An update on my vertiginous first few days in Alaska so far. I made it to the frozen north on Saturday night (Sunday early morning?) and immediately flipped my schedule to awake-all-night, asleep-all-day. On top of that, I chaired a few virtual conference sessions at odd middle-of-the-night hours (India time zones), did some media interviews with news outlets back home, and tried to keep up with some other hectic business back in Iowa. The lesson is: time gets weird quick if you don't have any anchor points.
From here, things should settle into a better pattern. I haven't been out to the rocket range yet - that starts tomorrow night. My "days" should look like this: Wake up 2 or 3pm. Walk, ski, or snowshoe and get a couple hours of daylight. Dinner at 5pm either out or in the apartment. Drive to the rocket range at 7pm, arrive by 8. Launch window is officially open midnight to 4am each night. Leave rocket range at 4? 5? to drive back to Fairbanks. Wind down quickly (I hope) and asleep by 7am-ish.
So far, have done a few quintessential Alaskan things, such as watched moose walking by the highway, fishtailed through multiple intersections (it snowed a few inches last night; it's just the Alaskan way to drive), and visited the Chena Hot Springs for a soak.
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| Face in the snow is the best way to cool down briefly before re-immersing in the springs. (Picture from google) |
There hasn't been an opportunity for much aurora-viewing yet. The skies have been cloudy or the activity has been low. Last night there was some very decent substorm activity as measured by the GOES spacecraft magnetometers on the nightside of Earth but Fairbanks and Poker were completely clouded over (seems to be the way it goes more often than not).
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| See all the spiky bits early on Feb 22? That's the good stuff. |
A couple nights ago, my grad student, Riley, caught some good aurora from up in Venetie, 150 miles north of here. He was up there setting up some ground instrumentation, staying in a one-room dry cabin (no running water) so small that the two people stationed there have to push their cots to the side during the day to sit at the table and use their computers. The excitement never ends. I'll leave you with his shot of the outdoor observatory hut and aurora above.
