Earthwalk Day 1210 (16 May 2025), 12,090 km: Meteorites and spacecraft and rovers and eagles

Over the past couple weeks I continued east and then south. All on foot until Monday when I went on a bike ride, 39.1 km, that took me to the end of Leg 40. That is, to the University of California, Los Angeles, and more specifically the Geology Building, and even more specifically, the UCLA Meteorite Collection. This is one of the largest meteorite collections in the United States, with over 2400 samples, including a 162 kg fragment of the Canyon Diablo meteorite.

(If there’s a list of the largest meteorite collections in the United States I haven’t been able to find it. So I might overlook some big ones, but there are several more I’m planning to visit.)

Then I started on Leg 41, which I completed… on that same bike ride.

The terminus for that was the California Science Center, 18 km from the Meteorite Collection. There’s lots here, but of particular interest for EarthWalk purposes is its collection of spacecraft including the Gemini 11 capsule, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project command module, and most impressively Space Shuttle Endeavour, which is fully stacked in launch configuration with external tank and boosters, to go on display when construction of the 20-storey Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center building and installation of its exhibits is completed.

I continued on Leg 42, a third of which I completed… on that same bike ride. Wednesday’s walk finished that leg, 27 km long, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL goes back to the 1930s and has been involved with development of tactical ballistic missiles and other weapons systems, but now its mission is primarily building and operating robotic spacecraft, as well as running the Deep Space Network. The US’s first satellite, Explorer 1, was designed and built by JPL.

Other JPL projects have included the Ranger and Surveyor Moon probes; the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft; Mars rovers Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverence and Mars helicopter Ingenuity; and the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission.

In real life, walking and biking near Syracuse, I took along my new camera to start getting to know it:

We had heavy rain one day, and a couple days later the Erie Canal aqueduct over Nine Mile Creek near Camillus was, well, kinda full:

And a few days after that, Onondaga Lake was also kinda full:

I maybe could have reached the end of Leg 43 yesterday, except that I had a medical procedure that day and have had orders not to go on any long walks or bike rides today or for a few more days. I feel fine, but the doctor says take it easy for a bit. So I’m just 3 km in, heading east. Slowly.

A map showing my progress is here, a spreadsheet with progress detail is here, and a Google Earth KMZ file is in this Google Drive folder. Present coordinates: 34.195°N, 118.142°W.