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camwynYesterday I was gonna take my bike into the city* and get my sister a birthday present before riding the length of Manhattan Island along the West Side greenway. I got the present and got started on the route, but as I got up to about 42nd Street or so I changed my mind, and pulled off to go and visit the Intrepid Sea/Air/Space Museum.
The Museum is the aircraft carrier Intrepid, at anchor in New York Harbor and playing host to multiple planes from both American naval aviation history and several other nations' history, as well as a section on spacecraft since the Intrepid was the vessel that retrieved several astronauts after their splashdowns during the earlier days of the space program. They're playing host to the Concorde now, and sometime next month they'll be playing host to the space shuttle Enterprise. I might have to go back to see that. Didn't bother going to see the Concorde, though- I got a pretty thorough tour of that once, years ago, at JFK. It was enough. I spent a good long while on the exhibits about the people and history of the Intrepid, and the section off to one side devoted to the stories of service members who'd been given the Purple Heart; when there is something like that on display you owe it to the folks involved to sit down, shut up, and listen. I briefly, briefy poked my head into the side area from there entitled 'Sacrifice'; it was... mostly people reading letters from military folks who never came home. I listened for the length of one letter, beginning to end, and then kept moving. This was not out of disrespect, but because I am all too aware that I can only take so much of certain things before I break down completely. So I listened to one, and then moved on.
I am, in general, a big fan of planes. That was mostly what I went to the Intrepid to see. When I was a little kid I wanted to join the Air Force when I grew up, mostly because I wanted to be a test pilot like Chuck Yeager. Unfortunately there was the slight problem of 20/400 vision with -3.5 and -4 prescriptions, and by the time I got LASIK I was already established in other career areas and didn't want to enlist any more. Still loved planes, though. Still do. Spent a lot of my time on the Intrepid visit looking at some of the aircraft and going "Wait, this one looks wrong, it's waaaaay too big for any kind of one man fighter... oh, it's not, it's a three man torpedo bomber" or "There's something odd about the design of this one, I'm not sure it looks like a safe design... oh, apparently there are only 11 left of this aircraft in the world 'because of its incredibly high accident rate'", so at least some degree of my old interest in aircraft design was still operating in the back of my brain and letting me make reasonable judgment calls on what I looked at. I had to remind myself several times that just because nobody was looking did not mean I was allowed to ignore the 'no touching the aircraft' signs. Even the SR-71 Blackbird thank you very much. Good Lord that was one pretty plane.
And then there was the Growler.
That's not a class designation. That was a submarine named Growler. There was a sign up indicating that you had to be over 40 inches tall,able to fit through a 24-inch opening, not pregnant, not claustrophobic, and able to descend steep stairs to take the tour. I did, and briefly got stuck behind a group of a father and three small boys. The boys were all old enough to be properly fascinated and ask intelligent questions, but they were slooooooow- it was like being stuck behind a six year old dinosaur enthusiast at the museum, only without the ability to get around them because, well, submarine. Fortunately we got to a slightly wider area and I was able to get past and go through the sub by myself (the rest of the people who came down with us were either stuck behind the boys or staying back there on purpose, possibly to talk to tour guides- there was one at the start and one stationed amidships). It was fascinating, and a little unnerving ("Am I completely crazy or are those actual bunks within arm's reach of the forward torpedo bay?" "Yeah, guys had to sleep in those. In shifts. A lot." "They're.... my cat would just barely fit in the space between the top of the mattress and the bottom of the bunk above it if he were standing on all fours. And he'd have to have his tail down." "Yep."). But at the same time, it seemed like it would be utterly fascinating to serve on one of those; I kept trying to imagine what it must have been like for the guys who were on its crew back during the six years it was in service. It was a diesel sub, not a nuclear one, but it carried a number of Regulus nuclear missiles which would've had to launch from the sub after it surfaced- this was pre-Polaris missiles. Very Cold War. Very old school. Rather made me think of what it must have been like in the Fallout universe's smaller Vaults, since a few of them had hot-bunking sleeping arrangements rather than apartments. The galley, which would've had to feed between 95 and 105 guys depending on the crew complement, was tiny- possibly the width of my bathroom and maybe half again as deep. I remember thinking "I could work with that. With three other people at the same time. I could totally work with that." Mind you, nose plugs would probably have been a must, given that the water rationing required the men to take no more than a two minute shower maybe once a month- twice, tops... but still.
I think I could have easily gone back and done another trip through the Growler just to see it again, but I'll save that for next time.
