Bart Bear's Blog

Highlight of the week was the Reunion commemorative lunch on Sunday. This was organized by a group of the people who tracked the Apollo missions from the 3 tracking stations near Canberra. The organizer was John Saxon, the guy that Mum is with in the photo. He was the Operations Supervisor actually at the controls of Honeysuckle Creek during the landing. At exactly 50 years after the landing, a copy of the original video was projected on several large screens. I think the name badges we had are the best I have ever seen and mine is safely tucked away in my "special things" box. Mum's father had a crucial role in getting the data from Apollo 11 to the world. He was the PMG supervisor in charge of keeping the communication lines between the tracking stations and the Australian overseas networks operating during the mission. Mum remembers that he was extremely busy and a bit stressed that day. Naturally, we collected a lot of souvenirs during the week. The Oldies like the shot glasses from the lunch and "christened" them with Benedictine as soon as they got home. I got a small bear sized Newton's cradle and still haven't managed to get all of the balls moving at once. Dad explained the physics to me, but I just have fun with it. The thing I am really waiting to get started on is the model kit of the Apollo 11 spacecraft. I aim to have Columbia in orbit and Eagle on the Moon's surface, it should look great.

Labels: Canberra, space

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of possibly the most historic event ever - the landing of Eagle, the Lunar lander of the Apollo 11 mission, on the Moon. Naturally, we tried to get to as many of the events leading up to this as possible. Canberra has many links to the Apollo missions. There were 3 NASA tracking stations in the valleys just west of Canberra, at Tidbinbilla, Orroral Valley and Honeysuckle Creek. The TV coverage of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the Lunar surface came from Honeysuckle!!! "The Dish" at Parkes took over later on. One of the things that I did last week was to see the huge Moon globe suspended above a display and lecture room at Questacon, our national science and technology centre. You can walk around the globe and see it from several floors and it has all the features that the many Lunar missions have mapped. Another very special thing was to actually touch a tiny piece of the Moon. NASA has lent Geoscience Australia a tiny slice of polished rock collected by the Apollo 17 mission. It is the only piece in the southern hemisphere than can be touched, the other samples are too scientifically precious. Maybe I am the first small bear to touch a bit of the Moon. I have held meteorites, which also are from space, but to touch the Moon is a real high.

Labels: Canberra, space

Mum retired from work last week. Yay!!! That means that we will have lots more time to do interesting stuff. One of the things that I am keen on is getting the Oldies into better shape so that they will be really fit for our next big adventure (coming in a couple of months, just watch this space...). Walking around the lakes is a good way to do this, and our walk around Lake Burley Griffin on Wednesday had a fantastic added bonus. While we were walking, the new Chief of Air Force was being sworn in and there was a flypast of the new aircraft types that gone into RAAF service during the term of the previous Chief. So we picked a spot on the lake shore under the flightpath  and got a look at aircraft we had not seen before. We had to depend on Mum's iPhone for photos; Dad's camera is great for zoom but lousy on fast imaging. Here are  what we saw. The P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine maritime surveillance aircraft; the EA-18 Growler, the electronic warfare version of the FA-18 Super Hornet; the brand-new F-35 Lightning II strike fighter; and the Pilatus PC-21 trainers of the RAAF's aerobatic team, the Roulettes. Now I have the task of getting the Oldies to an airshow where I can get closer looks at these new aircraft, and the old stuff that Dad is so hooked on.

Labels: aircraft, Canberra