Mountain Views News          Saturday, April 7, 2012

10

THE WORLD AROUND US

 Mountain Views News Saturday, April 7, 2012 


FLYING IN FORMATION – Around the Moon at 3,600 mph

The act of two or more aircraft flying together in 
a disciplined, synchronized manner is one of the 
cornerstones of military aviation, as well as just 
about any organized air show. But as amazing as 
the U.S. Navy’s elite Blue Angels or the U.S. Air 
Force’s Thunderbirds are to behold, they remain 
essentially landlocked, anchored if you will, to 
our planet and its tenuous atmosphere. What if 
you could take the level of precision of these great 
aviators to, say, the Moon?

“Our job is to ensure our two GRAIL spacecraft are 
flying a very, very accurate trail formation in lunar 
orbit,” said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager 
at JPL. “We need to do this so our scientists can get 
the data they need.”

Essentially, trail formation means one aircraft (or 
spacecraft in this case), follows directly behind the 
other. Ebb and Flow, the twins of NASA’s GRAIL 
(Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory) 
mission, are by no means the first to synch up 
altitude and “air” speed while zipping over the 
craters, mountains, hills and rills of Earth’s natural 
satellite. That honor goes to the crew of Apollo 
10, who in May 1969 performed a dress rehearsal 
for the first lunar landing. But as accurate as the 
astronauts aboard lunar module “Snoopy” and 
command module “Charlie Brown” were in their 
piloting, it is hard to imagine they could keep as 
exacting a position as Ebb and Flow.

“It is an apples-and-oranges comparison,” said Lehman. “Lunar formation in Apollo was about getting 
a crew to the lunar surface, returning to lunar orbit and docking, so they could get back safely to 
Earth. For GRAIL, the formation flying is about the science, and that is why we have to make our 
measurements so precisely.”

As the GRAIL twins fly over areas of greater and 
lesser gravity at 3,600 mph, surface features such as 
mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath 
the lunar surface, can influence the distance between 
the two spacecraft ever so slightly.

How slight a distance change can be measured by the 
science instrument beaming invisible microwaves 
back and forth between Ebb and Flow?

How about one-tenth of one micron? Another way to 
put it is that the GRAIL twins can detect a change in 
their position down to one half the width of a human 
hair (0.000004 inch). Any change in separation 
between the two twins greater than this will be duly 
noted aboard the spacecraft’s memory chips for later 
downlinking to Earth. Working together, Ebb and 
Flow will make these measurements while flying over 
the entirety of the lunar surface.

Why would scientists care about such a tiny change of 
distance between two spacecraft?

“From the data collected during these minute 
distance changes between spacecraft, we will be able 
to generate an incredibly high-resolution map of the 
Moon’s gravitational field,” said MIT’s Maria Zuber, 
principal investigator of the GRAIL mission. From 
that, we will be able to understand what goes on 
below the lunar surface in unprecedented detail.” 

“Next time you look up and see the Moon, you might want to take a second and think about our two 
little spacecraft flying formation, zooming from pole to pole at 3,600 mph,” said Lehman. “They’re up 
there, working together, flying together, getting the data our scientists need. As far as I’m concerned, 
they’re putting on quite a show.”

You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com. 


An artist’s depiction of the twin spacecraft (Ebb and Flow) that comprise NASA’s Gravity Recovery 
And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission. As the GRAIL twins (Ebb and Flow) fly over areas 
of greater and lesser gravity at 3,600 mph (5,800 kilometers per hour), surface features such as 
mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, can influence the distance 
between the two spacecraft.

For more information about GRAIL, please visit http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/grail.


PROTECTING YOUR 
(DIGITAL) VALUABLES

(NAPSI)—Most people have experienced that uneasy feeling when they lose something valuable: a 
ring, a phone, money, even a credit card. But how would you feel if you woke up one day to find that 
you’d lost your entire library of photos, videos or the digital music library you’d spent so much time—
and money—creating? It could happen. In fact, if you ask the experts, it will happen. All computers 
will fail eventually. So what can you do about it?

