Astronaut Rick Mastracchio will deliver a Travel Bug® to the International Space Station. Mastracchio will be using the Travel Bug as an educational tool to help teach students around the world about geography and provide other educational lessons. The mission is currently scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan at 4:08 GMT on November 7 and we want you all to be there (at least in spirit). That means the launch is planned to liftoff at 5:08 a.m. in Berlin and November 6 at 8:08 p.m. in Seattle.
Every geocacher who attends a Geocaching Event on November 6 or 7, 2013 will be awarded a “Geocaching in Space” souvenir.
You might think Hawaii has NOTHING to do with space...BUT...The Big Island is home to the Mauna Kea Observatory. The altitude and isolation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean makes Mauna Kea one of the best locations on earth for ground-based astronomy. It is an ideal location for submillimeter, infrared and optical observations. The seeing statistics show that Mauna Kea is the best site in terms of optical and infrared image quality—for example the CFHT site has a median seeing of 0.43 arcseconds. (According to Wikipedia)
And, ultimately, it just sounded fun to send the space traveler(s) off Hawaiian style! The space is small, but I think it can hold us. If the launch actually happens as scheduled; I am going to try my best to show it live.
Where: Aloha Grill, 210 SW 43rd Street, Renton 98057
When: November 6th
Time: 18:30 to 20:30 (6:30pm to 8:30pm for us normal folk)
 This event is sponsored by the Washington State Geocaching Association. If you are a geocacher in the state of Washington, please consider joining WSGA. See the WSGA website for details. |