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From Kathe
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From: Kathe Rich krich@gi.alaska.edu
Hi Robert, Sadaf, Eric, Tommy, Bobbi, J.W., DeAndre, Craig,
Faith, Felicia and Tyler,
I've passed your message on to the NASA crew up
here, so hopefully you'll be hearing from them directly
before too long. I can't answer too many of the questions
you've asked of them, but I CAN answer some of your
questions about Alaska.
Patti said...
>Best wishes from a very warm city of Salisbury. Could you
>pipe us some cool air?
We'd be happy to send your some of our cooler air (except
it's been in the 80's for the last week), bt we certainly
DON'T want any of your warm, humid air that we've been
hearing about on the news :)! We are expecting milder
temperatures during the next week with highs in the low
70's and lows in the low 50's.
Felicia asked:
>Does it ever get warm in Alaska?
Felicia... In the interior of Alaska (where we are) we
have extreme temperatures in both summer and winter. The
parts of Alaska on the coast have much more moderate
temperatures ( it's not so hot in the summer and not
so cold in the winter). Our highest recorded temperature
in the summer was about 97 and the coldest is about -75.
I have talked to people at Wallops on days that the
temperature difference between Poker Flat and Wallops
Island is over 120! Our air is much drier than yours
though, so it usually doesn't feel as warm or as cold as it
is. However, nobody really has air conditioning up here
since it isn't warm all that long, so when it does get hot,
there's nowhere to escape from it. We have a lot of rain
here in late summer (that's August) and it usually rains
until it starts to snow sometime in September. We usually
have a hard frost that kills garden plants in late August or
early September.
Craig asked...
> What percentage of rain do you have in alaska?
Craig... It rains a lot in late summer, but we really
don't accumulate that much water. It's kind of a drizzly
rain. Technically, this area is a desert since we get very
little precipitation over the year. The layer of
permafrost which covers most of the state keeps the water
nearer to the surface than it would be in most parts of the
country so things still grow.
Craig also asked........
>Is it a steady snow or not
Craig... We get most of our snow in early winter and don't
get too much after Christms. BUT we get most of our cold
weather in January and February.
Tyler asked...
> What do you live in ? What ever you live in is it
>heated? Do you build your own homes? What do you eat?
>The things you eat are they good? Is finding out things
>fun?
Tyler... We live in regular houses which are heated
usually with a combination of oil and wood. A lot of houses
up here don't have running water and are heated only with
wood (which is why they don't have running water). There is
usually a lot of insulation in the houses up here, my house
has over 12 inches of insulation on three sides and 14
inches on the north side. I have about 3 feet of blow in
insulation on the roof.
We eat regular food, although a lot of people hunt
and fish. The most common "wild" food people eat is salmon,
moose and caribou. Our salmon get as large as 40-50 pounds
each and you get up to 1800 pounds of meat off a good sized
moose. That's plenty of meat to feed a family of four
all winter!
Kathe krich@gi.alaska.edu
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Another message from Kathe..
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From: Kathe Rich krich@gi.alaska.edu
Hi guys (Felicia, Robert, Tommy, Eric, Sadaf, Craig, Bobbi,
J.W. DeAndre, Faith, Tyler)
Well I'll try to answer the questions you asked me this
morning.
Felicia, you said:
> But I couldn't find your picture, if you send your
>picture I'll send mine.
None of us have our pictures in there. I'll try to
dig up a picture of the Alaska crew and send it to you.
There is a picture of my car in front of the office
though..... :).
>Why don't you have water in your houses? Does it freeze, in
>the pipes? Well, we have lots of water here.
Most people in town DO have water. A lot of the
people that live out of town don't, especially if they have
only wood heat. The pipes can freeze very easily if the
fire goes out in the stove, so they haul water in 5 gallon
jugs from town and use outhouses instead of having
bathrooms.
There are showers in most of the laundromats and at the
University that are for public use. Wells are also very
expensive to dig up here and some of them are over 300 feet
deep before they hit water. It usually costs about $35-$40
per foot to drill a well so if you figure it out you will
see that a well costs a lot of money.
> Do you have children? What time
>is it up there? It is 9:23 A.M. here.
No I don't have any kids. I have a weird orange cat
that's knock kneed and duck footed (he doesn't walk too
well) and I have samoyed dogs that I skijor with in the
winter and hike with in the summer.
We have a four hour time difference here, so if it's
9.23 a.m. there, it is 5:23 a.m. here.
Eric, you told us:
>We are having a heat wave and the chickens are dying.
So do you think the price of chicken will go up this
fall because of the heat this summer? It might be fun to
watch the prices of chicken for the next couple of months
at the store.
Tommy, you wanted to know:
>What is your job?
I am the operations controller for Poker Flat. I
think I have the most varied job out here and I very seldom
do the same thing two days in a row. I do a lot of
budgeting, I work with the National Wildlife Refuges,
BLM and the Indian groups so that we can land rockets on
their land, and I do all the countdowns for the rockets. I
also work with the FAA for permits for the airspace we need.
Tyler, a good question!
>Do you see other animals that we don't see.
