Saket Vora

I picked up a book at the Air & Space Museum last Sunday called Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race, by Dave Scott and Alexei Leonov.

This attracted me because I had never done much reading about the Soviet space program and my opinion of Dave Scott as an astronaut has grown since From the Earth to the Moon was released. Scott flew on Gemini 8, Apollo 9, and Apollo 15. He was the 7th man to step foot on the moon and their mission on the moon was the first to include the Lunar Rover. Alexei Leonov was the first man to perform a space walk, rose to be one of the most highly respected and brilliant cosmonauts in the Soviet Union, and later commanded the Soviet side of the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission, where an American crew and Russian crew met each other in space for the first time.

As some of you may know, I’m an unabashed spaceflight nut with a keen interest in early American spaceflight. For years my walls have been covered with photos from the moon missions. During middle school, I must have read a dozen books on the subject, so it felt good to get back into this subject.

Scott and Leonov alternate telling their respective stories, keeping in step with each other on a common timeline. They begin with their remarkably different childhoods and upbringings. Scott always had wanted to follow his father’s footsteps and be a pilot. His father was in the Air Force and moved around some. Leonov dreamed of being an artist, but was enchanted with being a pilot when a Soviet pilot visited his apartment complex when he was young. Ultimately, when the top art school in Moscow proved too costly to attend, he enrolled into the top pilot academy instead. Leonov is frank about the stark difference that growing up in the Communist Soviet Union entailed. When he was a child his father was labeled an ‘enemy of the state’ and his large family lost everything except the clothes on their back. They joined his uncle and eleven people shared a single room apartment for 2 years, with Leonov sleeping on the floor under a bed. He barely had shoes to wear in the frigid Russian winters.

As the book rogresses into their early piloting years, the reader begins to see the many similarities they shared. Leonov was part of the first group of Russians to be selected for cosmonaut training, and his perspective of the Soviet space program and the lives of the other astronauts are illuminating. Here, and in later parts of the book, I particularly enjoyed seeing how different the cosmonaut training and daily lives were compared to the American astronauts. Leonov was amazed at how the Americans ate whatever and whenever they wanted, and how they had no regular physical training. The cosmonauts, on the other hand, were under a strict diet and intensive physical regime. The quality of living between the two astronaut corps was interesting as well.

A strength of Two Sides of the Moon is that the feelings, thoughts, and opinions of Scott and Leonov come across as honest and immediate. We see them when the Soviets score a new achievement, and when America takes the lead. In the second half, David Scott’s sections are longer and more detailed, understandly so because of his Apollo 9 and Apollo 15 experiences, both extremely difficult and challenging missions. Leonov describes how the untimely death of Sergei Pavelovich Korolev, the brilliant engineer and ‘Chief Architect’ of the Soviet space program, was a fatal blow to their momentum. Poor decisions and ineffective management spelled doom for Russian’s shoot to the moon.

The book also describes the times that the Americans and Soviets met each other, at conferences or joint meetings. Their interactions were fun to read, because of the mutual respect they had for each other and the humorous encounters with the other’s cultures. The Americans would sometimes not show up for breakfast or dinner, though the Russians had carefully planned every minute of the day. Nor did they care much for a late breakfast of raw sturgeon and vodka either. Leonov, on his first visit to America, was amazed at how American could buy whatever they wanted wherever they wanted. The American astronauts had far more freedoms than their Soviet counterparts.

Two Sides of the Moon is an engaging and informative read and I highly recommend it those interested in this subject. For those looking for an introductory look into the Apollo space program, I recommend Andrew Chaiken’s A Man on the Moon

I spent the whole day Saturday getting a new photo gallery system for this website up and running, and I’ve very pleased with the results. All my pictures from Europe, my summer, and even my family’s pictures can now be viewed here: http://www.saketvora.com/gallery

As I was configuring the program, a wonderful open-source project called Gallery2, I discovered that someone had written a Google Maps plug-in for the photo gallery. This is something I have been wanting to do for over a year, and now it is finally implemented!

Click on the preview below to check out the travel map with photo album links.

Soon I hope to replace the travel’s section of this website with an embedded map like this, but we’ll see.

This evening I went with Ross and Dan to the rec center and we played basketball for over 2.5 horus. It was a lot of fun. My shot was on and off throughout the night, and I gotta learn how to play more physical and stuff, but I was able to swish a game-winning shot from behind the three-point line. That felt good. :)

This entire week the four of us (me, Kristy, Michelle, and Konstantin) have been taking measurements of our amplifiers with a VNA — which stands for Vector Network Analyzer. This device basically sends a given amount of power into the input of the amplifier and measures the power coming out of the device. It more complicated than that, but that is the general idea. The test procedure requires one to be fairly meticulous and patient, and new problems arose every time we tried taking measurements. From bad calibrations to a thunderstorm that reset all the instruments, from buggy computer programs to incorrect formulas, we’ve learned a lot this week. Things are definitely picking up for us, because we have only about 3 weeks left perform the experiments before we enter into full-time data analysis and paper/presentation writing mode. I’ve been leaving the lab lately at past 7pm.

