On arrival in the USA we were a little bit jet lagged but the excitement and anticipation and 50g of sugar per can of "soda" are keeping us awake. We checked into the County Inn in Mountain View around 4pm and relaxed by the pool for a while. Then Lynn Rothschild and Rocco Mancinelli, who are the NASA scientists from the Exobiology Branch joining us on this expedition, along with our own Olly came to meet us. Exobiology is the study of life beyond Earth which nicely ties into our High Altitude Bioprospecting (HAB) project.
We followed them to one of the Rocket Mavericks (Mavs) houses, Rob, where some of the huge rockets were being constructed. The Mavs are a group of amazingly clever people with an enthusiasm for things that go BOOM! Some of the Mavs' aims are to solve some of the problems associated with space exploration including making it more affordable. We also met Tom Atchison, who runs the Mavericks and who we were going to be staying with the following evening.
Olly showed us how his experiment was going to fit inside the rocket - it was a tight squeeze. We also got to handle some M grade rocket propellant (a.k.a. fuel) which is illegal to fly with in Britain. By this time we were all really tired so we had some dinner (at a burger chain called Johnny Rockets!) and then went to bed.
After picking up some much needed camping supplies at IKEA we headed to the NASA Ames Research Centre and scrapped through the tight security. We then went to the Exobiology Department where we saw Lynn and Rocco's lab. For lunch we had massive US sized burritos from the NASA canteen.
Olly also demonstrated the radio frequency modems which would allow his computer to communicate with the electronics of the experiment. There was a tense moment when the ribbon cable attached to the circuit board began to smoke like a barbeque which could have meant the end of our expedition. Luckily however no permanent damage occurred. Phew!
Tom then came to meet us and we began the long journey to his house in the mountains around Lake Tahoe. Joe travelled in Tom's car which was full of explosives and had a long chat to Tom about the Mavs and their background. We arrived at his house which boasted breathtaking views of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains.
We woke up to a beautiful Californian morning and all was well... until we couldn't find one of Tom's cats. Afraid, he had wandered out and been eaten by the local wildlife, we searched high and low to find the little ginger cat with white socks. In the end he was stuck in a wall! After that adventurous morning, we set off for Reno to pick up the motorvan (RV) which would be our home in the desert. On the way, we stopped off at a supermarket and spent a large amount of dollars on food and supplies to last us for 10 days - there is only one tiny shop within 2 hours of Black Rocks so we needed to make sure we had everything we would need. As we left Reno, civilisation seemed to dwindle away until eventually the road gave way to a dirt track- which was nothing but sand, sand and more sand. By this time, the only lights were the stars in night sky shining magnificently bright. We sat outside for ages as this is something we don't see back in the UK.
Read the entries from Joe and Rainbow's blog.
Find out more about the scientists who lead our two winners on this expedition.
Joe and Rainbow created a video blog to share their experience of the expedition.
Watch the video
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