We have moose, foxes, caribou, bears, wolves,
beaver, marten, lots of birds, and those are our main large
animals. We have lots of animals that live in water such as
walruses, seals, otters, and several kinds of whales and
sharks. We don't have any deer, skunks, possums, raccoons,
muskrats, badgers, or snakes. We also don't have a lot of
the bugs you have down there and there are no poisonous
spiders in the state either.
Robert, you asked:
>Where do you get your water? Whose job is it to get the
>water?
There are several springs around town that people
get water from and it is was kind of a shared job when I
didn't have water between my husband and myself (we have a
well now). You can also get water from the municipal
building or have it delivered to large tanks that bpeople
bury underground at their houses. Water costs about 8 cents
per gallon.
> What does moose taste like?
Moose tastes like very very lean beef. Unless you
took care of it wrong when you shot it, it doesn't tastes
gamey at all (like deer). I like it best as stew, soup or
ground meat for spaghetti or meatloaf.
>What's the name of your basketball home team in Alaska?
We don't have a basketball team in Alaska, but we do
have two University basketball teams, the Unviersity of
Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks (a kind of bear), and the
University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves.
I think some of the NASA guys and Kate are working
on replies to your mail from yesterday, so you should be
hearing from them soon. ENDyour mail from yesterday, so you
should be hearing from them soon.
Kathe
krich@gi.alaska.edu
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From Alaska
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Hi Patricia Weeg, and students: Felicia, Robert, Tommy,
Eric, Sadaf, Craig, Bobbi Jo, Joshua, DeAndre, Faith, and
Tyler.
Hi!
I'm Kate McCarthy. I'm fourteen and, a student at Wi Hi.
I live in Salisbury. I'm here in Alaska with the NASA team.
The team is launching sounding rockets to study noctilucent
clouds. I happened to see your E-Mail questions and, I'll
try to answer them the best I can. The entire team would
like to thank you for your interest and questions about our
research.
Noctilucent clouds are clouds that are significantly
higher than the normal clouds you see in the sky. These
clouds exist above eighty kilometers in the sky. Normal
clouds are usually about four to five kilometers into the
sky.
The clouds are formed when water vapor is present in the
atmosphere. The atmosphere must be cold enough for the
water vapor to condense and form the clouds. The clouds can
only be seen in the northern and southern latitudes above
fifty four degrees. The only way to see the clouds is when
the sun is below the horizon between 6 and 16 degrees, and
the sun reflects off the bottom of the clouds. The clouds
become visible against the dark sky to ground observers and,
appear with a blue glow. Sometimes the clouds are called
"Night - Shining".
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Dear Felicia,
The scientists study the clouds with a sounding rocket,
that is launched through the cloud. The rocket has many
instruments, that measure the light reflected from the
clouds, and the particles. We try to find out why they
occur, and what effect they have on global climate
conditions. On average the temperature in the summertime
has been in the seventies. I've never been here in the
wintertime but, I've heard the temperature can get
as low as -60 F.
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Robert-
We're here to launch sounding rockets that study
noctilucent clouds. Food, housing, and clothing in Alaska is
much more expensive than in Salisbury. An average hamburger
is like seven dollars!
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Tommy-
The weather here is fairly pleasant. It's usually
sunny and fair. The equipment used to study the clouds are,
sounding rockets, computers, radar, tracking systems, and
lasers.
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Eric-
The clouds are very thin and high, and we will start
looking for them soon. They can only be viewed for a short
period during the year.
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Sadaf-
We're launching sounding rockets to view the
noctilucent clouds. We can't study the clouds in Salisbury
because, they are only visible from extreme northern and
southern latitudes. We did have to go to Alaska to find
out about the cloud. They can also be viewed in Sweden.
The scientists will use the info to see what effects they
cause on the rest of the world.
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Craig-
It snows much more in Alaska than it rains. No,
the snow is not steady. In the middle of winter it becomes
to cold to snow. During the winter when it's dark, NASA
views the northern lights. You can't see them during the
summer because, it's light 24 hours a day.We will return
home in mid August.
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Bobbi Jo-
Noctilucent clouds have to do with twilight. They're
visible when the sun is lower on the horizon then the
clouds. They don't glow but, they are bright blue.
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Joshua-
(pictured above)
The northern lights are only visible during the
winter due to summer's 24 hour a day light. It hasn't been
cold at all. The temp. averages in the seventies. I've
been here a week so far. The work is volunteer research.
It is no more rainy or stormy than Salisbury.
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DeAndre-
ICNet is the name of the network. Alaska is about
forty three hundred miles from Maryland.
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Faith-
No, none of us have been to space. The rockets that
we launch aren't passenger rockets.
------------------------------------------------------------
Tyler-
I'm not a scientist but, it requires many years of
study. We are looking for Noctilucent clouds. This time of
year it is not cold in Alaska. Occasionally, it has gotten
as hot as ninety-five degrees. We live in regular places
just like you. We eat the same food as you do in Salisbury.
There is a McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Dominoes
Pizza just like in Maryland. I think finding out things is
fun!
Kate