I have always been the outdoor type. Growing up in the California desert, we had a ranch where we raised rabbits commercially. There were about seven ranches grouped together, so all of us kids hung out together. Rockhounding, hunting snakes, lizards, and jackrabbits, riding horses or motorcycles. As a family, we did a lot of hiking, camping, fishing, and hunting.
Of course, all that sun exposure is now why I have to see the dermatologist every six months. But given the chance to do it over, I doubt I would change anything.
Interesting anecdote about my dad:
He worked for NASA as an Electronics Engineer during the Apollo program. While he was working there, two historical events occurred that had never before occurred in the history of humankind. He worked out at the Mars Deep Space communications station.
Goldstone Tracking StationIn preparation for the Moon landing, NASA needed to know things like how far away is the Moon, how much fuel is needed, etc. To measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon, they would fire a laser at the surface and see how long it takes for the light to travel there and back. It was not a very good system because the light would scatter when it hit rocks or craters on the Moon's surface. But since no one had been there before, it was all they had.
One of the many tasks my dad did was to align the telescope. Our veterans and shooters will be familiar with boresighting. My dad had to look through a small telescope up on the dish and align the dish with a point on the Moon's surface. Then the operators would set the dish's settings accordingly and they could easily move the dish to those coordinates and it would be pointing at the Moon.
During Apollo 8 when astronaut Lovell and crew were going to orbit the moon for the first time, as they traveled around the back side of the moon there was no line-of-sight and thus no communications with the spacecraft. Using geometry and knowing the distance to the Moon and its diameter, they could calculate the circumference. Knowing how fast the craft was traveling they could calculate how long the craft would be out of communication with Mission Control. It turns out that their calculations were wrong.
But the first time the craft went behind the Moon and lost communications was the first time in human history that a human being could not see Earth. Think about that.
The second event was during Apollo 11 when Neil Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the Moon's surface. One of the greatest achievements in human history and my dad worked for NASA and helped with that mission. But at the moment when that happened, my dad was not at work. He was on a camping trip with me!
We went backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. We spent eight days hiking 53 miles of the John Muir Trail. One morning as we were having breakfast, one of the other members of our party was listening to a portable radio. He said, "Well, we have now walked on the Moon."
While the astronauts were there, one of their projects was to install large prisms to act as mirrors. Now when they fire lasers at the Moon's surface they get very accurate data and know exactly how far away it is. All the Conspiracy Theorists who say that the Moon Landing never happened can't explain how those mirrors got there. They can be seen from Earth, so we know they are there.
