The photos below are what we saw.
We
finally arrived in the Spokane area after focused all-day drive
from Helena. Craig and Stephanie had moved from San Diego
to this area some years back and were anxious to show us their
house and neighborhood. Their lot boarders a small creek
and its (currently) placid flow was a nice experience.
We
parked Thor in the empty lot next to Craig and Stephanie's place
making logistics easy for everyone.
Their
house was in a new, developed neighborhood and was large and
very nice.
Craig
and Steph took us on a mini road trip in the area to show us Mt.
Spokane. The road goes directly to the crest of the peak
where I found this USCGS benchmark.
The view
from the top of the peak was nice although the visibility was
somewhat occluded due to moisture in the air.
Like
most mountain peaks in civilized areas, the peak hosted a set of
communication towers.
Mt.
Spokane also had a ski area which was somewhat unexpected.
I was
surprised by the amount of debris on the actual slopes.
This level of debris would require a significant amount of snow
to cover it before opening day for skiing.
The
summit house for the ski area was old and made of hand-chosen,
stacked-and-mortared stone.
Steph
had to actually work (it is good; someone has to do it...) so we
left Spokane and headed to our next destination Richland, WA to
visit another fraternity brother Mike and his wife Rachel.
During our stay in Richland, Mike took us to the LIGO facility
on the Hanford Reservation. LIGO is an acronym for Laser
Inferometric Gravity Observatory. The U.S. has 2 observing
sites, this one in Hanford, WA and another in Louisana.
These 2 sites are connected to data coming from 2 other sites,
owned by other countries/consortiums and the aggregate data
stream is used to both detect gravity waves coming from cosmic
events (such as black hole mergers) and to direction-find the
source of the signal to direct telescopes to allow acquisition
of information from the X-Ray, Gamma Ray, infrared and optical
wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. The hope is
that correlation of gravimetric data with electromagnetic data
will support improved theories on the origin of our universe and
the nature of the matter within it.
Hanford,
as you may recall, played an huge part in building the nuclear
arsenal used to end WW2 and carry us through the cold war.
Due to the overall flatness of area, the Hanford site was used
to host the first LIGO gravity wave detector. I was
wanting a tour, but as it turns out, tours are open to the
public only a few days a month and the next tour was weeks away
so we had to settle for the visitor center. The biggest
challenges for LIGO is separating signal from noise and the vast
majority of the physical equipment and signal processing
infrastructure is focused on reducing ambient noise and
separating signal from noise. The photo above shows one of
the four-bar pendulum isolation devices to separate the
reflecting mirror from movement in the earth.
I
immediately recognized this cool bench configuration to be a
physical representation of a gravity wave. Very creative,
but uncomfortable to sit upon.
The
visitor's center had a feed that was showing real-time signals
from the LIGO system. A poor photograph, to be sure, but
an interesting display showing critical parameters of the
system.
One of
the earlier pendulums used in (failed) gravity wave
detection. The experiment failed because the signal was
about a million times more faint than the detectors at the time
could sense.
'Some
other mechanic isolation hardware. Masses on sets of
springs help damp out ambient vibration that would make
detection of the extremely faint gravity waves impossible.
We found
this interesting sign when seeking the restroom. This was
a "gang" restroom with a shared clean-up area but private toilet
rooms.
On our
egress from the visitor's center, we spotted some samples of the
line-of-sight tubes used as part of LIGO. These were
precision stainless steel pipes with beefy flanges. Pipes
are bolted together to form the 2 orthogonal optical paths for
LIGO.
One of
the gate valves that allow isolation of segments of the optical
path for repairs and upgrades.
Precise
and expensive.
When we
finished at Hanford, Mike drove us to the landing ramp at the
Columbia River. Hanford, due to its legacy of
contamination, is used for the entombment of used Naval reactor
cores from decommissioned submarines and surface ships.
These cores are shipped on barges from the decommissioning site,
up the Columbia River to Hanford (Richland, WA). These
cores are very massive and require a tremendous amount of
specialized equipment to offload and transport the cores to the
burial site. Above, Kathleen inspects one of the smaller
vehicles.
Here are
two of the prime movers used for core transport.
Another
view of the "small" truck.
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2023, all rights
reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.