it.

OK. I was thinking that I was going to win the oldest member award, at roughly 54.60239 years old. I shaved some of the precision off of that estimate, since I really don't remember the exact hms of my birth date, nor the exact time I will publish this. Regardless, it appears I am one of the older members.

I am a geologist by training and at heart, though I have been working for the past dozen years as an environmental engineer for a chemical company. I have been interested in space for as long as I can remember. I recall my father taking me outside to look toward the sky, hoping to see Sputnik after just turning 7 years old. I remember Dad bringing home a sample of the (I think aluminized mylar) material the Echo satellite was made from, and going out to look for it. I remember waking in the morning to run out to find the newspaper so I could (hopefully) find the close-up pictures of the Moon from one of the Ranger missions. You can't imagine how devastating the news was to my young self, when the newspapers revealed that yet another Ranger Probe had entirely missed the moon!

Oh, but when they finally did hit it. I was hooked for life. As you can tell, I could probably go on for ages about this stuff, but I think this is getting long enough.

I chose my screen name (CosmicRocker) because of my love of rocks and the wonderful information they contain. Rocks from other worlds are even more interesting. Beyond that, my favorite rock band from my grad school years was the Moody Blues. They had a popular hit back then called "Veteran Cosmic Rocker."

Posted by: deglr6328 Apr 19 2005, 05:40 AM

I am 24 and work as a technician on what is currently the world's largest ultraviolet laser fusion facility. http://www.lle.rochester.edu/ I have always been interested in spaceflight, especially the unmanned variety and the treats we've been afforded lately (MER, huygens, stardust etc.) are just ...well....indescribably beautiful to me. It's great to see so many of the varied backgrounds of other users here. I thought I was probably the only one here under 30 but I guess not!! That's great to see IMHO. BTW I love your icon PaleBlueDot!! I'm a huge fan of Carl Sagan too! This site seems to have the most perfect blend of levelheaded skepticism and wide eyed wonder/optimism about the MER mission I've seen anywhere. Really a great place and I hope it can stay this way.

Posted by: arccos Apr 19 2005, 06:47 AM

I am almost 30 and I work as a programmer. My disadvantage in this forum is English. My posts are often crude nad full of errors.
I'm from the Czech republic (former Czechoslovakia).
(nazdar Borku

Posted by: dvandorn Apr 19 2005, 07:39 AM

It does bring up the possibility that one or more of those in the middle range were either conceived or born while Apollo astronauts were actually on the surface of the Moon, though... talk about a lunar influence, eh?

-the other Doug

Posted by: remcook Apr 19 2005, 08:43 AM

hey there! another Dutch guy here. I'm 23 at the moment, did an MSc in aerospace engineering and now living in the UK to look at Titan with data from CIRS (and enjoying every bit of it!)

I always had a large interest in planetary space exploration, but unfortunately, there's no planetary science opportunities in Holland (except maybe ESA ESTEC in Noordwijk, but since the Dutch government only contributes a tiny amount to ESA's budget... sigh). Anyway, there was no planetary science education, so I did the next best thing, aerospace engineering (I don't like stars and clusters, etc that much). Turned out to be a little disappointing, expecially the first 3 years, since it was mostly aeronautics, and I don't really care a lot about airplanes...But I'm glad I did it (although I wouldn't have minded some more 'real' science) and I'm glad I'm doing what I am doing now.

That's my life story so far

Posted by: TheChemist Apr 19 2005, 11:06 AM

Nice meeting you all !
38 year old chemist here. I presently teach and do research at a university. Mainly working with NMR spectroscopy applications in analytical and food chemistry now, did a lot of polymers in my early days too.

Posted by: chris Apr 19 2005, 12:16 PM

I'm 43, and yet another software developer. I live just outside London and currently work for a small software house in Soho square, right in the middle of London, doing Java and webapp stuff. I'm keen on XP and agile development methods.

Originally, however, I studied biochemistry. Did a PhD, then decided it wasn't for me. Been interested in space stuff for years.

Chris

Posted by: wyogold Apr 19 2005, 01:19 PM

interesting..

Posted by: babakm Apr 19 2005, 01:54 PM

41 year-old investment banker with a computer science background (don't ask). Hobbies still include programming and aerospace. 6" refelecting telescope.

Posted by: john_s Apr 19 2005, 02:41 PM

Hey Pete B., was it you I was talking to about this exact topic at LPSC last month? I too got my fiirst good look at the Voyager Jupiter images, including the mind-boggling Io plume pictures, at the 1979 LPSC poster sessions- something I'll never forget.

I too am amazed at the wealth of talent on this board- folks with such a wide range of "day jobs" rivaling JPL in their image processing virtuosity. There have been talented amateur astronomers for centuries, but I think the generosity of the Athena team in making their raw data available to the public, and the Cassini project's decision to follow suite, is giving birth to a new breed, right here- the amateur planetary scientist. These are indeed exciting times!

John Spencer

Posted by: MahFL Apr 19 2005, 02:53 PM

I am 42, living in the USA, I am British though. I operate an old Unisys Mainframe, and we will shortly be moving over to an Enterprise Server. I saw Armstrong step onto the Moon and have been interested in Space ever since. My father in law actually worked at Stennis Space Center, testing Apollo and Shuttle Main Engine's.

Posted by: aldo12xu Apr 19 2005, 04:32 PM

I actually vaguely remember watching a lunar landing as a 8-10 year old kid, but I can't be sure if it was the first landing. In high school I was right on top of the Viking landings, writing to NASA for photos and waiting 2 months to finally get the 8 x 10s. And then there was Pioneer -- remember the little craft before Voyager that kept on going and going and going? Astronomy, Sky & Telescope magazines were the sources back then (I still have a lot of those issues), plus NASA directly and certain companies that released slides of the mission photos (still have those somewhere as well).

We've come a long way, baby!

Posted by: azstrummer Apr 19 2005, 05:50 PM

I'm a 51 year old programmer/analyst living in Litchfield Park, Arizona. My first foray into science and high tech, other than being a space nut in my childhood, was nuclear power training in the Navy where I was schooled in math, physics, thermodynamics, and electronics. I'm also a musician in my lack of spare time and am writing a political novel. I've just received an Associate's Degree and am going on to finish a bachelor's degree with ASU. It'd be very tempting to go for one in planetary geology and get intimately involved with the Mars programs but their westside campus does not offer that major and Tempe is far from my home.

Great divergence of people on here.

Art Martin

Posted by: argv Apr 20 2005, 12:48 AM

43, electrical engineer, design high speed computer chips. grew up in florida and watched many launches from my parent's front yard.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Apr 20 2005, 01:27 AM

OK..

44, 5 kids, grew up in Los Angeles now living near Sacramento. Mechanical engineer who never worked in the field. Left college and decided to pursue other career avenues. Worked as an account excec for a medical manufacturer and then went into politics, been at it 15 years now. Now work in California's capitol as Communications Director for a Senator.

Posted by: Pete B. Apr 20 2005, 02:30 AM

Yeah, that was me. As I said in Houston, I recognized the similarity of my experience with your reaction as decribed in your chapter in the book Our Worlds. The electricity in the air for those sessions was just incredible. Since you had recently posted on this thread a bit earlier, I tossed in the bit about having to fly.

A similar, but less dramatic, experience was going to the AAS meeting in DC several weeks after verification that the first Hubble servicing mission repairs had worked and seeing a number of the new images, also in a poster session.

Posted by: skybum Apr 20 2005, 03:13 AM

I'm a grouchy 28 years old, and an architect in Portland, Oregon. I first got into this whole "space" thing a bit over a decade ago, and at the time I always seemed to be the youngest person around, which was a distressing feeling. I can't say how thrilled I am to be feeling thoroughly middle-aged now!

Posted by: MichaelT Apr 20 2005, 08:27 AM

Wow, what an amazing community I'm 30 years old and a meteorologist at the University of Hannover, Germany. I just finished a project on climate model validation, and I'm now working on air traffic safety.

Though, since more than 20 years I'm deeply interested in astronomy, and, especially, I'm also a member of the local astronomy club and regularly do public presentations on all kinds of astronomy-related topcis to share my enthusiasm with other people. Also, I very much enjoy observing the sky with a telescope and to do astrophotography.

I stumbled across this forum just a few weeks ago and I visit it almost every day. So far I'm more of a silent observer.