Digital storage devices such as hard drives from Western Digital (WD) are one solution that provides 
great value and reliability. In a recent survey, nearly 55 percent of consumers said they do not back 
up or protect the digital content on their computer because either they don’t know how or think it’s 
too difficult. What makes this statistic more interesting is that nearly 60 percent of the same survey 
participants said they would miss their computers and its contents most if lost or stolen.

Today, the process of backing up important data on your computer is a simple plug-and-play process, 
so why take the risk?

There are a variety of inexpensive, reliable and easy-to-use solutions that are available to suit your 
lifestyle. For active and mobile consumers, the My Passport portable drives by WD are an ideal solution, 
small enough to fit in your pocket but large enough to store and protect thousands of photos, 
dozens of movies and your entire music library.

My Book external hard drives offer larger capacities (up to 3 terabytes), sit on your desk and copy all 
your files for protection against computer crashes and general failures.

For the network-connected home, the My Book Live personal cloud device plugs directly into your 
wireless router and allows content stored on all computers in the home to be backed up on the single 
drive. And, because it is attached to your router, you can access all the content from your laptop, iPad, 
iPhone or other mobile device from anywhere in the world using WD’s WD 2go mobile application 
for iOS, Android and laptops.

People insure cars, homes and lives. Using a digital storage device, such as those made by WD, can 
be a smart way to protect all your precious digital assets as well. For more info visit www.wdc.com.


THE FILTHY 
LEADING THE 
BLIND

 Each week, there are numerous 
ideas readily available for me to 
craft into articles. Whether or not 
those ideas should be published is 
where the question lies. “Who’s 
going to read this?” I ask myself. Even if the people I’m 
worried about have never read my column, is there the 
slightest possibility they might come across it? Many 
an amusing topic has been trashed for these reasons. 
Therefore, I can’t give you a winner every week. That 
being said, I hope my landlord doesn’t read this, or at 
least that he reads it with a sympathetic grain of salt.

 It’s spring! I’m ecstatic, aren’t you? Winter and 
its dreary, depressing darkness are finally gone and we 
have a few glorious months of sunshine and warmth to 
enjoy! In honor of the season, I decided to celebrate 
with some wholesome spring cleaning! This wouldn’t 
be a big deal, except for the fact that real cleaning for 
me happens triennially at best. 

 I have no valid excuse. I’m very thankful for my job 
and its desirable schedule. There’s nothing stopping 
me from gallantly picking up a bottle of magic bubbles 
and a scrub brush after work. But I’m a bit tired 
after getting up early and putting in my eight hours. 
Similarly, there’s no reason I couldn’t clean on the 
weekends. But I spend those two days catching up 
on all the other vital things I’ve neglected during the 
week. I realize cleanliness is next to godliness, but 
whenever the thought of cleaning comes to mind, 
there always seems to be something more important 
to do. I actually think cleaning can be therapeutic, like 
weeding or deadheading roses. But once the pressure 
of expectations and deadlines are added, cleaning 
becomes a chore.

 Any discussion on cleaning needs to delineate the 
differences between it and “dejunking.” Cleaning 
is fairly straight forward in that your only goal is to 
defeat the dirt, dust, and scum. Dejunking is a whole 
other animal. Dejunking involves heavy decisions, the 
first being, “Should I keep this?” Let’s say the item in 
question is a small ceramic butter dish purchased on a 
family vacation during childhood. “I haven’t used or 
seen it in five years, but it’s kind of sentimental, and 
I might find a use for it someday.” My butter usually 
doesn’t see the outside of its wrapper except when I 
make brownies for someone. As you can guess, I rarely 
(never) entertain, so any decorative butter dish of mine 
would probably not be used for its intended purpose. 
“But perhaps I could put something else in it…” You 
can see how deliberations like this could go on forever. 

