Tuesday, October 25, 2011

NASA Radar Dish


With out getting technical; which I can't because I don't know the ins and outs of it; there are computers behind this door. I do know that they looked very complicated and that was enough for me; and as I was taught as a child they also looked expensive; so I didn't touch them. (thanks Mom & Dad)





Not like wiring up cable and stereo. What do you do when it's not working? Uh..replace the yellow cable? Moving on; the computers are fed information from the dish on the hill. You know the golf ball things you see at airports and such.



I always thought they were much bigger...much bigger!



It was so windy and cold I would've gotten in through a mouse hole. I hope this isn't a door to Wonderland..nope no Rabbits here...or maybe.....


Nope..it really is a dish. It's 30 feet in circumference. Wait how come we only get three TV stations? I'm calling Direct TV! My guide told me to make sure I stayed up against the wall of the ball, which is incidentally made of a material that sounds and feels like a drum. He said what time it would start tracking and how long for.....


Wait! His cell phone has signal? It is a live feed or info or whatever..it's on!!!! NASA has all the perks! Wonder if they need cooks? So the dish was scheduled to track a NASA satellite moving some insane speed like 165,000 MPH. I figured the dish would move fast, but you'll see its quite the opposite. (You'll see) The dish tracks all the satellites that cross the continent. So a really loud buzzer sounds, similar to a buzzer at a basketball game, and a red light....



Once it moves from its resting (neutral) position you can see the business end of the dish.



...Lights....Buzzer....Action!


....the tracking took 12 minutes. Here is a short video. The clicking you can hear is it tracking....real slow. The speed the dish moves is dependent on where the satellite crosses in regards to the horizon.



So that's all for now. Until next time.............
                                                                             

                                                              ..............Cooking on Ice

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Sorry to be greedy but we need longer videos. Less than a minute doesn't give us even a portion of what you are seeing. Listen anything you want from home let me know I will try and send.

    ReplyDelete