Michael

Posted by: tty Apr 20 2005, 05:10 PM

Umm... I seem to be more or less the senior around here. I'm 57 and work as a software engineer in an aerospace company in Sweden. Have been interested in space since ´way back before Sputnik (Yesss, I remember when it was launched!)

tty

Posted by: remcook Apr 21 2005, 08:44 AM

no females?

Posted by: Tesheiner Apr 21 2005, 11:57 AM

I'm 39, systems engineer currently working on projects for ATC (Air Traffic Control) , 3 children.

My interest in space started reading National Geographic articles about the Voyager and Saturn flyby. What a BIG difference since then, at least in terms of access to information. On those older times you had to wait months just to see some pictures, and now we are able to look what those rovers have done just some ours ago.

Greetings from a Brazilian living in Spain.

Posted by: cIclops Apr 21 2005, 05:53 PM

I'm about 13.7 billion years old, sorry i can't be more precise, it's not easy to keep track of all the years. Recently I've spent all my time on the surface of a rocky planet of a normal main-sequence G2 star located near Loop I of the Orion arm in the Milky Way galaxy.

Posted by: buddy1475 Apr 21 2005, 06:09 PM

I'm 9020 Days 11 hours 7 minutes and 41 seconds old.

Posted by: TheChemist Apr 21 2005, 06:10 PM

Does this mean you were a teenager for 1 billion years ?
I don't envy you

Posted by: volcanopele Apr 21 2005, 06:16 PM

Hey John, nice to see you on this board!!

Anyways, to my bio info, my name is Jason, I'm 21, and I am a Geosciences major at the University of Arizona. I started out working on Io images taken by the SSI camera on Galileo in the later days of that mission. I used to have a website about Io until Fortunecity killed it 4 years ago. I am now work for the ISS imaging team on Cassini, processing Titan images (and occasionally other satellites as well, particularly Enceladus) and producing products for release. I also run a Titan website (that also covers the icy satellites as well) called Titan Today.

My main research interest is active geologic processes on outer solar system bodies (as opposed to passive geologic processes like cratering). My favorite is still Io (hense my handle) but Titan and Enceladus are starting to grow on me (and the possibility of active volcanism on Titan...potentially...is really exciting).

Posted by: paxdan Apr 21 2005, 11:59 PM

Oh go on then. I'm a 25 year old space nut. Spent my childhood making Satun 5 rocket models. A Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate, I'm currently working as a production editor on a bunch of STM journals for a large univiersity press and i'm doing an Masters in International Relations. I take a lot of sky photos.

Always with my head in space books, I love the fact I can click on a link to see images of new horizons on the surface of Mars and Titan; and see whole new worlds come into focus courtesy of Cassini and the cometary missions. I really got properly hooked on this new worlds thing with Pathfinder and Sojourner on the internet in 1997 and i've been following all the unmanned space missions ever since.

Here is a picture I took of the recent venus transit with my digital camera selotaped to a pair of binoculars and a solar filter.

Posted by: dvandorn Apr 22 2005, 07:18 AM

Not any more...

-the other Doug

Posted by: OWW Apr 22 2005, 09:27 AM

You mean this website?
http://members.fortunecity.com/volcanopele/i24.htm
Old bookmarks are Fun. Still the only place I know of with the recontructed Galileo I24 images! Great.

Anyway, back OT. I'm a 27 year old graduate in computer science from the Netherlands and obsessed with space stuff for as long as I can remember, although Voyager's Neptune flyby took care of the 'with worlds' part.

Posted by: djellison Apr 22 2005, 09:34 AM

You forgot to mention your day job

Transcribing the director reports for us

Doug

Posted by: Phil Stooke Apr 24 2005, 12:01 AM

I suppose I ought to add my bit. I'm 53, grew up in England, and I think the oldest space event I recall was John Glenn's Mercury flight. I sat up all night watching live coverage of Apollo 11's EVA (after midnight in the UK). Now I teach cartography and some planetary science at a Canadian university. I've worked on asteroid shape modelling and mapping (data in PDS small bodies node), on locating the VL2 site on Mars, some historical work on lunar studies, and now I'm compiling an atlas of lunar exploration which has taken me to Moscow as well as Houston, Flagstaff and Tucson.

If you are near LPI in Houston, LPL in Tucson or USGS in Flagstaff (as some of you are...) you can see large format prints of my Surveyor pans in the respective data libraries/RPIFs. Flagstaff has the digital data and we will eventually get it out for everybody... but don't hold your breath.

Phil

Posted by: edstrick Apr 24 2005, 08:01 AM

For the record, I'm 53 also. I have trace memories of the post-sputnik days, and some real memories of Mercury, but I really started tracking with Gemini and Ranger and Mariner 4. (I wasn't really "sapient" before then....)

My dad was quality control manager at Bell Aircraft (later Aerospace) rocket division. His inspectors signed off on the Lunar Module Ascent Engines, among other things.

Oldest brother was a space-nut and he audiotaped live off TV the launch of Ranger *3* (Correspondent Walter Cronkite, reporting from Cape Canaveral) (Too bad the mission was a 95% failure) He also taped John Glenn's first two orbits (off NBC), most of Gemini 3, and the grand finale of Ranger 9: *** LIVE FROM THE MOON ***.... well.. it was approaching the moon... when it arrived, it was turned into shiny metal bits....

I started taping with Gemini 6 and 7, and have continued ever since. Video now.
My prize posessions include audio of live coverage of Surveyor 1 landing, the launch of the first Saturn 5.... (My *GOD*, THE BUILDING'S SHAKING... THE BUILDING'S SHAKING HERE!). I've also got a really good stereo recording of the launch of Apollo 16. The two networks (left and right channels) were synchronized (not one through a satellite and the other with landlines), both had outdoor microphones, and neither microphone died HORRIBLY.

I processed my first digital image in 1966: colored pencils and the numbers for a corner of Mariner 4's frame 11, published in Scientific American's article on the images.

I almost had a PhD doing Mars geology, but it finished me before I finished it and I ended up image processing in industry, and having fun "on the side".

Posted by: voracs Apr 24 2005, 07:57 PM

Looong time lurker... first time poster (just registered... finally!). I'm 42, a lab technologist living in Vancouver, BC, CA. I've been perusing this board since finding it through #maestro on IRC, during those heady days of EDL. It's been an absolute delight to follow the subsequent happenings here. Big compliments to the frequent posters, forum leads and, of course Doug, for assembling such a fine place to keep up to date.

I've been a space enthusiast for as long as I can remember, early interest being fostered by the occasional space article in National Geographic. I couldn't wait for the next issue to come through the mail slot to see if there was an update on Voyager or some new story/pics from Apollo. What a difference the internet has made for the immediacy of information available. I recall during pathfinder/sojourner that I was keeping tabs on its status through the web at the same time as watching the live news conference on CNN. The first images were available on my monitor before they were even shown to the media! It's still fascinating to watch how some theories are hashed out here before their "official" release.

Keep up the good work.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Apr 25 2005, 02:13 AM

Hey, edstrick, I met you at LPSC quite a few years ago. I remember your Viking lander false color pans poster!

Phil

Posted by: Myran May 7 2005, 10:05 AM

Me? Forum lurker!

44 years. Real life job: Janitor.

Posted by: edstrick May 9 2005, 01:33 AM

<waves belatedly at Phil Stooke>....
I'm around, spaced-out as always...
My PhD Dissertation finished me before I finished it, so I've ended up image processing in industry, more or less watching from the sidelines, CAT scanning space shuttle turbine blades and <couple times> Dinosaur skulls.

Posted by: garybeau May 20 2005, 01:25 AM

Wow, I can't get over all of the talent here. What a great board. I'm humbled by all the professionals here.
I'm a 49 year old tool and die maker from Connecticut. Have been interested in science, rockets and space since before I could read. Grew up during the Apollo days, but my interest has switched from manned to un-manned over the years. A lot more science and a lot less politics. My hero is Carl Sagan - loved his Nova special Cosmos. If there was ever anyone addicted to science and space news it has got to be me. When I'm done perusing all of the online sources, I'm putting myself to sleep with Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, New Scientist, Scientific American Planetary Report and on and on.............zzzzzzzzz
Glad to meet you all and keep up the great work.

Posted by: Patteroast May 31 2005, 10:30 AM

Ahh.. hi! I'm new, and figured this would be as good a place as any to make my first post. Unlike other people who mentioned registering recently, I haven't been lurking, I just found out about this forum's existance approximately an hour ago. Just reading around and seeing the passion for unmanned spaceflight that I have seen almost nowhere else... I couldn't resist signing up. It just looks like so much fun here!

