Back to work after the Space Shuttle launch trip. It was a long day. In the evening back at the hotel we had Mark Hyatt as our guest evening speaker. Most people brought their dinner to this event.
The morning started with a presentation by Dr. Geoffrey Landis, taking to us about exploring Mars. The workday was cut short because of the intern picnic. After we all showed our great grilling skills, we spent most of the time dominating the volleyball court and partaking in other sports. That night we all worked on our presentations to senior management of the Research and Technology Directorate.
We started early that morning with presentations during the Research & Technology Directorate Management Council Meeting. Our first presentation to the senior management went very well. Also, Wade helped the sharply dressed Space Academy to get funding. In the afternoon we departed to Akron to catch our flight to LA. Besides going to the wrong departure airport and not getting our rental van, the trip went very smoothly.
The day started with SpaceX in the morning, most people had a good visit and Ryan made a good impression to the recruiter. We went to Northrop Grumman in the afternoon to see the parts of F-18s under development. Later we headed to our hotel in Lancaster so we will be near Dryden in the morning. On the way to Dryden we stopped by Hubert’s house.
We went to Dryden to see some sleek planes. We were joined there by the Glenn Space Academy and the Academy at Ames. After the Dryden tour we headed to Mojave dessert and visited Scaled Composites. This company was a favorite for most of us. We also randomly toured Masten Space Systems, winner of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X Challenge. The day concluded with all of us having an awesome time at the Academy and Academy Alumni dinner party at Busby’s. After checking into the hostel at Venice Beach where we all bunked in the same room with a few other people from all over the world, we went out to explore the area.
The morning was rough for us due to lack of planning, especially because we had to check out of our awesome hostel and look for a place to sleep that night. We spent most of the day at Venice beach and headed to Griffith observatory in the afternoon. There we had a fantastic view of Los Angeles metro. For dinner we went to a great Korean restaurant and took advantage of their all-you-can eat deal. We drove by the Hollywood walk of fame before heading to our hotel.
We spent another day spent at the beach, where most of us swam, gave surfing a try and played a very short game of sand volleyball. For dinner all of our poor sunburned bodies headed to In-N-Out, thanks Hubert for introducing us to this. The last few hours of Sunday were spent at the airport waiting for our red-eye flight!
Overall it was a great week and, for most of us, a very sleep-deprived week!