The trip to Tidbinbilla

Our MC Glen is Head of Publicity at the Tidbinbilla tracking station outside of Canberra. With all the events surrounding the Mars missions and Cassini this year we thought a trip out here to hear the latest would be interesting.

The tour group, prepared for alien mind reading!

Ok, this takes some explanation…

We stopped at Woollies on the way and the guys jumped out. When they returned they had about 10 packets of aluminium foil, and told us that we were entering a high radiation area, and that because of the risk of aliens reading our minds we needed to fashion our own aluminium hats before entering.

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You can imagine the reception we got there…

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Glen gave himself a stitch laughing about it

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And we stunned various school kids who were there with families…

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Craig's hat is quite impressive actually

It’s a cross between skull cap with a parabolic dish on the front, and a borg style face mask.

Joel's is sort of an egyptian crown arrangement, crossed with a the Gonzo's nose from the Muppets… And Mark's is a sort of baby bonnett, I think.

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Glen gives us the introduction spiel

There used to be umptee tracking stations around Australia during the Apollo program, but they have all since been decommissioned, and the dishes moved here. This includes the famous one from Honeysuckle creek which received the first minute or so of live transmission from the first moon landing (referred to only in passing in the movie "the Dish")

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More stories…

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Unfortunately it was a cloudy day

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Glen's still talking

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With all the publicity recently about Cassini he hasn't stopped talking

Be it to school groups or the press - he has been on the hop for some time now (and loving it I might add…)

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