I'm an 18-year-old high school student (for six more days until graduation, anyway.) I've been interested in planetary astronomy since the age of four when I found a book about the solar system in a box somewhere... couldn't even read it, and I loved it. Sadly, being born in 1987, I don't even remember the Neptune encounter of Voyager. Probably my earliest memories of any sort of spaceflight was something with Hubble.. not sure, really. But I've been glued to my internet connection for the entire duration of MER, and all of the last few years of Cassini.

Any knowledge of astronomy I have is self-taught, but I like to believe I have a rather good and detailed understanding of most of the topic (at the very least, much more than the majority of people ). I probably have a dozen notebooks lying around with some form of information in them, including constantly updated lists of all the vital stats for the moons.

Okay, I should probably stop babbling (as I have a tendency to do). So, uh.. hello.

Posted by: stillgoing Jun 8 2005, 10:30 PM

Hello, all.
42, living in Aldergrove, BC, Canada. I'm a project manager for a company making GPS based products for tracking of offenders.

My earliest memories were watching the Apollo moon landings.

I'm a scout leader, and I periodically teach the kids what I know about astronomy; taking them outside for star-gazing and constellation identifying sessions. I usually try to coincide my sessions with a good Iridium flare. Really fires the kids up, as I explain what made the flash, and more importantly the knowledge and computation that is behind my being able to point to the sky and say look there in 5..4..3..2..1 (Wow!.. Cool!)

For those of you also into mountain biking: The North Shore is my playground.

This site is excellent, and I anticipate many hours of study.

Thanks!

Posted by: brianc Jul 1 2005, 08:02 PM

I'm 46 and work for the UK Health Service as an Information Analyst, I have a wife and two girls. I live in a small village Holcombe Brook, just north of Manchester England, I got inspired by a book the Observers Book of Manned Spacecraft, this was bought for me by my parents when I was about 7 (1966), I remember seeing the moon landings on TV, I also remember vividly coming home from school on a lunch-time and seeing the Apollo 17 Astronauts walking about on the moon. I was hooked, in those day there was virtually no 'news' on space, I joined an obscure group called The British Interplanetary Society and got good coverage through their monthly publication called 'Spaceflight' - I've followed all the missions since then, obvious highlights being the Viking Landings (which I remember the live coverage of Viking 1 landing) and the Voyagers. It's just great to be able to actually participate in these missions now that Doug has launched unmannedspaceflight.com

I visit USA on a regular basis for vacations, I've seen two Shuttle Launches (one night launch which I guess will never occur again), I've also visited Smithsonian, KSC on a number of occasions, JPL, Vandenber AFB, Edwards AFB and Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville.

I play golf (badly) and am into mountain and road biking as well as Go-Karts

Posted by: glennwsmith Jul 2 2005, 09:44 PM

Brianc, thanks for the post on "Take a Moment" that prompted Doug to send you (and me) here.

As I was reading through the other bios, I began to think, "God, at 56, am I the oldest member?!?" Then I hit TTY's post.

And while in the mode of referencing other posts in this section:

Mr. Chemist, I laughed out loud about being a teenager for one billion years!

And Red Sky, I too had a 6" Dynascope, which my Mom sold years later to another budding astronomer.

The threads running through this thread are fascinating in and of themselves. I too am a former software engineer (author of BLAST [blocked asynchronous transmission], the first sliding window protocol in the asynchronous/mini/micro arena) now making $10/hr. as an engraver (with PC based equipment), but that's OK as my real focus is kinetic sculpture.

I live now in New Orleans but grew up in Baton Rouge, LA.

Our 5th grade class had a set of introductory guide books (papmphlets, really) to the various sciences, and I was thereby able to become aware that astronomy was my particular interest -- my first real interest, actually -- the type of budding fascination you can look back upon as defining who you are. So hence the Dynascope, and of course I followed avidly all the early space shots -- Sputnik, Vanguard (!), Explorer, Echo (THAT was a thing to see in the evening sky!), Mercury, and so on.

The Apollo landings were something of a climax for anyone alive at that time, and my interest subsequently got turned down a notch or two, but without ever really disappearing.

Then, of course, has come the huge recent explosion in space science, coinciding with 1) something of a lull in the biological sciences, what with Dolly and so on holding the headlines, and 2) the advent of the Internet (and this wonderful site) which, as many others have remarked, allow us to share the data, and our response to them, in near real time.

There's LOTS more I could say, but will close with this: I am thankful to be part of this online community.

Posted by: elakdawalla Aug 8 2005, 07:21 PM

This seems to be the place for introductions, so here goes

I'm 30 and I work for The Planetary Society, doing whatever our fearless leaders ask me to do...which means I'm lucky in how varied my everyday job is. I cover space missions as "press," writing news stories for the website; maintain a weblog; write backgrounder material; run our various public involvement contests (art contests, guess the crater diameter, name the rovers, etc.); go on various enjoyable boondoggles, er, I mean, research trips; and do other stuff, like working as the image processing person in Cosmos 1 mission operations. (Too bad I never got any images to work on )

I love my job. I'm doing exactly what I set out to do when I went to graduate school -- help connect the "interested public" with what's currently going on in space research. Everybody wins; the scientists I talk to are grateful when anyone expresses interest in actually understanding their research (rather than focusing on endless debates like "What is a planet?"), and a small but devoted sliver of the public appears to love digging deeper into the science behind the latest discoveries.

What's struck me about reading the replies to this topic is the youthful mean age of the people reading and posting to this forum. The mean age of Planetary Society members is much older than that, over 50. Some general trends match, though; both respondents to this topic and Planetary Society members come from a broad range of professional backgrounds, with relatively few directly involved in aerospace research or industry; and both groups are, sadly, mostly male!

Emily

Posted by: 4th rock from the sun Aug 9 2005, 12:22 AM

I've been on this forum for some time but never introduced!

So here goes:

I'm 28, live near Lisbon, Portugal, and presently work as a Webdesigner. I have a degree in Geography and worked for some time doing image processing with satellite images.
I'm also an amateur astronomer with a special interest on Mars ;-) (http://www.astrosurf.com/nuneshttp://www.astrosurf.com/nunes)

Posted by: ilbasso Aug 9 2005, 12:52 AM

4th Rock, that is beautiful astrophotography on your website! Congratulations! It sounds like you have an observing site with remarkably good seeing.

Posted by: dilo Aug 9 2005, 03:53 AM

Agree, planetary images are breathtaking and "Planetary Art" section is nice too!

Posted by: 4th rock from the sun Aug 9 2005, 10:44 AM

Thank you for your kind words!

My site doesn't have that good seeing. There are some stable periods lasting a few minutes, usually just after sunset or at dawn. On general the weather is unstable with frequent fog and low clouds.

The trick is to use webcams or CCDs with very short exposure times on the best nights ;-) The rest is just carefull image processing.

Posted by: Harder Aug 9 2005, 11:18 AM

Enjoying going thru all these bio's the least I can do is add my own..

'Alo 'alo, I'll say this only once to quote a famous European:

I'm also 53 yrs, and in very good company here by the looks of it.
I work in plants were we liquefy natural gas, and since these plants are typically far away from its customers (population centres & good infrastructure) I had to make do with initially Compuserve text-based space message boards over patchy telephone lines with V24 modems if memory serves me right.

My origin lies in Holland, and I am subscribing to the Dutch magazine Zenith and the French Ciel et Espace. I have been pestering them for information about what is going on behind the "Kremlin Walls" of ESA - no offence to Russian members here- and I'll keep at it as much as I can. If I land a scoop then this community will be the first to know - promise.

I chose my screen name as a throwback to the days I was in a university rowing club and I'll try to add a related logo shortly.

To end: when I followed the launch of the Messenger probe I realised it was going to enter Mercurius orbit exactly on my planned retirement day. That set me back for a few seconds, but space science & new discoveries goes day-by-day and that's the beauty of it!

Cheers,
Peter

Posted by: cozmsbrpng Aug 16 2005, 09:26 PM

Hello all,

It's fun to hear what everybody else is like so it's only fair that I keep the treadmill going.

I am 29, and I work in a neurology research lab. My focus is in bioinformatics where I get to investigate the role of genetic variation in human diseases.

