Yes, it is rocket science

"It's not rocket science" is a common expression to indicate that some activity is not difficult. Well, at AeroAstro, it is rocket science. And space science.

If you haven't taken a look at the history of AeroAstro when clicking over to check out the tracking map, I urge you to do so. You might find it interesting, especially if you, like me, haven't given much thought to private space activity.

At one point in its evolution AeroAstro built its own rocket engines, and the top picture in this series is a rocket engine that decorates the hallway in the AeroAstro offices. Models of satellites launched by AeroAstro are suspended from the ceiling joists. Pictures of rocket tests are on the wall. Even if you didn't know you were dealing with rocket science there, you could tell pretty quickly you were dealing with rockets.

I got to the AeroAstro offices in Ashburn, Virginia about mid-afternoon Friday. Todd had led me out of Hyde Park on some very interesting and scenic back roads. The kind of back roads people on motorcycles live to ride. I know that I'm heading back to Hyde Park on the bike some day so Todd can show me some more of those roads. I can remember when Todd was very young, pre-teen even, I talked about how it would be fun to take a cross country motorcycle trip with him. The response of several of my friends then was that I'd be too old to ride that far when he was old enough to go. They were wrong. I'm not too old, but it does take me longer to recover than it used to.

At AeroAstro the communications team members were sporting their trip t-shirts, and took a break from their activities to give me a tour of the place. There are no offices. Even the CEO, Dr. Rick Fleeter, occupies a space defined by the same low partitions that identify the work areas for the different teams. Outside each area is a white board so that ideas, phone numbers, names and other important information can be communicated to anyone walking by the board.

Aside from the restrooms, the only rooms in the place that were closed were the clean rooms where electronic devices are assembled. Kim told me that each of the workers in the clean rooms wore grounding devices. I asked if that were to prevent the workers from being zapped, but it is the other way around. The grounding devices keep the workers from zapping electronic circuits by conducting static electricity.

The communications team came out to the bike for a team picture. From left to right they are Pia Miranda (savior of two trips), Kim Irving (public relations director), Santiago Ferrer (the most patient customer service rep who tried to talk me through the restart of the original tracker by phone while I was in a rest area off I-10) and David Goldstein (General Manager). They have their hands on the tracker that is mounted on the bike. I appreciate the effort of the AeroAstro folks, and hope that you have enjoyed the tracking link. And, if you have a need for tracking, make your first call to AeroAstro.

Kim arranged for a local newspaper reporter to come interview the communications team and me about the effort. And, demonstrating once more that we inhabit a very small world, the reporter, Megan Kuhn of Leesburg Today is from Columbia. Her journalism teacher at Spring Valley High School was Chris McDonald who recently earned both a journalism masters degree and law degree from USC. Megan's father, Chuck Kuhn, is an adjunct professor in the USC Social Work School.

The final photo is of Santiago trying the bike on for size. The red bag behind him is the dry bag used for storing my cold weather riding gear. Fortunately, by the time I got to the Washington area I was able to return some of the cold weather gear to the bag.

Leaving AeroAstro I managed to get caught in Washington area Friday afternoon escape traffic. It took me two hours to go about 11 miles. Once I was on I-95 I was in bumper-to-bumper traffic almost all the way to Richmond. I figured that at the pace I was moving, I wasn't much faster than the armies that had moved through the area several times between 1861 and 1865. Starting with the exit sign for Gettysburg in Pennsylvania and continuing through Petersburg in Virgina, almost every exit led to the site of a Civil War battle.

When I left Hyde Park it had been my plan to make it home Friday. Darkness, procrastination and old age caught up with me in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. I called it quits for the night, lamenting that I had enhanced Todd and Sharon's liquor cabinet by leaving the gin and vermouth behind figuring I'd have my Friday night martini at home. The bar in the cheap motel where I stopped had karaoke which was enough to persuade me to skip the martini.

I rode home Saturday morning, arriving about noon. I had predicted that my arrival would cure the drought in the Southeast, and, thanks to a tropical depression that crossed Florida and moved up the coast, the rain and I arrived in South Carolina at the same time.

Even though I have made it home, I have a couple more posts if you will bear with me. The delay in getting this post up is due to inertia (a body at rest tends to remain at rest) and a malfunction in my wi-fi portal at home.