A bit of a long-winded digression today, but as a physical scientist at heart I can’t help myself. I’m riled. (Riled to the point of considering expanding the rant to follow into an article submission to the journal Ground Water or perhaps Arid Environments…) Allow me to explain. Industry vs. Academia First, for those who […]
Read More Forward Backward Thinking: Pipelines and Deep TimeWell, this is again a tactical time of transition for me. I’ve worked the last two years as a geohydrologist with Parsons in the deep Neavda wilderness performing hydrologic and meteorological measurements and analyses for the Southern Neavda Water Authority. Tomorrow, due to budget cuts, is my last day. I’ve been lucky enough to use this […]
Read More Leaving Hydrology, back to SpectroscopyA short note, today, on something that struck me while out in the east-central Nevada project area for work: Remote fieldwork = contingency planning. That’s really all there is to it. Take my latest trip this week, for example. In our project area, we’re really off the grid. What we call a road can at […]
Read More Contingency PlansHalfway into the 21-st Century aughts, I landed a job as a scientist in the Environmental Restoration program at the Nevada Test Site. This amounted to the study, clean-up, and documentation of contamination left over from the glory days of above-ground nuclear weapon tests. I wanted fieldwork that other astronaut-hopefuls wouldn’t be getting, and boy […]
Read More Getting up to speed, part 2. (Space update)
Chronicles of an Atomic Astrowright 