We played Ultimate Frisbee on Wednesday, which felt good except for the heat and humidity. I missed some easy catches, but overall it was good. Konstantin was jackknifed by Amanda, which was a sight to see. There is a MERIT/TREND Basketball tournament in the works as well, so I need to start practicing my shot again.

I spent a few hours in the library on Tuesday looking through graduate school rankings. I want to devote a few hours each week to looking into graduate schools and getting ready to apply for national scholarships and fellowships.

I was planning on heading into Washington, D.C. tomorrow but it looks to be raining the whole weekend. Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. is the Germany vs. Sweden match, so I’ll watch that. Go Sweden!

CAROLINA HURRICANES

Those who know me are aware of my interest in the mixing of religion and politics. I am also quite fond of the history surrounding the founding of this country; in particular the Founding Fathers. As geeky as it sounds, I have spent many hours reading, pondering, and discussing their remarkable and inspiring accomplishment. The recent surge of political and social activism by the evangelical Christian movement, particularly in the area of science education, revealed that the basis of their stance is that America was founded as a ‘Christian’ nation. This notion contrasted to my previous understanding of the who the Founding Fathers were, so I decided to go further investigate their claim.

I recently completed two works on the subject; The American Gospel by Jon Meacham and Faiths of the Founding Fathers, by David Holmes. American Gospel is a recent work and primarily discusses the influence of religion in the way the Founders went about creating a new nation. The concept of a ‘public religion’ is central to how the Founders addressed the issue of religion. It is important to understand that though all the men were raised in families that belonged to Christian churches, the Founders were not typical ‘Christians’ as a Christian is understood today. The teaches of the Enlightenment and the religion philosophy of Deism was very much in vogue and key figures such as Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin, and later Monroe followed Deistic traditions which placed the highest importance in the use of reason and rational thought. Thus, they were skeptical in the divinity of Christ, the notion of the Trinity, and rejected many of the elaborate rituals that permeated the churches. Jefferson went so far as to take scissors and a razor to his Bible and remove all supernatural or divine references to Christ. The Founders, many of whom were involved in Masonic society, believed in a more general ‘God of Nature’, and referred to this entity as the Creator, Divine Architect, Supreme Being, etc. They believed that this God was the source of fundamental human rights and freedoms and that freedom from tyranny of all sorts was worth fighting for. They valued and respected religion (except Tom Paine, the author of Common Sense and The Age of Reason), for its role in providing people a framework of morals and lessons to lead good lives; many considered the teachings of Christ to be perhaps the best of these moral frameworks. The Founders believed strongly in good works being more important than just pure faith in a savior.

American Gospel points to several instances early in the life of our country that weakens the notion that America was founded as a Christian nation. These are particularly intriguing because of their proximity to the Founding Fathers and the direct legacy of their thoughts and opinions. After discussing the founding of the nation, Meacham moves on to role that ‘public religion’ played at several key points in the history of the United States, with an eye towards the 20th century such as civil rights movement, the Cold War, and the rise of the evangelical Christian movement. The ‘under God’ part of the Pledge of Allegiance and the the ‘In God We Trust’ phrase found on our currency was introduced after World War II by a Congress eager to counter the ‘godless’ Communists. Meacham’s treatment of these eras are not as satisfying as the Founding, and this is the main weakness of this work. However, a comprehensive set of primary sources are included in an appendix so readers can examine the letters, speeches, and texts written by the Founders for themselves.

Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David Holmes immediately establishes itself as a more scholarly work than Meacham’s more contemporary fare. The language, writing style, and historical overview set the tone early on with a detailed look at the various churches and religion groups that were scattered around the original Colonies. Holmes guides the reader as if he was giving a tour of colonial America. Several pages are devoted to explaining the Anglican traditions in America and one of the most in-depth treatments of Deism I’ve ever seen in a book. As the title suggests, Holmes focuses entirely on the religious faiths of six principle founding figures: Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Holmes carefully describes the religious upbringing of each figure, the nature and extent of their church attendance (and painstaking noting which particular churches they attended), as well as key religious opinions or writings they made. Logically, Holmes uses the actual actions and works of the Founders to judge their religion opinions and not merely the associations they kept on paper or in public. Holmes also examines the religion traditions and participating of the Founder’s wives and families for further clues to the faiths of the Founding Fathers. Holmes ultimately concludes that none of the Founding Fathers, save for John Adams (later in life) and John Jay would be considered an orthodox Christian. Towards the end of the book Holmes go on to profile modern presidents such as Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II.

