Printer-friendly version

15 August 2003

E-Bulletin Backscatter

Conference Kudos

Shawn, Nancy, Sheldon, and the inevitable others behind the scenes:

Thank you for organizing another highly successful gathering.

The excellent presentations and the opportunities to meet with other members made the long wait since last year finally worthwhile.

From the increased attendance I think it is fair to conclude that the first conference really was as inspiring as it felt at the time.

I stayed on in Pasadena to attend the first four days of the 6th International Mars Conference, conveniently also at Caltech. There I met a woman from JPL who had an interesting story to tell.

After doing graduate work in atmospheric chemistry she was unable to find a research job so she went to work for a water purification company. I don't know what she did there but it sounded like she was a bored bench technician. Still wanting to keep up with planetary atmospheres though, she used her own money to subscribe to the professional journals and used her annual vacation days to attend the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences meetings, wherever they happened to be held.

One day she got so fed up with working outside of her true field interest that she simply contacted someone she had met from JPL and asked if they had any job openings. He said no but he and others created a position for her anyway. They did this because they remembered "this woman who kept showing up from a water purification company" even though they had forgotten most of the many other planetary scientists who were from the usual institutions and who had entirely predictable backgrounds.

I love this as an example of how love of a subject and explicitly not being part of the "system" got a competent person into a research role.

I also spent plenty of time listening to people from NASA rant about the horrific, often chilling, influence of politics on their research. We amateurs might be justified in complaining about having to pay for everything ourselves but we should remember to be grateful for the freedom that we have.

SAS is definitely an idea whose time has come.

Brian Chapel

Chemiluminescence

Dear Sheldon:

I am very glad that you published the column on "Cold Light: Chemiluminescence of Lophine" by Norm Stanley. I like doing chemical experments, especially organic ones. Keep up the good work.

Craig Kendrick Sellen

Are You Ready for a Space Trip?

Nancy,

Click: http://spacewander.com/USA/english.html

As you journey, read the dialog in the space below the radar screen.

Enjoy - all expenses paid.

Ray Lahr

Editor's Note: This is really a fun site with a very well-done "tour" of the universe. We'd like to thank Ray for sending this link to us. -SG