Dryden

These last couple of days at Dryden have been incredible! After our 2-hour van ride to Palmdale yesterday, we checked in at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility Visitor Control Center to get badged.

Our first view of Dryden

Once inside the campus, we toured the hangar, which NASA has leased for the last few years. In the past, the hangar was used for movies such as The Terminal and Pirates of the Caribbean, but now it houses NASA science planes, such as SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) and our own DC-8.

The DC-8 in the hangar -- just imagine it's the Black Pearl

The DC-8

We had the opportunity to see the DC-8 up close and in person for the first time--in fact, so up close that we explored it, sticking our heads in every nook and cranny and getting to know our shared office space for the next week.

Me in the escape hatch to the cargo hold as Rafe Day, a member of Don Blake's group, looks on

SOFIA, seen from the side door of the DC-8

 The crates for the Whole Air Sampler canisters (left) and the MASTER instrument (right) on the DC-8

Me and my roomie, in the bottom hatch of the DC-8

We also learned how NASA scientists plan instrument integration on their science flights, as well as how the meteorology and scheduling considerations impact flight planning. Then, Friday afternoon, we bent tubing to connect the canisters to the WAS and loaded up what the Blake group calls "snakes": rows of canisters that load into the crates.

Bending the tubing for the Whole Air Sampler -- a team effort! (courtesy of NSERC: http://www.nserc.und.edu/learning/SARPmm.html?2011)

The WAS snakes waiting to be loaded on the plane

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted and had the post-work debrief in the jacuzzi, which was the relaxing end we needed to our first week as (makeshift) NASA scientists.