Those of you who know me already know the reasons for my current fascination with things in space. For those of you outside the loop, check out the Wikipedia entry for my friend Sunita.
For some reason, today I almost fell while walking down the hall thinking about 1G (ie. one gravity) reactions we take for granted. I don’t know what neurons fired in my head, but whatever combinations they were made me consciously think about my next step. While thinking about it, then, I almost missed where to place my next foot. Weird.
The moral of this post, I suppose, is not to take gravity for granted (or otherwise, forget about it totally and move on).
March 28th, 2007 | 
Earthbound Marathon Rendevous
For those of you who followed her exploits, you’ll remember it was exactly one year ago that she was orbiting 500 miles above the planet in the ISS when she last ran this particular race. So, it’s quite an accomplishment to have her feet back on the ground and running another 26 miles (this time with the pull of 1G rather than the simulated effects of the straps holding her to the treadmill).
Anyway, she tells me she and her sister have just crossed into Framingham and wondered if we were along the route somewhere. I told her we hadn’t planned on it, but that I’d bundle up the family and we’d intercept her somewhere to cheer them on. I shout to the kids to drop the shovels and that we’re going on a mission, to which my daughter starts singing the theme to her favorite show:
Mission Time: 11:05am EDT: Fortunately, my wife’s a marathon runner and could roughly gauge their speed. Assuming Suni called when she first entered Framingham, she calculated where she’d be in about 30 minutes.
Mission Time: 11:20am EDT: We find a parking spot near Natick center, and deploy the troops. Since I used to live with my brother in the area, I had a good sense for where we could park close to the route.
Mission Time: 11:30am EDT: We arrive at the corner of Routes 135 and 27 where I take and upload a snapshot to Twitxr – Twitter – Flickr.
Mission Time: 11:35am EDT: Success! Dina and Suni run by as the Adams Clan hoot as loud as we can, hoping to be heard over the noise of the crowd, cheering them on.
Mission Time: 11:45am EDT: Return trip to resume the previous gardening activity.
I’m not entirely sure everyone else will find this as amusing as I did… but I find it hilarious that (a) Suni called while running, (b) she thought we’d be able to get somewhere to see her run by, (c) we were able to calculate the intercept trajectory, and (d) be accurate within 10 minutes.
Then again… Suni’s used to much greater odds in a successful rendezvous.