 Let’s say I decide to be heartless and get rid of my 
beloved butter dish. I could drop it off at the Women’s 
Club in town. But if my mom, who is a frequent 
dropper there, sees it, she might be hurt. I’ll have to 
take it to the Goodwill or some other charity. But 
is it worth the drive just for one thing? I’ll have to 
wait until I get at least a bag of stuff to warrant the 
trip. While dejunking is about purging your home of 
unnecessary clutter, there are underlying themes of 
guilt and wastefulness. Here’s another example: I have 
too many pairs of running shoes. They’re too old and 
worn down to run in, but they can still cover someone’s 
feet. So, do I throw them away or try to find a homeless 
shelter? Should I just dump old magazines? My 
apartment building doesn’t have a recycling bin. If I 
give them away, I’ll have to rip off all the address labels, 
which could take a while. Yes, you can see how most of 
the work in dejunking goes on between your ears. This 
can leave you exhausted after a few hours and you’ll 
have little to show for it.

 So, compared to dejunking, cleaning is a piece of 
cake. (This time I wasn’t dejunking. So now I just have 
clean junk.) While scrubbing away at my shower, I 
thought that there must be a better way. The better way, 
of course, is not allowing it get into this state in the first 
place. In the olden days there were more housewives 
who knew how to clean like pros. And they were home 
all the time so that their bathrooms and kitchens never 
got a chance to get creepy. They’d teach their daughters 
their clever cleaning secrets. Thus, the clandestine 
knowledge of keeping house was passed down through 
the generations. But my grandma was the only lady 
on her block who worked, so she never had time to 
impart her cleaning wisdom to my mom. That left 
Mom unequipped to train me in the cleaning arts. So 
you see, it’s not my fault! I was doomed from the start!

 As I succumbed to the caustic fumes rising from the 
tub, I thought about all the cleaning columns in books 
and films. In the stories, the writer is usually clueless 
about cleaning and relies on alternative sources for 
their information (e.g., “The Help” and “Christmas 
in Connecticut”). I know if I had to give advice 
about grease stains, it’d really be the filthy leading the 
blind! Gee, if I had to do that, who would I ask for 
good insights? My mind wandered into the world of 
television, and I realized the best authority on cleaning 
up messes is probably Dexter, from the show of the 
same name. Hey, that’d be a great idea for an episode! 
Some poor columnist could discover Dexter with one 
of his victims, and then blackmail him by making him 
give weekly tips about the best way to remove blood 
stains from a shag rug! Wow, I hope someone on that 
writing team reads this! (You can tell the bleach was 
really getting to me.) Maybe they’ll find some use for 
my cartoon rabbit in an episode, too! Yeah, I hope they 
read it! As long as it’s not my landlord!

A RATTLING TALE 
FROM A LOCAL TRAIL

 During a hike in Monrovia last Spring, with one of 
my four-legged friends, a yellow lab named “Gus”, we 
were both enjoying the cool breeze and warm sunshine 
as we ascended up the steep hill, when we had a rather 
rattling encounter with a low-lying creature lurking in 
the grass. 

 Like most dogs, Gus is a very curious canine. He notices 
everything that moves around him, whether it be 
a leaf falling from a tree, a bird flitting about in a bush, 
or a squirrel scampering overhead across a power line. 
When wind-blown objects or whimsical wildlife draw 
Gus’s attention, it is easy for him to forget his typically 
excellent “leash-side” manner, and bolt toward the object 
in motion. I believe his random responses are most 
likely related to his desire to catch and retrieve whatever 
he can, in return for a moment of loving praise 
from his human friend. 

 When he gets distracted by sudden peripheral movements, 
I give Gus a slight tug on his leash, tell him “no” 
in a strong voice, then reward him for responding to 
my command with a pat on the head and calmly spoken 
“good boy” in order to get him back on track with 
me on the trail. Although birds, bugs and lizards are 
most often what we might encounter during our walks 
together, deer & coyote also appear quite regularly 
in the brush-covered hillsides surrounding the areas 
where we walk. 

