Day
One
I’d been preparing myself for the final challenge
of the series to be a real tough task, but this appeared
too good to be true. Kathy, Mike and Jonathan are to
build some rockets to fire off into space, while me
and Ellen are to build a payload for it to carry and
a parachute to bring it back down to Earth. Admittedly
not a hint of rock or geology in sight, but this seemed
to be too much fun. This is the kind of things you would
do with the kids in the back garden (fire them into
space I mean), and after the stress of the earthquake
task this seemed to be a breeze. It was funny. When
Ellen was quizzed on camera about what was the worst
challenge of the series she chose this one “because
I know nothing about it”. When I was asked for
my best one I chose this “because I know nothing
about it”. So, it’s a good team! Dumb and
Dumber I hear you cry – maybe. But In Rough Science
the fresher the challenges are, the more exciting and
fun they should also be. Well, that’s the theory.
The next couple of days would certainly sort that out.
Most of our day just seemed to be spent cutting up
bin bags, throwing them up into the air and smashing
a few eggs. Oh yes, the egg. Well, Kate had decided
that the payload that we had to bring back down safely
was an egg. A couple of dozed eggs were provided for
experimental purposes. Ellen cleverly thought that our
early tests should have something with the weight of
an egg on it, but not the mess. Anyway, turns out that
a small square battery was an equivalent weight so we
started using this. That’s when I discovered that
too an American, the term ‘battery egg’
is meaningless; still, others tittered. But as the day
wore on we had refined our chute size and recognised
that a hole in it was much better for its aerodynamics.
The only trouble was that often the chute was only starting
to open when it was a metre or so from the ground. We
had got up about as high as we could at the mine, and
with it being early evening already (how time flies
when your making aerial omelette) we figured we’d
set out for the hills first thing in the morning.