Long day driving back from  armonk. The whole way back I was thinking about Elijah and his family. Visiting hours are tomorrow and memorial service is on Wednesday..    Can’t get his family out of my mind.. Guess I shouldn’t let them out of my mind..

Seems a strange segue to this story I’ve been wanting to tell.. but maybe not so strange.. I got down to the Vibes late Saturday afternoon . one of the first people I saw was my friend Dave from the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport.     He seemed really eager to tell me something. The last three years we’ve seen each other at the Vibes. Dave and his friend Jeff have set up their 10″ telescope to show hippies the heavens.. it’s been really fun. Last year.. or was it the year before ? .. I gave dave a samstone..  .. He reached in his pocket and brought out that samstone.. then told me an amazing story. he and some students helped design some instrumentation for a low space rocket flight.. Along with the instrumentation, Dave put the samstone. One day in July that payload was mounted on a very large rocket and was launched into sub-orbital space about 60 miles about the earth’s surface.. It left the earths atmosphere.. then a few moments later came hurtling back towards the planet.. it landed somewhere in the atlantic ocean. One of the instruments was a radio beacon.. which allowed the whole instrument package .. including the samstone to be fished from the ocean…

 

The first samstone in space.. can you beleive it ? It’s always been one of my goals to do this.. and now its happened.. It’s amazing the ways Sam’s spirit still moves in the world..

 

 

 

I am so greatful to dave and his students for putting this stone in space.. it means so much to me.. I know dave has a movie of the launch. I’ll post that when I get it too !

 

Here are a few views we got through Daves scope that night.. Here’s saturn   

 

and the moon.     

 

it’s a an amazing,sometimes sad , and wonderful world isn’t it.. ?

 

ntite all, nite sam

-me