<rant> You should know that there is a really great law called HIPAA (hippah) that is keeping your genome safe from the insurance companies. If you ever hear about a bill that proposes to weaken existing HIPAA protections please fight to defeat it! </rant>

Space rocks! Pictures of rocks fill up a lot of space on my hard drive. I started building mosaics and mosaic anaglyphs from the raw MER data and quickly got hooked. I feel fortunate to be among talented folks with similar interests, and I hope to learn a lot from the community.

Posted by: Rxke Aug 26 2005, 11:04 PM

Wow, this board truly is a place of talents!

I'm 35, and currently a student. Hopefully this will be my last (Thesis) year to become conservator/restorator of visual media.
In normal people speak: restoring old photographs, films and more and more : disaster prevention re: digital archiving, sigh. Stuff that's 100years old is ofthen in far better condition than stuff from the 70's either analog or digital. We're losing a tremendous amount of valuable information, that's only 20-30 years old...

Going back to full time studies is hard, when you did hard unskilled and temp work for more than ten years, I can assure you, but it's thrilling too. I do *not* regret it!

Oh, I'm from Belgium, and can't remember the days when i was *not* interested in the stuff outside our atmosphere, especially Mars, which I somehow consider as my lost homeplanet (yea, I'm weird...)

My best birthdaypresent was the landing of Spirit, friends that came visiting me were a bit frustrated I didn't spend any time with them, but was very close friends with my computer, occasionally jumping around like a lunatic, heehee!

Posted by: helvick Aug 26 2005, 11:51 PM

Time to add a bit of a profile for myself I think.

I'm 39, work for a large American semiconductor manufacturer as an IT systems architect specialising in handheld devices. that means that I get to play with lots of gadgets but spend most of my time wishing I worked with stuff that used _real_ operating systems. It also means that I spend far more time than is healthy talking to people about "power budgets" and optimisation strategies for power consumption vs processing capability which might go some way to explaining my fixation with the solar panel's on Spirit and Opportunity.

I've been a space nut since my folks allowed me to stay up watching some Apollo 17 coverage late one night when I was 6, it's one of my earliest memories.

I'm an unapologetic engineer rather than a pure science or imaging buff - I love working over the numbers that trickle down to us to see how the real rocket scientists make all this stuff happen and what the explanations are.

And right now I'm about to take a well deserved break from work to spend two weeks relaxing in Malta, getting some sun (something rarely seen in Ireland) and enjoying something completely different. The timing is a bit bad what with all the excitement on Husband Hill but with a bit of luck all of the imaging gurus will have some amazing stuff for me on my return.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Aug 26 2005, 11:57 PM

You're right...

...but wrong.

And here I speak from personal experience. The psychology of photography has changed with the advent of Photoshop (etc). Firstly, the veracity of 'real' images has become important in a way that was always previously cryptic. Secondly, access to data is now far more free - especially with the trend (long may it continue) towards full datasets being available rather than (sparse) selections. Thirdly, in the past we archived badly, but now we acknowledge that it is almost a duty, so in future the actualite may be more-or-less preserved. In the past, prints were rubbish and negatives were a nuisance.

I recently (as an example) scanned slides I took at the STS-1 launch, and was horrified by their degradation. They are now digitally *fixed* and *do* represent that moment in time in a way that analog media simply can't. As a second example, I got married in 1980. The clown that took the wedding photos skimped on the bleach/wash and the pictures are now degraded beyond belief (and he never provided the negatives). Had those images been digital, then something could have been done with them centuries from now...

Hardware may go out of fashion, but there will always be either new technology or old enthusiasts who can read elderly media; if pressed, I could read Vic-20 tapes or C64 disks, RLL or MFM HDUs, Apple II data, and so on. And any serious data-archiving agency could do much more!

In fact, we're now at the start of the Golden Age of data, where everything will be available so long as our civilisation persists!

If you want *before* and *after* conservation images, let me know!

Posted by: Rob Pinnegar Aug 27 2005, 05:20 AM

When I was about four years old, I read the "How and Why Wonder Book" of astronomy, and decided that studying the planets was the life for me. So, to make a long story short, I ended up doing a bachelor's in astronomy and eventually a doctorate in geophysics. Most of my research has been in signal and image processing. I'm 35 now. Currently, like so many of the people on these boards, I'm working for a software development company -- but as a researcher, not a programmer, which keeps things interesting.

The closest I've managed to get to planetary research was about two and a half years ago, when I was still at U of Western Ontario, and almost ended up doing some work with Phil Stooke. Funding considerations got in the way as they always seem to, which was, in technical terms, a damned shame. I'm not done trying yet though -- 'one of these days. (Anyone got any Cassini images they want deconvolved cheap? For an extra ten bucks I'll do a no-frills wavelet analysis.)

In the meantime, I'm enjoying my current job, which has the plus of allowing me to sneak in the odd publication from time to time. So it's OK, really.

Posted by: Tesheiner Oct 30 2006, 10:55 AM

This thread was inactive for more then one year and a *lot* of people registered in the meantime.
Let's give this thread a little bump.

Posted by: ustrax Oct 30 2006, 11:42 AM

Hey! I remember this thread...But never introduce myself...

I'm 32, I was born in Lisbon but currently living at the "http://www.visitportugal.com/NR/exeres/6BEF1189-D6BD-4473-856B-604FCEF22106,frameless.htm" as Byron once called it.
I'm creative director on an advertising agency.
Space has always been an interest since childhood but more on a dreaming fashion than on a technical one.
Above all I consider myself a pilgrim. And space is the way...
Ultreya!

Posted by: angel1801 Oct 30 2006, 11:53 AM

I am 36 and live in Adelaide, Australia. I'm on a DSP [2] pension and my interest is space stuff is solely from watching just one episode of Cosmos (Episode 13) on our national TV broadcaster (The ABC) on
August 25, 1982. I got to see the other 12 on a DVD box set in 2004.

I also liked reading about dinosaurs and asteroids when I was in primary school. [1] When I realised the two are connected, it formed 50% of my username. The other 50% is supressed here (for very good reasons!)

[1] In Australia, primary school is from the 1st grade to the 7th grade. High school is the 8th grade to the 12th grade.

[2] DSP = Disibility Support Pension (since November 1995)

And this in my 100th post here too.

Posted by: tasp Oct 30 2006, 03:03 PM

Retired aerospace worker bee.

Now I 'dabble'.

Posted by: ngunn Oct 30 2006, 03:29 PM

Good idea. I'm definitely one of the oldies at 54. I remember the excitement in our family when Jodrell Bank picked up the signal from Sputnik 1. As a boy I was thrilled by the first blurry pictures of the lunar far side and by that classic Lunar Orbiter panorama of Copernicus Crater. Apollo unfolded during my time as an undergraduate. I missed a lecture (just one) to watch live TV from the Moon. Revelations from the outer solar system punctuated my later student years (research in palaeomagnetism).

Currently I teach maths, physics and astronomy in a further education college. Before that: oil exploration consultant (marine seimic surveys), postman, amateur landscape painter (including astronomical subjects).

Posted by: ngunn Oct 30 2006, 03:36 PM

Off topic I know but there used to be a thread where we could post where we lived on a map, but I can't find it now. I'd like to see that, or something like it, revived also. I've often wondered if any other members live anywhere near my North Wales hideout.

Posted by: Stu Oct 30 2006, 04:12 PM

Not exactly... bit further up the road from you, I'm in Kendal, southern Lake District. Used to holiday in Betws-y-Coed tho... :-)

Posted by: ngunn Oct 30 2006, 04:22 PM

It would be nice to meet up if you're passing again sometime. (That goes for any member sampling the delights of Snowdonia.)

Posted by: Dyche Mullins Oct 30 2006, 04:23 PM

I am mostly a lurker (I think I have posted a total of 3 times) but I read the forum obsessively. I love getting all the expert opinions and analysis to go with the raw data from NASA, JPL, ESA et al. I am 42 and I was in kindergarten during the early days of Apollo. I became obsessed with space exploration and hardware the way some kids today are obsessed with dinosaurs. I could fashion a lunar lander out of almost any collection of castoff objects and I could name more of the working parts on a Saturn V than I can now name on my Nissan pickup truck.

I live in the US. I grew up in a rural part of Eastern Kentucky (in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains) but I now live in San Francisco. I am a professor of Cell Biology at the University of Calfornia and I study how cells establish and control their internal architecture. But don't worry. I am not particularly interested in "Astrobiology".