 On this particular evening, we came across a creature 
that took us very much by surprise! I am not sure if it 
was Gus’s nose, ears or eyes that first drew his attention 
to the would-be elusive crawling creature. Perhaps 
it was a combination of all three. What I do know is 
that whichever of his keen senses kicked in at the time, 
immediately snapped him to attention and within a 
split second he changed his direction toward the object 
of interest. Naturally, I looked over to see what it 
was that had captivated his undivided attention, and 
when I did, I saw what I assumed was a sagebrush lizard, 
which is a harmless reptilian we often see slithering 
over the rocks and through the dirt along the trail.

 Some sagebrush lizards get quite large, and as adults 
they can develop a heavy coat of colorful scales, and a 
broad head with shiny round piercing eyes. Lizards are 
quite agile and they move very fast, which is why dogs 
and cats love to go after them. It’s all about the challenge 
of the chase! When Gus got close enough to the 
reptile to scare it away, I was surprised to see that it did 
not move, rather it remained still and held it‘s ground. 
It was then that I realized our new-found friend was 
not a lizard at all. My canine companion had just come 
face-to-face with a snake lying low and lurking in the 
grass! 

 Fortunately I managed to pull Gus away before the 
snake made any swift movements, or had the opportunity 
to strike. When we were far enough away for 
my comfort level, we stood and observed it for a few 
moments. I wanted to get a good look at it’s color and 
shape, and try to figure out what kind of snake it was. 
Per my estimate, the serpent was about 25 inches long 
and at least an inch and a half wide at the center of 
it’s belly. All I could think at that point was that Gus 
could so easily have been bitten, if I had not been paying 
attention and pulled him away promptly. Feeling 
quite lucky that we had escaped what might have been 
a revolting development, we continued on our way and 
completed our hike. 

 When I got home that evening, I “googled” snakes in 
the San Gabriel Mountains, and based on my memory 
of what it looked like, I determined that the snake we 
saw was most likely a Southern Pacific Rattler, which 
is one of the most common rattle snakes in our local 
foothills. Although it’s venomous bite can be lethal, 
this snake is not known to be aggressive. Basically it 
just wants to be left alone to continue it‘s quest for survival, 
which explains why it refrained from striking, 
and simply laid still in the grass. 

 While I was on-line I also did a little research to refresh 
my memory on emergency procedures to follow, 
for rattle snake bites in the wilderness. One of 
the many important things I learned is that dogs who 
spend any time on the trails or back roads of our local 
canyons should receive a snake bite vaccine called 
Crotalus Atrox Toxoid. The comparative results of vaccinated 
dogs versus non-vaccinated dogs bitten, clearly 
speaks for itself. In my opinion, it is definitely worth it 
to have your dog vaccinated. 

 Other precautions that will help to avoid the risks and 
detrimental results of a canine snake bite include being 
alert and paying close attention to what the dog 
shows sudden interest in, during your hike. Basic canine 
training and maintaining control are very important 
as well, as exemplified by my reaction when Gus 
first saw the snake. If I had hesitated to call him back, 
he would probably have been inquisitive enough to aggravate 
the snake, in which case he would most likely 
have been bitten. If a dog (vaccinated or not) is bitten 
by a poisonous snake, immediate veterinary attention 
is imperative. 

 In the case of a time-lapse between the biting incident 
and veterinary care, be sure to keep the dog well-
hydrated in the meantime. If the dog is not willing to 
drink on his own, use a syringe to force fluids down 
his throat, and keep the dog as calm and relaxed as 
possible. 

 Finally and perhaps most obviously - do not panic! 
Stay focused and use your energy so you can handle 
the situation efficiently. 

 The happy side of this otherwise seemingly “not-so-
happy” tale, is the fact that the rattle snake is known 
to be way more passive than aggressive. I often like to 
say “Love and let live”, but in this case, I will say “Love, 
let live and leave it alone”. A snake will typically hide 
in lieu of striking if left alone, so give it space, go on 
your way and the snake will reciprocate in the same 
respectful manner! Good advice for a safe, happy and 
healthy hike!


Happy Tails

by Chris Leclerc

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com