Black Rock Desert Blog: days 9-10

Day nine - 21 July 2010

We started the day with more samples but became increasingly concerned with the expansion of base camp by the arrival of more people. Because of the effect this may have on the microbe count we elected to relocate.

There was a geyser a few miles from the playa and in the afternoon the team went to investigate. In order to reach it we had to cross a scrubland - potential hazards you need to watch out for in this area are scorpions and rattlesnakes but we reached the geyser largely unscathed and were glad we had made the journey.

We came back in time to see some night rockets being launched by the Mavs and to meet Kyle (Lynn and Rocco's son) for the first time. The Mavs threw several varieties of explosives into a large wood fire contained in a washing machine drum, including brass balls, thermite and rocket propellant. KABLOOM!

Whilst entertaining, this light show also had the purpose of safely disposing of unused propellant.

Day ten - 22 July 2010

The Sony-Intel rocket was scheduled for today but it was uncertain if it would be ready at all. It was a humongous rocket with four p-grade rocket motors! Each one generates twice as much thrust as our single O motor rocket. We were planning to venture to a local hot spring pond to cool off but then learnt that launch was back on. After a lot of hanging around the Mavs launched the rocket with only minutes before the launch window closed for the day. There was a tense moment when the countdown had started but someone drove out to the launch site to make a last minute continuity check (the rocket wouldn't have ignited without it). We could tell something was wrong with the rocket when it veered off in one direction then sharply in another making it difficult to predict where the different rocket stages would land. Whilst the Mavs tried to recover their rocket parts we headed off to collect some air samples with the NASA team to the site of one of the several hot springs in the Black Rock area. The springs were 180°F and therefore a very interesting environment to look for extremophiles.

On the return journey our car got stuck in the sand of the dirt track road. It took us roughly an hour to escape by placing shrubs under the wheels to improve their grip. If we hadn't been able to get out ourselves we would have had to wait for help as it was far too hot to attempt to walk back to camp. This is why we always travelled with plenty of drinking water and made sure someone at camp always knew where we were going. 

By nightfall, the Mavs had still not recovered the booster. The payload had taken a hard hit and snapped into two.

That evening Rainbow assisted Ian, one of the Sony-Intel kids, in disassembling the payload and extracting the re-usable equipment.

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