Posted by: Tesheiner Oct 30 2006, 04:31 PM

Oh yes, it's here: http://www.frappr.com/unmannedspaceflight

Posted by: centsworth_II Oct 30 2006, 04:52 PM

I'm a med tech in a hospital lab. 50 years old and just getting used to being a grand parent. Strange, since neither my wife or I feel "grown up". We've been playing house for over twenty years.

It was surreal seeing Emily's post with her new daughter's image, posted just 5 days shy of a year PRIOR TO HER BIRTH!

Posted by: ngunn Oct 30 2006, 05:21 PM

Thanks, Tesheiner, I have now added myself to the map - but what a horrible site to use! At first it 'tried' to relocate me to Bethesda, Maryland, so I gave up on Bethesda and entered Bangor, which whizzed me over to Northern Ireland. I then tried it by inserting the correct Lat and Long, only to find myself mysteriously plotted in the North Sea. Now on the fourth attempt it's almost right.

Posted by: ynyralmaen Oct 30 2006, 06:17 PM

Well, I'm not there now, but I'm originally from Anglesey. My sister lives in Tregarth though! Small world... (Now I know how you deciphered my username in another thread a few weeks ago!)

I suppose it's rude to contribute to this thread without briefly introducing myself... I'm a 36-year-old magnetospheric/planetary scientist.

Totally obsessed with all space-related things since I don't know when... I completely memorized the Observer's Guide to Unmanned Spacecraft at around age 8. Of course, I'm now a much more well-balanced individual, though my wife would probably beg to differ...

Posted by: elakdawalla Oct 30 2006, 08:41 PM

Yes, the retroactive avatar updates can definitely cause folds in the space-time continuum on this board

--Emily

Posted by: climber Oct 30 2006, 08:50 PM

Here I am too!
As would said "Obelix" from cartoon "Asterix The Gaulois" : "I felt inside when I was a little guy"
I was 15 on the First Moon landing (to save you some calculations, I'm 52 now ) and I turned 50 the VERY SAME DAY this forum started (thanks Doug, what a present ).
I'm in the Research part of a Seed Company, working in France, with collegues worldwide, so I have the chance to travel the world twice a year for work. I also hike & climbs mountains (hence my username). Avatar is a picture of Matterhorn in Switzerland
I was mad enough to go twice to Pasadena with the TPS to watch Voyager 2 Neptune fly-by...and Spirit landing. I'm also a kinda UMSF addict and I feel that all YOUR names I'm familiar with now, belong to the Space program.
Note : I like superior conjunction. It allows us to better know each others

Posted by: nprev Oct 31 2006, 02:32 AM

Nice to be able to "re-meet" each other!

I'm 43, born & raised in western Montana, and currently work logistics for US Air Force space programs in LA. Halfway through an MS in systems engineering with a minor in space technology, so hoping to do funner stuff in the near future. Been a space fan literally my entire life; could name all the planets before I was 5 years old. I used to get up early to watch the last Gemini launches, and really got into UMSF with Mariner 9.

One highlight was the total solar eclipse on Feb 26, 1979 (about a week before Voyager 1 encountered Jupiter, you may recall). I was in central Montana with one of my teachers for the event...it snowed like crazy until a half hour before totality, then miraculously the skies completely cleared up...what a sight it was. Even luckier, there was a small group of people from JPL where we were, including Michael Kobrick who later was one of the leads on Magellan. As I recall, they told me that Io was looking "interesting" from Voyager by late February; about a week later, I appreciated their gift for understatement!

Posted by: Pavel Oct 31 2006, 04:11 AM

I'm 34 years old, native of Saint Petersburg, Russia (it was Leningrad, USSR back then). Although my diploma was in physics, I fell in love with free software just before I graduated in 1995. I started working as a programmer, but it was only after I moved to the United States in 1999 that I started being paid for doing free software work. I'm developing software for radio mesh networks, primarily for military purposes. I quite familiar with most Linux wireless drivers.
I live in Pennsylvania now, on the far edge of Philadelphia suburbs, but I lived in Massachusetts and New Jersey before.
It may be of interest for other UMSF members that my aunt was working as an engineer on the Lunokhod and Venera projects. My uncle was guarding the N-1 launch site as a soldier and saw those mammoth rockets fail.
I was deeply impressed by the space pictures when I was a little boy. As a teenager, I was a big fan of Sci-Fi. It gave me the habit of looking at things "From another planet", somewhat akin to Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot".
I'm a big fan of the Mars Exploration Rovers, and I check their status almost every day. I don't have time to contribute anything serious, and my knowledge of geology is clearly not on the par with that of other UMSF members, but I'm quite content with my role of an observer. I'm contributing in a different way. Many UMSFers may be running software containing my code or at least my bugfixes.

Posted by: monty python Oct 31 2006, 07:24 AM

I'm 47, a dialysis tech in Iowa.

I still have reel to reel audio recordings of some gemini flights I recorded off of the tv as a child, and still get a charge out of watching videos of the ranger probes hitting the moon.

Spent most of my formative years with my rock collecting father, trudging up mountains, down rock quarrys, and thru road cuts collecting minerals - so victoria crater fascinates me.

One of my fondest memorys is of the voyager 2 neptune encounter when I spent many hours with a hand full of strangers at a local college watching pictures trickle back to earth. We marveled at how far technology had come, discussed (and solved!) all of the worlds problems, then went our separate ways. I never thought I would find a place like that again until I found UMSF!

Brian

Posted by: ngunn Oct 31 2006, 02:51 PM

I see four more of us are now on the map since yesterday, but that's still less than ten percent of the active membership. In other words if you have two nearish neighbours showing already there are probably twenty more lurking within the same radius. It would become really useful if that percentage went up significantly, so unless you have a reason for lying low please take on the challenge of the clumsy map-pins . . .

Posted by: nprev Nov 1 2006, 06:11 PM

The pins aren't all that bad...what's challenging is finding the right link to click!

Posted by: lyford Nov 1 2006, 08:49 PM

Who in in charge that umsf frappr page? I have moved and can't seem to edit my "pin"

Posted by: belleraphon1 Nov 1 2006, 11:50 PM

belleraphon1 here......

Since I was a young lad, all I have wanted is a starship like the one used for the fictional Belleraphon expedition to Altair 4.

Work at on one of the NASA centers, but am in the administrative services.... I do not get to do any of the fun stuff.

Remember watching 2001 Space Odyssey every weekend in 1968 as humans rounded the Moon for the first time..... what memories..... but I would not have imagined back then that we would abandon cislunar space so very soon.

I watched Apollo 17 launch from Florida as the sand on the beach danced to the night time beat of a Saturn 5 liftoff.

Am 53 and just blessed with my first twin grandsons, Aaron and Dylan. Their names are on the DAWN space craft and will soon be added to Mars Phoenix. Their first space missions. They will be 5 at Vesta and 9 years old at Ceres..... some of us planet mission lovers measure time with our children. My son David was born the same month Voyager 1 was launched. My daughter Rachel (Aaron and Dylan's mother) was just a gleam in our eyes when Voyager 1 flew past Titan in 1980. Beverly (my former wife) and I have since divorced but remain united in the love we hold for our children and our grandchildren.

Looking into those little boys faces I feel committed to help then grow into a world where cislunar space is inhabited by humans and give them a world worth living in ethically. A world where all life is respected and cherished and where the doors of wonder are open to their eyes...

Perhaps they will go forth aboard a real Belleraphon to the stars...

And when I grow up I'd love to be a good space reporter like Emily.

Posted by: ngunn Nov 2 2006, 10:09 AM

It's a right pain, isn't it? When mine plotted wrong at first I found I had to remove myself completely and start again. I'm sure with all the expertise on this forum we could do something much better independently. It might get a better uptake too if it was actually a UMSF thread. I wouldn't know how to set it up, though. Any volunteers?

Posted by: NMRguy Nov 2 2006, 07:05 PM

Longtime lurker and occasional poster. I'm 27 and just finished my PhD in chemistry from Wisconsin (NMR and 2D vibrational spectroscopy). Not completely satisfied with my training, I decided to go back to graduate school for geology. [I must be a glutton for punishment.] I'm currently living in the Netherlands.

I've been interested in space for about as long as I can remember, and this website was a real find. I would personally like to thank Jason (back in the TitanToday days) for the weblink.

