HIGH Tech in Gig Harbor

It is 10:11 am on Jan. 21, and the crowd in the Galaxy Gig Harbor theater complex are awed into silence by this announcement from Galaxy CEO, Frank Rimkus regarding the location of International Space Station Expedition 18.

Going at a rate of 17,500 miles per hour, I think they are over the South Pacific right now…

The still picture on the big screen in Theater 6 (capacity of 500 and where students from Peninsula School District are waiting in the wings to ask their questions of astronauts Mike Fincke and Sandra Magnus) flicks over to live feed video of the ground station responsible for actually doing the hooking up, and we’re off to a running start.

Kareen Borders, by all accounts THE person responsible for making this historic event happen by “bugging NASA until they gave in,” and Key Peninsula Middle School science teacher, addresses attendees in several theaters on each of their respective screens. She praises this partnership between business and education as bringing badly-needed cutting-edge technological achievement to students—opening their eyes to the world of science and hopefully to all that can be achieved through it. Including jobs that might not even exist yet.

When a disembodied voice announces that they are ready, the screens fill with the visages of Mike and Sandra in their royal blue uniforms emblazoned with the American flag and floating, bouncing—Sandra’s brown hair sticking up all around her head. We are mesmerized as we realize, Hey! They are in space! An appreciative murmur could be heard as Mike says they are “ready” the same time Kareen Borders thanks them. Little bit of a time lag between the theater and the space station but surprisingly not a time lag between Mike and Sandra and us as their mouth movements coincide with the audio.

Questions ranged from What is it like to sleep? Mike: We sleep in a sleeping bag that’s tethered down—that’s important, to “What are the effects on a human body staying in space so long?, Sandra: Calcium leaks out of our bones…similar to osteoporosis…we counter the effects through ingestion of calcium and exercise, to a thought-provoking question, How do you get resistance to use for exercising [due to lack of gravity]?, Sandra: Pulling against a vacuum [one of a few machines that helps].

There were at least a dozen kids who asked questions—sometimes relaying questions from kids from out of state and a few technologically science-savvy questions that had us adults scratching our heads.

The light bouncing and floating (and Sandra’s hair) were a little disconcerting to watch at first, but with Mike doing somersaults and sipping juice (letting fly a couple of big droplets that he then gobbled up mid-air), he entertained the crowd while Sandra answered questions.

At one point Sandra pointed out that they were basically human guinea pigs (which they were happy to be, don’t-get-her-wrong) to gauge how humans fare long-term in outer space and collecting all the data that would help for future long-term endeavors to the moon or even, Mars. As Mike put it, How much do we really need to survive or better yet, how little?

They have already learned how to make oxygen, recycle their urine, and harness solar energy for all their energy needs.

The astronauts were clearly enjoying themselves and the audience even more so as we caught a glimpse of life in outer space via Sandra’s and Mike’s answers.

As the downlink winded down and the astronauts waved their final goodbyes, there was a feeling that something magically momentous just happened.

Galaxy CEO Frank Rimkus then reiterated that even though there have been downlinks happening since 2001, with only a few in the last two years, this was the first time that it happened between the private sector and public education. He was proud that they were able to offer an educational entity the use of the state-of-the-art equipment that their Galaxy Uptown theater provided and to which most schools don’t have access to. He thanked the local Rotary Clubs for getting together funding to bus the students and acknowledged the presence of representatives from the Gates Foundation, the Paul G. Allen Foundation, the Russell Foundation, and the President of Washington Roundtable. Contingents from McChord AFB, Fort Lewis and Bremerton’s naval community were present as well as representatives for Gov. Gregoire and Sen. Derek Kilmer, whom Rimkus also acknowledged.

But ultimately, it was the presence of the students themselves that brought energy and purpose to such an event, and thanks to the formation of community and business partnerships, they were given an opportunity to embark on the right road in their journey to compete in a global workforce.

Guest Author: Mimi Jansen, Communications Coordinator

Tacooma-Pierce Co. Chamber

It never works out the way you want

Hi... I'm Tim. I am the blogger who works for the UW Tacoma Library, Gary introduced me a few weeks back. Anyway, I had hoped to get a story from Sound Transit on the expanded wi-fi service that they have introduced, but, unfortunately they have been very, very slow in getting back to me about the questions I have.

I guess I'll have to write about Amazon's announcement today that they are targeting the Kindle to the college crowd. I have previously written about the Kindle for my work blog and if you scroll through those articles you'll see that I'm not overly enamored with the device. Basically, my complaint is that it's a uni-tasker and in a world where people have hand held, touch based , multi tasking computing like the iPod Touch I can't see anything beyond a niche market for these devices. But I will admit that this new idea of selling e-textbooks on the Kindle seems like it holds a lot of promise.

Imagine, you're doing a group project and you show up to the meeting with a single device that has not only all the textbooks for this class, but all the textbooks you have used throughout your program. They are searchable, you can write notes in the margins, and they are the ultimate in a portable library. That's pretty heady stuff.

But stuff like that is probably 10 years away.

In the mean time, they will have to overcome an academic culture that is generally slow to adopt new technology. Already it's difficult to get many faculty to assign e-books to their students (though that's already happening at a faster and faster rate) in order for it to be a "mobile library" a majority of the faculty will need to assign e-books. Otherwise the Kindle is just another thing a student has to carry around in their already overloaded bookbag.

Students too might be wan to adopt the new technology. I can't see faculty assigning students to read e-books as the only option and so, unless the e-book is significantly cheaper, many people will opt for the handy old paper version. A paper book has some cache still; it can be resold, lent, borrowed, bent, marked, and is a generally sturdy storage device.

At $350, the Kindle unit is too is costly and since it's a uni-tasker students will again need to see a significant savings on their textbooks if there's any hope on Amazon's part that they will adopt them. In a day and age when a eeepc is a mere $500, why on earth would a poor college student want to buy a Kindle?

Which brings me to the last hurdle; technology is changing rapidly. Just look at the next generation OLPC; there's a folding screen, it's touch activated, and it already looks and acts just like a book. Not only that, but it's also a computer. A student can use that to read an e-book, write up their paper, chat with their group, email their professor, and play a video game.

As good an idea as selling e-textbooks to students might seem at first glance, it's devices like the next generation OLPC that are going to be in every college student's hands in 10 years.

If you ask me.