Living the Disney Dream

Last week, my wife and I took our first ever cruise.  It was a four-day jaunt aboard the Disney Dream with a stop in Nassau, Bahamas and Castaway Cay, the Disney island.

Our first stop was Nassau, with an excursion to the aquarium at the Atlantis Resort.  The aquarium had been designed to resemble an archeological dig, chock full of artifacts from the lost city of Atlantis.  It was cheesy.  Our guide was very knowledgeable regarding fish.  She had the fictional details of the Atlantian history committed to memory, but her delivery was very wooden and unconvincing as if she were just reading from a script.

Our second stop was Castaway Cay.  There was a ton to do there.  You could parasail, windsurf, ride a jet ski, ride in a glass-bottom boat, snorkel, swim with the manta rays, bike or just lay on the beach.  They even had an adult beach which excluded anyone under 18 to provide a break for people like me whose children were already grown.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew going in that a Disney cruise would have kids so I’m not complaining about children being around.  But, it was nice to have the option to hang out in an area that was … quieter.

The Dream was a huge ship, though I really don’t have anything to compare it to.  The last time I was aboard any type of seagoing vessel was in the early 70s.  My older brother was stationed aboard the USS Dewey DLG-14 and they did a one-day family cruise out of Newport, RI.  I thought the Dewey was big but the Dream dwarfed the destroyer.

Of course, all things are relative.  In Nassau, we were docked next to the Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas.  That’s a big ship.  It’s the largest cruise ship in the world – two inches (or so) longer then her sister ship, Oasis of the Seas.  The Allure looked to be at least 25% bigger than the Dream.

There was plenty to do aboard the Dream.  Live shows, swimming, eating and the piece de resistance, the AquaDuck water slide.  The AquaDuckwas 765 feet of water ridin’ twists and turns.  It was awesome.

For the money, I think a cruise is a great deal.  Lots of food, lots of things to do; if you walk away bored or hungry you’ve only yourself to blame.  Any dissenting opinions?

Wild Ride

When I was in grammar school I went to Riverside Park (now a Six Flags Amusement Park).  The adult who organized the trip told the older kids not to force the younger children to partake of any rides they did not want to.  My older brother, Matt, was one of the chaperones and what he heard was, “Make your little brother go on every ride until he’s so sick he throws up.”

That trip to Riverside Park was my introduction to roller coasters.  Matt and one of his high school buddies coerced me into riding the Mickey Mouse, a coaster of dubious origins.  He and his evil crony made certain I knew two little kids had perished on the ride when a car overturned and plummeted to the ground, crushing the children.  In hindsight, I’m fairly certain they were just trying to scare me … they succeeded.

Understandably, as an adult, I avoided roller coasters.  I rationalized my decision by reasoning that roller coasters were dangerous.  And you know what?  Turns out … I was right.  There is evidence that frequent riding of roller coasters causes a host of health issues.  People with heart disease run the risk of having a cardiovascular event.  According to a 2000 article on the Science Daily website, roller coaster rides may trigger blood clots on the brain.  Lastly, in April 2010, Popular Mechanics reported that a rider suffered from barotraumas, major bruising of his ear canal and ear drum as the result of a jaunt on a on roller coaster.

I didn’t ride another roller coaster until 1999 when my family and I vacationed in Orlando and Disney World.  We’ve been back several times and I discovered I like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain®, the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster® Starring Aerosmith, Expedition Everest™ and my favorite, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror™.

But, I’m told by my children that those rides are tame.  I need to ride a “real” roller coaster like the Bizarro at Six Flags.  No thanks.  There are two reasons I find the Disney rides appealing.  They are at Disney, which automatically makes them safer (leave me my fantasies), and when you ride them you are enclosed in steel; your legs aren’t flopping in the breeze as you zoom around a track willy nilly.