Posted by: algorimancer Nov 3 2006, 04:07 AM

Let's see... I'm 42, spent 8 years in the Air Force (enlisted) at a dead-end maintenance job, finished a BS in Multidisciplinary Studies (that's a liberal arts degree w/ lot's of electives - I went a little overboard, college was recreation for me), spent 6 years teaching high school math through AP calc, switched careers to software developer (a hobby since high school), spent a couple of years working for United Space Alliance developing Space Shuttle and ISS simulations (prox ops), then moved on to an orthopedic biomechanics research lab where I continue to develop software (3D kinematics simulation, motion analysis, surface digitizing, etceteras) and co-author the odd paper. Having a great time, horribly underpaid; it's a trade-off. I've been following this sort of thing since watching Apollo on TV as a little kid. I also got to see an Apollo launch around the same time, plus attended several Shuttle launches while in high school. Spent about 10 years as a serious amateur astronomer, which led me to math and physics, which somehow led me to where I am now. Looking forward to what comes next

Oh yeah, that pic to the left is me sitting on the slope of a mountain overlooking Vail, CO, while attending a biomechanics conference there last year.

Posted by: ustrax Dec 8 2006, 06:46 PM

odave just bring it up again...
Some adding to my personal information needs to be made...
I'm still 32 but now I acummulate creative and production direction, and moving to a great new office, besides that, dog training, hike organization and giving the last touches to an official publishing company...
No time for abysses...

Posted by: Gonzz Dec 11 2006, 05:57 AM

I've been a lurker for quite sometime, but seldom post. I visit everyday (usually twice a day) and really enjoy all the discussions going around (thanks all) not to mention all the absolutely amazing image work.

I'm 32 and live in Lisbon. I started out as an architect but for the past few years I've been working as an illustrator, collaborating mostly with newspapers and magazines here in Portugal (a few of them abroad).

I've always been massively interested in space, although in the beginning that interest sparked more from science fiction than from space exploration. I remember watching Galactica, Space 1999, Buck Rogers and building little spaceships out of Lego, re-enacting all the adventures from the shows.

The moment that really started my love for space exploration was the arrival of the first images from Pathfinder of the surface of Mars. It was late and I was watching CNN, waiting for them to be broadcasted, and then, as they finally were presented on the screen, as I marvelled at the fact that I was watching a new planet millions of miles away, little grainy black and white photographs from that lone robot far far away in the cold desert of Mars, I was hooked. Utterly and completely!

Now I'm a Marsaholic and like all of you, I need my daily fix

Posted by: ustrax Dec 11 2006, 10:38 AM

Hey Gonzz!
Tudo bem?
Guess we'll have to talk about business one of this days...

Posted by: Gonzz Dec 11 2006, 08:27 PM

Hehe, hey maybe UMSF should have a CV and portfolio section, so that members could network and get some commissions

Posted by: ustrax Dec 11 2006, 10:01 PM

You're laughing?!...
Illustrations for a photo album book required!
Preface...introduction...Close credits...
Editon predicted for march 2007.
But that CV idea is quite good...
Doug...can we?

Posted by: Gonzz Dec 12 2006, 12:22 AM

Well, in the Spirit of things i'll take the Opportunity , you can take a peek at my site http://www.goncaloviana.com
- hope this is Ok Doug, don't want to be banned from the forum for absolutely shameless advertising

Posted by: djellison Dec 12 2006, 12:28 AM

I think this is possibly the only 'anything goes' thread really - so what the hell...

if anyone is looking for a multimedia designer with excellent presentation skills and some experience in reporting from a space conference for outreach, publicity etc in the space field....you know where to find me

Doug

Posted by: PDP8E Dec 12 2006, 12:57 AM

55 - hardware / software / at 3rd hi-tech startup after my life at DEC / father / Telescope builder / beer taster / ham radio / vintage PDP8 restorer ...and many more

I vividly remember WATCHING Echo-1 going over my fathers house in the late 50s.

I remember the hoopla over Telestar.

I watched all the Mercuries, Geminis, Apollos, Rangers, Surveyors, Voyagers, Vikings. you name it...I was there for the Apollo 15 lift off at the Cape. I've listened to the Cosmonauts on Mir chatter (in Russian) on 2 meters (141.2?Mhz)

I have lurked in UMSF almost since its inception...

...Im a space nut....

Posted by: ustrax Dec 12 2006, 10:59 AM

I already knew your work and I love it!
I've sent you an e-mail.

Posted by: Tesheiner Jun 2 2008, 01:50 PM

I think it's time to do a "bump" to this thread given the amount of people which joined UMSF during/after the Phoenix landing...

Posted by: brianc Jun 4 2008, 07:35 AM

I echo the 'bump' great to be following all the happenings in these exciting times - I'm mainly a lurker - posted my details here in 2005

Could I just give a PLUG for the UMSF 'Paypal' link that I just discovered at the bottom of the page and actually
got around to making a donation !

Great to be part of this community - I just wish I had the brains to contribute a bit more

Posted by: As old as Voyager Jun 4 2008, 05:15 PM

I'm 30 years old, born one month before the launch of Voyager 2 (Yes, I am as old as Voyager).

I'm a freelance writer and the most likely place you may have encountered my ramblings is on SPACE.com

I've always been interested in space and remember not being able to see Halley's Comet back in '86. Though i only really got hooked in 1994 with the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts.

I've been writing for about 10 years now but have really been hammering the work out during the last 5 years and really hope to be able to write full time (My alter-ego is a bank worker).

Posted by: nprev Jun 4 2008, 05:37 PM

Best of luck!

You tempt me to rename myself "As Old As Friendship 7"...but that's just too depressing to think about!

Posted by: dvandorn Jun 4 2008, 06:00 PM

Yeah, well -- I could change mine to "older than Sputnik," if I wanted to. I actually could change it to "as old as the MX-774," but most people would miss the reference.

To get a really good fix that most people here would likely understand -- I was born two weeks before Marty McFly appeared in Hill Valley in his DeLorean time machine...

-the other Doug

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jun 4 2008, 06:13 PM

That's one of the things I like about o-Doug --- he's one of the few folks here older than me.

(I'm as old as Freedom 7)

Posted by: stevesliva Jun 4 2008, 06:39 PM

28 years old here, hooked since Neptune.

Posted by: charborob Jun 4 2008, 06:56 PM

I guess I'm also one of the older ones here. I'm as old as the Nautilus and the H-bomb. (Sorry, couldn't find a suitable space-related reference.)

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jun 4 2008, 07:01 PM

As old as Buck Rogers? Flash Gordon?

Posted by: imipak Jun 4 2008, 07:22 PM

Family legend is that my mother held me up to watch the Apollo 11 landing on the ward's TV set, a few weeks after I was born. (Apparently I had jaundice so they'd kept me in for a few weeks.) I do IT security stuff at an Internet company. I've been aware of space since I was woken up to be shown the milky way (aged 6 or so)... then I remember staring for hours at the cover of an LP of "The Planets" with a lovely painting of the Apollo CM/SM heading out to the moon... but it was discovering a large-format atlas with gorgeous Mars landscapes from the Viking orbiters in the school library, and immediately recognising some landforms that we were learning about in geography, that really got me hooked. Come to think of it - funny, I'd forgotten this - for my geography A Level (the exams you do at age 18 in the UK) we had to submit some original coursework. Alas! My proposal on Martian analogues of terrestrial geological processes was rejected out of hand... a couple of weeks later they said no to Antarctica as well, and I ended up writing a load of piffle about the Severn Bridge in my first all-nighter. Ah me, miserable days...

Posted by: dvandorn Jun 4 2008, 07:27 PM

That was my father's generation, Dan. He was born in 1924, and the first Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon books and comics began to appear around that time. He lived to see men on the Moon and space shuttles landing on runways like airplanes.

I do get some of my interest in space from my father. He was a pilot and a bombardier on B-17s back in WWII, and shared his love of flying with his sons. In fact, the only magazine my family got in the mail as I was growing up was "Flying." Dad watched the early Mercury flights with great interest, and my brother and I emulated him... that's one reason I remember things like Freedom 7, even though it happened when I was only five years old.

I can still remember, very clearly, the evening of July 20, 1969. My mother's parents were visiting that day, and as we waited in the family room for Neil Armstrong to crawl out of Eagle and step onto the Moon, Dad almost whispered "now, pay attention. This is the real thing -- this is history."

