[X] My Assistant

[centsworth_II]

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!

[ngunn]

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

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.

[ynyralmaen]

I've often wondered if any other members live anywhere near my North Wales hideout.

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...

[elakdawalla]

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!

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

--Emily

[climber]

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

[nprev]

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!

[Pavel]

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.

[monty python]

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

[ngunn]

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

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 . . .

[nprev]

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

[lyford]

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

[belleraphon1]

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.

[ngunn]

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

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?

[NMRguy]

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.

[algorimancer]

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.