Everyone came in excited today
Everyone came in excited today. Mizuki Noguchi won the Women's Marathon in the Olympics yesterday. Everyone's proud (and a little relieved!) that Japanese women have won it two Olympics in a row. They're also talking about the Japanese baseball team – they're tied with Cuba for first place after the preliminary round and everyone expects they'll play Cuba in the finals.
Today I had the first of three days of vibration tests. This was about at 1/2 of the strength of the shaking that takes place during launch. And it lasts only 30 seconds. But, believe me, its a long 30 seconds! The vibration table with me on it makes a lot of noise, and everyone puts on big earmuffs to protect their ears. Then afterwards there's lots of checking – they check the electronics and the data from sensors that they attach to the dewar. They make sure things still work, and that things have not shifted inside the dewar. (The engineers have a very clever way of doing this – they look for changes in the various frequencies of vibration that they expect.)
Actually, I don't feel so good! At least I know I'll get a good night sleep tonight. Worse part is knowing I have two more days of this!