There’s a coaster on the drawing board that I’m certain my kids would enjoy and I can guarantee you will never get me to ride – the zero gravity roller coaster.  BRC Imagination Arts is developing a zero gravity roller coaster, dubbed by some as a vomit coaster.  The idea is to allow the average person to experience zero gravity for about eight seconds.  Its inspiration is a NASA C-9 aircraft, the Vomit Comet, so named because many first timers lose their lunch on their initial dive.  The Vomit Comet executes steep dives which allow passengers to experience zero gravity for 23 – 30 seconds.  Not gonna happen!

I know where I stand regarding this forthcoming zero gravity coaster.  Is anyone interested in a controlled freefall?  Why?

Lake Vostok: Poland Springs – Eat Your Heart Out

There is a host of research bases located in Antarctica and they are run by a number of different countries, including the United States, China and Russia.  People at these stations study everything from weather to aeronomy, the study of the upper atmospheric regions of the Earth and other planets.  Antarctica is a chosen spot for research because the region is probably the most unspoiled area in the world with the cleanest air on earth.

The oldest station is Mawson Station.  It’s Australia’s oldest continuously inhabited Antarctic station having run since 1954.

There are hundreds of subglacial lakes of varying sizes under Antarctica’s miles-thick sheet of ice.  The Russians are the first to drill into one of those lakes.  Lake Vostok is under the Russian’s Vostok Research Station and on Sunday, 2/5/12, the Russians tapped into the lake.  There was a mixture of anticipation and trepidation within the scientific community leading up to the accomplishment.

The Russians used a combination of chemicals to prevent the five inch diameter drill hole from refreezing as they drilled.  Bear in mind, the coldest temperature ever recorded, -128.6 degree Fahrenheit below zero, was recorded at Vostok Station.  The use of the chemicals had some scientists concerned about the possibility of contaminating the lake.  To reduce the chance of contamination, the Russians completed the project, sans chemicals, by heating the drill.  The Huffington Post reported that the lake’s water pressure pushed any drilling liquids away from the lake.

Unfortunately, winter has arrived in Antarctica and the exploration of Lake Vostok has been suspended.

This is an exciting accomplishment.  The subglacial lakes are considered pristine environments because they haven’t been exposed to Earth’s atmosphere in millions of years.  Scientists wonder if life exists in any of these waters.  If so, they theorize there’s a chance that life could be present in the frigid waters of Jupiter’s moons.

I’m hopeful that life, even a single celled organism, is found in a sample from one of these lakes.  Maybe, that will help fuel some renewed interest in space.  If there’s even a remote possibility that there’s life “out there,” we need find it.

What do you think; does life in an earthly subglacial lake equate to alien life on a distant planet?

Russian Drill Penetrates 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake - Wired Science 2/6/2012

Stuck in Space

My delight with space isn’t a recent phenomenon connected solely with my employment in a space oriented business.  I’ve been enamored with space and space travel since I was a kid. 

Forty years ago, I did my 8^th grade year-long report on the history of the American space program.  I remember how jealous I was when a classmate wrote to the White House and received an invitation from President Nixon to attend the launch of Apollo 16.

I’ve made no secret of my distain for the United States’ lack of homegrown transportation to the International Space Station (ISS).  So, imagine my disgust when I saw it announced online that the Russian rocket Soyuz had another issue. 

Back in August 2011, an unmanned Russian Progress cargo craft using a Soyuz rocket, which was destined for the ISS, crashed.  It didn’t even reach orbit.  As result, we had to wait for a thorough investigation before we sent any U.S. astronauts to the station.

Now, there’s another issue.  The return capsule of the Soyuz craft failed a factory leak test; it cracked.  I’m not a rocket scientist, but even I know a crack in a spaceship is a bad thing.  This was supposed to be the vehicle that would bring the astronauts home from the ISS.  NASA says this latest setback won’t extend the current mission an inordinate amount of time, but our reliance on the Russians makes me ill.

I know American have had our share of space related problems; I get that.  But that’s not my issue.  I’m peeved that we don’t control our own destiny in regards to space travel.  The fact we don’t have our own transportation to the ISS, and won’t for a number of years is extremely shortsighted.  It’s an ongoing issue.  We’re losing our edge in space!

What do you think about this whole debacle?