Home, Sweet Home

By Richard Miller, NASA, Stennis Space Center

There are many expressions that attempt to capture a sense of friends, family, and Home such as “Home, Sweet Home” and “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” Here in the wet lab aboard the Ronald H. Brown we have similar sayings – “Lab, Sweet Lab” and “Be it ever so chaotic, there’s no place like lab.” The comparison seems reasonable since the Brown and the wet lab will be our Home for the next month or so.

Let me first introduce you to the residents of our lab, I mean home. There’s my good friend and colleague Carlos “the voice of Science” Del Castillo from the Applied Physics Lab at the Johns Hopkins University, Scott “DJ Free” Freeman from WET Labs, Inc., Chris “Patches“ Buonassissi from U. Conn., Bertrand “Bubba” Lubac from the University of Southern Mississippi, and part-time resident Bruce Hargreaves from Lehigh University, and of course there’s me, Rick “rocket man” Miller from NASA at the Stennis Space center. We are all part of the Optics Group on the cruise or team “Espuma”. Now that I think about it, our lab/home is more like a dorm room at college. We usually have music blaring, share stories, study, and sometimes do homework. This analogy was most apparent the first day aboard ship – it was reminiscent of the first day of college. There was activity everywhere and most of us were freshmen (that is, never been on the Brown before). We worked hard to discover the space that had been assigned to us and to quickly transform that space into a home. Bertrand, Chris, and Scott were escorted to college by their parents, Zhongping Lee, Heidi Dierssen, and Mike Twardowski, respectively. Like parents Ping, Heidi, and Mike helped us setup, fed us, and then left us. Heidi was especially thoughtful to Chris (the youngest of our group) and left him a small package to remind him to be safe while at sea. So now the wet lab, roughly a 12-by-20 foot room, designed to accommodate wet “things” (although we were scolded for having water on the floor) is our Lab, Sweet Lab, our office, meeting place, music room, movie theater, nap area, and, of course, science lab for about 42 days.

Although I may have painted a picture that portrays the cruise as college days, we are all extremely dedicated to do our work and to make what we hope will be significant contributions to the mission of SO GasEX. Carlos and I are examining the distribution of CDOM (Colored Dissolved Organic Matter or “Materia Orgánica Coloreada Disuelta” for our Spanish speaking friends) and the photoproduction of CO2 and CO from CDOM. Scott and Chris are examining the shape of the Volume Scattering Function (VSF) to determine the effect of bubbles on light backscattering. Bertrand is also studying the VSF and remote sensing reflectance. All of our work is related to the remote sensing of the Ocean from space and is funded by NASA, but more about our research in a later installment of the blog.

So that’s my brief introduction to the wet lab gang. Of all the expressions to conjure a feeling of home we maintain the “Home is where the heart is” to remind us of our true Homes, wherever that might be. And maybe, just maybe, if I click my heels together 3 times and repeat, “There’s no place like home; there’s no place like home” we will have completed a highly successful cruise and I’ll be at my home again in Slidell, Louisiana.

The CDOM station in the wet lab- my little corner of the world.

Carlos labeling sample bottles.

Left to Right: Bubba, DJ Free and Patches (aka, Bertrand, Scott and Chris) working in the wet lab.

Portable Labs

By Paul Covert, NOAA/PMEL

If you went to public school in the US, then more than likely you share with me the experience of looking at your class schedule at the beginning of the new semester, scanning down the list of classrooms, and realizing that one, if not more, of your classes are to be held in the “portable”. Far from an ideal spot for education, classrooms in the portables were damp, musty, and alternated between freezing cold and swelteringly hot, ideal conditions for sleeping through, or just plain skipping. Perhaps that’s why I don’t remember a lot from my freshman American history first class.

Out here on the Ron Brown, space is even more limited than in the public schools. And, like the public schools, “portables” are used to supplement existing laboratory space. These “portables” are usually standard 20 foot shipping containers that have been converted into laboratories, complete with power and running water. While some of the vans are quite utilitarian, others include many of the creature comforts of home, usually the result of the same group of people inhabiting the van for several cruises in a row.

The biggest benefit of having a lab van is ease of setup. The chaos imparted by 30 scientists scurrying on and off the ship and up and down the halls, moving equipment, and laying claim to a small amount of indoor space for their equipment can be quite amusing to the bystander. If, however, you show up to a cruise with your lab van, setup is as simple as placing the van on deck, tying it down, plugging in to power and water, and opening the door. Admittedly, this process isn’t a walk in the park, but you also aren’t fighting others for space.

There are three lab vans on board for this cruise. The University of Hawaii van was pictured in an earlier blog entry. Bob Vaillancourt and Veronica Lance inhabit the radioisotope van situated on the aft deck. Next door to that is the CO2 van. This is the van where I spend much of my time.

Life in this van isn’t too bad. During periods of frequent sampling and analysis, the van in pure lab. But in the morning, before the 9AM CTD cast, it’s a place to enjoy your coffee, look out the window, peruse the library, and check your e-mail. And after a long day of analyzing samples, the van is a place to kick back in the glow of chili lights, listen to some tunes, and unwind before it all starts again in a few hours. With your own espresso maker and a hi-fi sound system complete with sub-woofer, why would you go anywhere else?

Main entrance to the CO2 van.

The laboratory side of the CO2 van.

CO2 van library and espresso bar.