*that is to say, 'I live in the New York City area and I decided I was going to take my bike into Manhattan'- when you live near New York City there is only one 'the city', and this applies even if you are geographically located in any one of the other four boroughs of New York
The Museum is the aircraft carrier Intrepid, at anchor in New York Harbor and playing host to multiple planes from both American naval aviation history and several other nations' history, as well as a section on spacecraft since the Intrepid was the vessel that retrieved several astronauts after their splashdowns during the earlier days of the space program. They're playing host to the Concorde now, and sometime next month they'll be playing host to the space shuttle Enterprise. I might have to go back to see that. Didn't bother going to see the Concorde, though- I got a pretty thorough tour of that once, years ago, at JFK. It was enough. I spent a good long while on the exhibits about the people and history of the Intrepid, and the section off to one side devoted to the stories of service members who'd been given the Purple Heart; when there is something like that on display you owe it to the folks involved to sit down, shut up, and listen. I briefly, briefy poked my head into the side area from there entitled 'Sacrifice'; it was... mostly people reading letters from military folks who never came home. I listened for the length of one letter, beginning to end, and then kept moving. This was not out of disrespect, but because I am all too aware that I can only take so much of certain things before I break down completely. So I listened to one, and then moved on.
I am, in general, a big fan of planes. That was mostly what I went to the Intrepid to see. When I was a little kid I wanted to join the Air Force when I grew up, mostly because I wanted to be a test pilot like Chuck Yeager. Unfortunately there was the slight problem of 20/400 vision with -3.5 and -4 prescriptions, and by the time I got LASIK I was already established in other career areas and didn't want to enlist any more. Still loved planes, though. Still do. Spent a lot of my time on the Intrepid visit looking at some of the aircraft and going "Wait, this one looks wrong, it's waaaaay too big for any kind of one man fighter... oh, it's not, it's a three man torpedo bomber" or "There's something odd about the design of this one, I'm not sure it looks like a safe design... oh, apparently there are only 11 left of this aircraft in the world 'because of its incredibly high accident rate'", so at least some degree of my old interest in aircraft design was still operating in the back of my brain and letting me make reasonable judgment calls on what I looked at. I had to remind myself several times that just because nobody was looking did not mean I was allowed to ignore the 'no touching the aircraft' signs. Even the SR-71 Blackbird thank you very much. Good Lord that was one pretty plane.
And then there was the Growler.
That's not a class designation. That was a submarine named Growler. There was a sign up indicating that you had to be over 40 inches tall,able to fit through a 24-inch opening, not pregnant, not claustrophobic, and able to descend steep stairs to take the tour. I did, and briefly got stuck behind a group of a father and three small boys. The boys were all old enough to be properly fascinated and ask intelligent questions, but they were slooooooow- it was like being stuck behind a six year old dinosaur enthusiast at the museum, only without the ability to get around them because, well, submarine. Fortunately we got to a slightly wider area and I was able to get past and go through the sub by myself (the rest of the people who came down with us were either stuck behind the boys or staying back there on purpose, possibly to talk to tour guides- there was one at the start and one stationed amidships). It was fascinating, and a little unnerving ("Am I completely crazy or are those actual bunks within arm's reach of the forward torpedo bay?" "Yeah, guys had to sleep in those. In shifts. A lot." "They're.... my cat would just barely fit in the space between the top of the mattress and the bottom of the bunk above it if he were standing on all fours. And he'd have to have his tail down." "Yep."). But at the same time, it seemed like it would be utterly fascinating to serve on one of those; I kept trying to imagine what it must have been like for the guys who were on its crew back during the six years it was in service. It was a diesel sub, not a nuclear one, but it carried a number of Regulus nuclear missiles which would've had to launch from the sub after it surfaced- this was pre-Polaris missiles. Very Cold War. Very old school. Rather made me think of what it must have been like in the Fallout universe's smaller Vaults, since a few of them had hot-bunking sleeping arrangements rather than apartments. The galley, which would've had to feed between 95 and 105 guys depending on the crew complement, was tiny- possibly the width of my bathroom and maybe half again as deep. I remember thinking "I could work with that. With three other people at the same time. I could totally work with that." Mind you, nose plugs would probably have been a must, given that the water rationing required the men to take no more than a two minute shower maybe once a month- twice, tops... but still.
I think I could have easily gone back and done another trip through the Growler just to see it again, but I'll save that for next time.
*that is to say, 'I live in the New York City area and I decided I was going to take my bike into Manhattan'- when you live near New York City there is only one 'the city', and this applies even if you are geographically located in any one of the other four boroughs of New York
no subject
Date: 2012-01-29 05:03 pm (UTC)