Running back to Saskatoon

Last week was a crazy week, which went by way too quickly. I only barely had the cognitive ability at the end of the day to realize how lucky I was to be a part of the rocket campaign and do some networking with some very impressive people. Lecturers from several universities, and researchers from Cornell were there working on two large Black Brant 12 sounding rockets. There were several lecturers from the U of A: David Miles and Jonathan Rae. David is a master's student who has designed and built an extremely sensitive magnetometer, and he hopes to fly the magnetometer on several upcoming satellites. Jonathan Rae gave an interesting and informative lecture on some aspects of atmospheric physics, such as the magnetosphere (their lectures went well together!). Other lecturers represented Tromso university, University of Oslo, and Kongsberg defense in Norway (Kongsberg, sounds like something out of a Donkey Kong video game!).

Us Saskatonians got our picture with a nice block of Brown Cheese:

I guess I missed the cue to look badass...

CaNoRock 4 is a success

Well, I'm sitting here in Oslo in the budget hotel Gardermoen, and the past few days have gone by so very fast. I didn't even have time to properly write in this journal.

Let's see, where did I last leave you all hanging? Oh yes -> SWIMMING IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN!
Damn that's cold, but now I have an official looking certificate from Andoya Rocket Range stating my pure manliness and bravery. :)

BACON PASTE

There may have been unleashed a crazy idea that just ... 'stuck'. Here at the rocket range, there is something called Bacon Paste. During the week, we are supposed to come up with a name for the rocket collectively... Well, of course everyone knows about the socially acceptable obsession with bacon, and anything bacon related right? (Think Epic Meal Time). Somewhere, somehow, on this island in the past two days, someone suggested the name BACON PASTE. During lunch today (Wednesday) We brainstormed what types of words we could use to make BACON PASTE into an acronym.

Playing hide and seek with Science

I promised pictures yesterday of the huge rocket launchers, here is one:

Giant hydraulic rocket launcher, owned by ARR, inside a building that moves to let the large structure get to the required elevation angle for the rocket being launched.

Romance

There's just something so romantic about Rockets, Radars and LASERS... I can't quite explain it. Have you ever watched a rocket take off? Then again in slow motion? Then again from several different angles? It's so powerful it gives me the tingles. I would liken it to the feeling I get when a 737 taxis to the runway and right before we take off, the engines get delivered the power they crave, and you are pushed back into your seat like you're inside the gravitron at the exhibition. Heh, gravitron.

Today was the official first day of the CaNoRock course, everyone arrived last night at about 11:30 pm, at which point I promptly got up to go to bed... and slept in halfway through breakfast! The jet-lag is mostly gone now however.

Several of us hanging out waiting for the last group of Oslo students to arrive.

69 degrees north

UGH! My Crown Royal I bought in Calgary airport was taken away by the Brits in Heathrow airport :( There was nothing I could do to keep it, as I didn't have access to my check-in luggage. There goes $35 - oh well (At least I didn't buy it here, where it would have been 3 times the price - we found out the hard way how expensive alcohol is here - a pint for 85 NOK or roughly $15 CAD!!). I have a feeling it's difficult to get too inebriated in Norway.

time travel

So I've decided to host a little contest during my trip to Norway. I'm going to come up with questions, and whoever answers them first properly gets ROCKET (tm)* points from me! I'm not sure how they will be used yet, but I'll come up with something... Perhaps I'll ask the friendly Norwegians if I can have one of their real live POLAR BEARS to bring home to the winner. The first question is going to be really easy, What is the name of the place shown in the image below? (Hint: My final destination)