Yep -- I got to watch the first Moonwalk with my grandparents, who were both born before humans had flown in powered aircraft.

-the other Doug

Posted by: nprev Jun 4 2008, 07:58 PM

Neat, Doug!

My dad influenced me as well. Although he was a baker (and a die-hard SF fan! ), the wide-open vision of our future in space in the 60s was so influential on him that he was convinced that it was vitally important for me & my brother to know about space from an early age to succeed and participate in what he thought would be our expansion beyond the Earth within our lifetimes. He bought all the wonderful "How & Why" books for us that he could, any space-related toys we could afford (my favs were a Revell Saturn V model we built together and some of the "Major Matt Mason: Moon Mission" figurines & things; anybody else remember those? )

Best gift of all was a large poster of the Solar System, mounted on a piece of cardboard so that he could convieniently display it and answer our questions when we would frequently ask to see it. with the planets listed at the bottom in descending order of size. I memorized the bloody thing before I was four years old, I swear, and can still recite the planets in order of size or number of moons as known in the mid-60s.

Pretty hard to go wrong by making space a magical concept for kids, I'd say. Didn't take with my brother, who may have actually been the inspiration for the idiom "down to earth" (no criticism, it's just who he is), but me...it gave me dreams, and an unbridled, utterly fascinated joy in seeing the new horizons that space exploration brings us. Can't imagine living without this interest, really.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jun 4 2008, 10:28 PM

...and I hope most of us who have children are continuing this tradition. One thing I like to do at the end of a busy day on a clear evening is to lie outside on a lounge chair and watch the skies for shooting stars and satellites. My oldest daughter (now 14) began joining me when she was about five and I took the opportunity to tell her about the cosmos and show her how to identify various stellar objects. She was on a week-long school trip to the mountains a few months ago and as they sat around the campfire she was showing them satellites and giving her own lesson on shooting stars and meteorites. One of the teachers refused to believe she knew all that and accused her of making up the bit about the tiny manmade objects creeping overhead. sighhhhh

But keep it up everyone, we owe it to our future generations to teach as we were taught. There aren't enough "Stu" types to go around so we need to pitch in and begin with our own.

Posted by: climber Jun 5 2008, 06:54 AM

Hi Dan! The same here! My youngest son will be 14 in another week and he loves sleeping outside looking for satelittes and shooting star.
Last night we had a bright pass of the ISS (-2.5 mag) and we were outside watching. Less than 15 minutes later, we watched the ingress inside Kibo and it was a lot of fun seen the very wild time they had. My son was very impressed by Reismann trick of been let without motion and far from Kibo's walls and then trying to get a hand on something : it took him about 1 minute. I do not believe my son will do a space job but nevertheless he told me : I want to do that!

BTW : I'm as old as the Other Doug

Posted by: centsworth_II Jun 5 2008, 07:16 AM

I'm as old as Viking 12. (Didn't know that until spurred to look it up by this thread.)

"The Viking rocket series of sounding rockets were designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed-Martin) under the direction of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. A total of twelve Viking rockets flew from 1949 to 1955."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_rocket

Posted by: dmuller Jun 5 2008, 07:42 AM

I'm as old as Pioneer 11 ... one month older, in fact, but still sending signals, though not from as far away. Originally from Switzerland but have migrated to Australia. First memory is STS-1, got hooked by watching Giotto, saw Ulysses launch live at Cape Canaveral but interest faded in the 90s. All got reignited when my (then) 3 year old son got "addicted" to Discovery Channel's Extreme Machines: Rockets. Alter ego is as freelance translator, though I'd like to wind that back a bit if only I could make some money from "ground-based spaceflight".

Posted by: climber Jun 5 2008, 08:15 AM

Spin stabilized? What about energy source?

Posted by: dmuller Jun 5 2008, 09:30 AM

Doughnuts! My spin-stabilized energy source

Posted by: imipak Jun 5 2008, 09:31 AM

STS-1 was my first "live launch"; I pulled my first ever sickie (from school) to watch it, little realising how habit forming it would be!

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jun 5 2008, 03:59 PM

Hmmm. So I guess I can say I'm the same age as NASA -- we'll both be 50 this year, just a couple of months apart.

--Greg

Posted by: TheChemist Jun 5 2008, 06:58 PM

I'm as old as the answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Posted by: centsworth_II Jun 5 2008, 07:08 PM

So you're forever forty-two?

Posted by: Stu Jun 5 2008, 07:11 PM

Hmmm... let's put it this way... the cake bought for me for my 21st birthday was just 4 days old when I sat crying in front of the TV, watching live coverage of pieces of Challenger spiralling and fluttering down into the pacific.

Posted by: climber Jun 5 2008, 08:16 PM

You'll be old when the cost of the candles will excess the cost of the cake

Posted by: djellison Jun 5 2008, 08:50 PM

This Christmas, I will celebrate the 9th anniversary of my 21st birthday

Doug

Posted by: climber Jun 5 2008, 08:56 PM

And your 10.000 post

Posted by: SpaceCat Jun 27 2008, 09:38 PM

I'll just sneak in here to say Hello so as not to make a spectacle of myself.
Lurker for a few months; registered yesterday- so, newbie to the board; oldster to space.

Professional highlights-
'60's/'70's: Degree in oceanographic technology, Florida Tech; wire jockey for Skylab stuff at the Cape- GSE, SCE & onboard power.
'70's/'80's: Worked in public safety comms (EMS & Fire); audio engineer for Burt Reynolds productions.
'80's/'90's: Chief engineer for "Jules Undersea Lodge"; worked with Scott Carpenter on underwater stuff.
'90's/00's": Contracting engineer for NASA Life Sciences; engineer & office manager for marine electric company.

So based on this, I'm pushing 60!

Very knowledgeable group here, and lots of interesting reading to 'catch up' on!
See y'all around! _>^^<

Posted by: Stu Jun 27 2008, 10:53 PM

Welcome aboard the USS UMSF SpaceCat, good to have you here.

Posted by: lyford Jun 27 2008, 11:56 PM

Welcome, cute avatar!

Posted by: centsworth_II Jun 28 2008, 02:19 AM

What? Not HMS?

Posted by: elakdawalla Jun 28 2008, 04:56 AM

Must be HMS, surely!

I appear to be just a bit older than Viking 1. Strangely, that makes me feel both very young and very old! I mean, like, how ancient is Viking?? That was totally the Medieval age of Mars exploration.

--Emily

Posted by: centsworth_II Jun 28 2008, 05:07 AM

Followed by the dark age.

But now we're in the Renaissance!

Posted by: andrea Jun 28 2008, 05:25 AM

Hi all:

I'm 39 (Born 4 weeks before the first Moon landing in Austin TX - took a boat! back to Italy few weeks later!). Wife and 2 children.

Father is an astronomer, but I was too shocked having to endure all this telescopes in strange places to actually be interested in astronomy.
Somehow ended up following the then-girlfriend in California and getting a job at JPL in the communications divisions.

Worked as a telecom system engineer in few projects. Few never made it to launch (Europa orbiter ... and would you believe it we were working on MSR on 1999 for a launch in 2003&2005? but a lot of the young talent developed in those days indeed contributed to something launching in 2003). Two did not make it (the 2 DS2 probes).
Finally success with Odyssey and the MERs.

I've left MER at the end of the primary mission (that's quite a long time ago!) and that's when I started reading this forum. Yes, it was easier to read this forum, then to go to mission control in a different building. Worked on MSL until CDR 1 year ago ...

... then we decided to go back across the pond to old Europe for a lot of reasons ... we still ended up in England which at least culturally in mid-way.
I still work in the space business even if at the moment not for a science mission. So I need to use this forum + Emily's wonderful blog for the latest around the solar system.

Apologies for the long saga.
Cheers, Andrea

Posted by: Stu Jun 28 2008, 06:16 AM

Blatant Star Trek reference, to go with the recent "Red shirt" comments guys...

Posted by: centsworth_II Jun 28 2008, 02:09 PM

Ah! United Star Ship. Appropriate, but easily misconstrued.

And welcome, Andrea.