These books reject the notion that America was founded as a ‘Christian’ nation with an emphasis on perserving solely Christian values and perspectives. Evangelical Christians should look to other sources of justification than conscript the Founding Fathers to their cause.

Things are picking up at the lab. There will be four traveling wave tubes being used between the four us (one for Konstantin and I, one for Kristy, and two for Michelle). Each of us will have to start taking lots of measurements on each of them, and we’ll get started with that today but especially next week.

Konstantin and I watched the last 30 minutes of the Saudi Arabia and Tunisia World Cup match. Exciting plays near the end, as a legendary Saudi Arabian soccer player who came out of retirement scored a go-ahead breakaway goal in the 84th minute but then Tunisia got a header in at the 93rd minute to tie.

After work we all went out to the fraternity court fields and played a great game of Ultimate frisbee. I was frustrated because my arms were still very sore (I couldn’t make a full extension without hurting) and thus I couldn’t throw well or attack the frisbee. Some other guys from around Leonardtown joined us (so many different summer programs going on here!) including one club team player. It was a fun game, and I look forward to making it a regular weekly event.

The Hurricanes game was devastating….let’s hope we can finish this up on Saturday. Sigh.

Anyway, we’re about to leave for a field trip to NIST - the National Institute for Standards and Technology.

I’ve been procrastinating on getting a nice photo gallery system up and running on this site. My apologies for that. In the meantime, just wanted to alert you to three galleries I have up at the moment. Click the links to check them out.

University of Maryland-College Park Campus

Orioles Game at Camden Yards

Nationals Game at RFK Stadium

Last Friday went great - a truly fun-filled day. John had to skip our team meeting cause he was working on a presentation to the department, so Kristy, Michelle, Konstantin, and I filled each other in on what we were doing. We ended up attending his presentation (joined by Jeremy), which was certainly related to our project. Another faculty member did a presentation on her topic, which was studying injection effects of interference into multi-layer boards. She created a lot of really great MATLAB simulations and animations showing how interference injected into a board can ripple through the various layers. We left at 1pm to go to teh picnic, and arrived when it was already going on. They had a full University catered food table, and the quality was pretty good. I had a veggie burger while others chowed down on burgers and hot dogs. Much to our delight, they had frisbees there. We started throwing a frisbee around and soon got a crowd going for a game of Ultimate. John our professor even came by and was throwing the football around and playing Ultimate with us. He brought a soccer ball so after a short break we went out a played a game of soccer. It started winding down at around 4:30 or so we took Dan’s car back to the apartments. I realized en route I forgot my cell phone so I headed back to the grounds but it wasn’t there; no worries — someone brought it back to the apartments.

Matt mentioned a Nationals-Phillies game tonight that he and Mark (Who is from Philadelphia) were going to. I joined them and at around 6pm we walked over to the Metro station. Konstantin and Tal also came along. We were going to meet Mark’s high school buddy who is working this summer at the NRC in DC there. As we came out of the Metro at RFK, it was pouring down rain. We walked in the rain and Mark’s friend was waiting for us with the tickets at the stadium. They were just $7 each.

RFK isn’t as nice as Camden Yards, because it’s a temporary baseball stadium that used to be where the Redskins play. They had a tarp over the field and we had to wait over 1.5 hours until they finally got the game started. I joined Mark and his buddy in rooting for the Phillies while Matt, Konstantin, and Tal rooted for the Nationals. It was probably less than half-filled, probably due to the World Cup starting and the rain. I thought the Nationals Mascot, Screech the Eagle, was adorable.

He was incredibly fat for an eagle, and kept dancing around. There was also an Indian family there, with their grandmother in a sari. Bizarre. Some high school choir group sang the National Anthem and they ended up sitting directly in front of us. The Nationals broke out during the middle of the game but then the Phillies hammered them in the 8th to tie the game. The game went into extra innings, and it wasn’t until the bottom of the 12th when the Nationals finally scored. It was a really really close play too. Runners on 1st and 2nd, and a base hit to right field. The fielder got it and hurled it to the plate, but the runner was just half a second too fast and he made it safe.

I was already tired before heading to the baseball game, and we didn’t get back home until nearly 1pm or so. But nonetheless, it was a really fun time.

Today we had the two single rooms in the apartment fill up, and two unique additions they are. One is another Ross, from UMD-Baltimore County and the other is Michael from NC State. When he came in I swore I recognized him, and it wasn’t until we introduced each other that we realized that we had dinner once when I joined Greg and Ben for a crew-dinner at Fountain Dining hall. Michael was a coxswain for the NCSU Crew team for a while. Both are physics students doing a summer internship for the NASA Goddard Research Institute.

It’s a nice day outside and I bought a Frisbee, so I’m going to go break it in.