The power of Twitter comes through again! Goodness I love that wonderful tool!
So one of my followers is a JPL scientist and invited me to take a tour of the place. (What?! :-))
So, I don’t want to try to talk too too science-y, ’cause I don’t wanna come off as the idiot who went to JPL for a day and now pretends like she totally gets all that awesome scientist stuff.
(Not to undercut myself too much. I mean, I like to think I’m pretty smart. But I went to high school for musical theater and didn’t finish college (which was a music conservatory anyway). So, um, what do I know about science? Not enough!
But there were definitely things I didn’t think about that needed to be taken into account when building things and being scientists and jazz.
Did you know that they have different models of the Mars Rover to simulate different things? Gravity is different on Mars than on Earth, so they have a weight-adjusted lighter robot to help simulate how it will actually move along the ground.
Makes total sense after hearing it, but not something I would’ve thought about before.
Basically, I got taken around to all the super cool spots – the Mars Yard, the big control center, the place where I could see what was being built for the future. It was pretty darn dope.
Did you also know JPL has an artist-in-residence?! That’s right, even one of the most science-y of all science places recognizes the awesome value of art! There’s a light structure/installation thing that shows when we’re receiving information from Mars and when we’re emitting it. It’s really beautiful watching the lights pass in different directions.
It was an awesomely fun fascinating day, and I’m kind of ready to become an astronaut now. 😉