Posted by: Astro0 Jun 29 2008, 08:26 AM

I'm a day younger than the world famous Parkes Radio Telescope - "The Dish".
46 - Enjoying 5 years of married life and 7 years as a space educator at the Canberra DSN - the other dishes!
Astro0

Posted by: TheChemist Jun 29 2008, 10:10 AM

I wish ! No, just a couple of months left. This is a privilege held briefly, and then duly passed on to the younger generations :-)
(Note that some members of the opposite sex choose to cross this barrier in a fuzzy, nondeterministic way and fail to get the Answer because of quantum uncertainties)

Posted by: nprev Jun 29 2008, 03:20 PM

(sigh)...Enjoy it while it lasts, kids. Unless a serious fire gets lit under NASA & ESA, the party's over around 2017 or so.

Gotta admit, though, this thread makes me feel good about my age; many of us forty-somethings or greater really did hit the sweet spot in a lot of ways. I got to see everything from the later Geminis on, as well as live coverage of the Viking landings & all of Voyager's encounters. It's nice not to envy the young, for once!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jun 29 2008, 03:56 PM

Sure Nick but we had to wait for the next morning's newspaper and got to read one story written by one reporter on the previous days events. Then after five or six days the coverage began to drop off and we had to wait for the next month's Sky & Telescope or Popular Science magazine to get any details. Life was rough back then. These kids don't know how good they have it.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jun 29 2008, 04:03 PM

"live coverage of pieces of Challenger spiralling and fluttering down into the pacific.:"

It was the Atlantic. But I cried too.

Phil

Posted by: vjkane Jun 29 2008, 04:08 PM

I was twenty the summer Viking landed. I was spending the summer painting a rental house for my parents. I remember sitting on the front door step and seeing that first picture (of one of the landing pads) and being amazed that we could see the surface of Mars. I was hooked from then on.

The late 70s were a great time for planetary exploration. And then the whole thing almost died in the '80s. I remember the then current director of the US federal budget saying that Jupiter will always be there when he announced the cancellation of Galileo. Since the early '90s, it's been one feast after another.

The only down side to being 52 is that you start to calculate how old you'll be when some of the mission under discussion would return science. I'll be in my young to mid 70s when the next Flagship mission enters orbit around either Europa or Titan.

As for my biography, I spent 25 years in high tech. Among other things, I planned microprocessor products and product lines, and hence my fascination with the planning process for future missions. (One of the processors, the Pentium Pro) had a development budget about the same a large Discovery mission. These days I'm trying to rectify an early career mistake by finally becoming a scientist. I'm getting my PhD in forest ecology, and it's not surprising that I'm using remote sensing to do my work.

Posted by: nprev Jun 29 2008, 05:29 PM

True dat. I remember walking a couple of miles to the former Montana School of Mines library (later Montana Tech, now a branch of the University of Montana) to check out the latest AWS&T or Science to get a clue about what was going on. Each little morsel of information was precious, believe me.

Oh, yes, and it really was uphill both ways...the hill dipped and rose between my house and the college. And, being Montana, there was frequently snow...

You whippersnappers have no idea...<mounts walker and shuffles off into the sunset...>

Posted by: dvandorn Jun 29 2008, 05:41 PM

Ah, yes -- I do recall living from one edition of AW&ST to the next. It was the only regular publication that carried news of the aerospace industry, including the upcoming manned and unmanned space flights. (The magazine Missiles and Rockets, unfortunately, had gone the way of the dodo by the late 1960s.)

I can still recall Xeroxing the edition that had the first line drawing I had ever seen of the layout of instruments in Apollo 15's SIM bay. That must have been in April or May of 1971.

-the other Doug

Posted by: nprev Jun 29 2008, 05:56 PM

...There was something magical about that, though; almost like the anticipation of Christmas.

I could hardly wait to see the new issue of any space magazine. AW&ST was great because it's weekly, but Sky & Telescope was always a biggie (lotsa pics!) There was one, count it, one, bookstore in my home town that sold periodicals, and fortunately this included S&T. Later, I found out that the college had a subscription since the mid-50s, and bound the mags by year...and you could check them out!!! Boy howdy, that was a blast...hard to balance those big bound volumes on your chest while you're trying to drink a Coke & eat Doritos, but I managed...

Almost started a new thread called "In Dog Years I'm Dead" for all us oldsters to reminisce, since there appears to be some reflex that hits us all once we pass 40 to tell tales...but, no need. In about 20 years, the younger of us will be regaling the next generation with stories of how you actually had to click on stuff in an internet browser to bring it up instead of willing it so...

Posted by: vjkane Jun 29 2008, 06:31 PM

I used to have several notebooks with xeroxes of AWST articles. It was a milestone in my life when I finally earned enough to have my own subscription rather than go to the library each week.

I also remembering borrowing a co-workers Unix system so that I could look up a mission document posted on this new thing called the Web. In those days, the only Web browsers were on Unix. Us poor DOS users had to borrow Unix systems.

Posted by: Marco Frissen Jul 3 2008, 08:15 AM

Hiya,

I joined Emilys' broadcast+chat last night and at the end this forum got linked. Pretty cool site.
Anyway, I'm from the Netherlands, 36yrs, married and 2 kids, have a degree in Computer Sciences, working in telecomms (Vodafone) and also studying to become a math teacher. And I like to photograph people and postprocess images
Interest in space and astronomy since about 1981, dreaming about those voyager saturn images. Been actively observing as an amateur astromer in the 90s.
In 2000 I was able to join the press for the STS-106 launch, which was quite an experience! Especially being inside the VAB and almost able to touch the shuttle and boosters..
About two years later I quit the whole astro hobby to focus on people photography, selling my telescope for more photo equipment and entering photography academy in 2002, finishing that in 2004 and (parttime) working as freelance photographer since then, focussing on people (from portraits to fine art nudes)

Still, my interest was piqued with each news article of mars missions and cassini results. Last year I decided to revive the whole thing, became a planetary society member (again) and last month bought a new telescope. I guess old habits (or more: passions?) never die.

I didn't know about this site until a day ago, but I'm already impressed by the high quality people are showing here, i hope I can add some value as well in the not too far future

I have a website at http://www.marcof.net where I post my mixed-language (english and dutch) blog about everything and nothing (recently mostly about my revived astro hobby), show some photography work and offer Bibble Pro expertise services in the netherlands.

cheers,

Marco

Posted by: Stu Jul 3 2008, 01:03 PM

Welcome aboard Marco, good to have you here.

Posted by: Paolo Amoroso Jul 3 2008, 07:08 PM

I'll give a clue on my age that young members of this forum will readily understand. I was born the day after Molly Brown didn't sink. I live in Italy and work as an astronomy/space educator.


Paolo Amoroso

P.S.
Who yelled "old fart!" at me?

Posted by: nprev Jul 3 2008, 08:10 PM

I did, ya old fart! Welcome to the club!

Posted by: dmuller Jul 4 2008, 12:33 AM

or how we had to manipulate images or write programs to get to see what we wanted when all they need to do it think about it and it pops up on their virtual HUDs. The YouTube - Viacom link-up will provide them with instant movie quality images for free automatic downloading because THEY know what YOU want

Posted by: imipak Jul 4 2008, 10:09 AM

In the parallel universe where Viacom control space imagery, there's no DIY / "amateur" image manipulation / enhancement / stitches / pans / anaglyphs, because the carefully selected imagery released to the public would be locked up with DRM, and Doug's doing a 20 stretch for copyright infringement / DMCA circumvention for daring to publish such material. "Ha ha, only serious"...

Posted by: SulliedGoon Jul 29 2011, 09:36 PM

Sometime during 1968 I was ambling through
a pine stand near Kingsland, Georgia.
I noticed something dangling from a low hanging
branch. It was a rocket section with chute
still attached. It was hanging there like
fruit waiting for my tiny hands to grasp.

An honest to god rocket! "woowoo!!!" I shrieked with
boyish enthusiasm.

I ran home and handed it over to my parents.
It had officious instructions about
returning it to "the proper governmental authorities"
or some such boilerplate. My father gave
it to someone he worked with and
that was the last I heard of it.

Never found out what its actual function was
or what organization launched it.

I was five at the time so I the whole episode left
me feeling like I had discovered a secret cache
of pirate gold

Posted by: PDP8E Sep 8 2011, 02:55 PM

this seemed like the only place to put this....

...for those of you who remember and may have actually built one (back in the day) ... Heathkit -- yes, that HEATHKIT --just made the announcement that they are back in the DIY KIT Business !

http://www.heathkit.com/

Yeahhhhh!

Posted by: mchan Sep 9 2011, 03:52 AM

Hmm, maybe there will also be a MITS or IMSAI revival.

Probably not.

mchan
pdp11 front panel toggler