On January 29, 2002 I was privileged to be a part of a tour group that went to the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex out in California's Mojave desert. The very large facility is hosted on the Ft. Irwin Army Base and requires prior coordination before going to. Tours are held on Tuesday's and Thursday's and at the time of this writing the tours are organized by Marie Massey (marie.massey AT csoconline dot com).

Goldstone is dedicated to deep space radio communications. This includes sending and receiving data from our manned and unmanned spacecraft, solar system radar and conventional radio telescope work. There are related educational opportunities and if you're interested in having your class operate a world-class radio antenna you should contact the Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) team.

The various project sites, like "Mars Station", "Venus Station", etc. are named for the projects they were intially built to support, but they can be used for a variety of purposes.

The tour group I went with is a collection of a bunch of folks that formerly or presently worked in the NASA Quest program as volunteers. Most of us are now involved in the educational effort Imagiverse.org. This tour is a boatload of fun and education! Please enjoy these images.

YES: It was _COLD_, at least to Californians. It snowed while we were at the 70m (page 4).

All images are copyrighted © 2002 by Roger Herzler and permission must be obtained prior to use for any commercial or non-commercial application. I used a Nikon CoolPix 990 to take them.

The "Bruce Tours 2002" banner.	The trek begins.	Stephanie grabs some zzz's.
Ft. Irwin Army base entrance sign.	Goldstone's admin facility from a distance.	The Goldstone entrance sign.
From left to right: Bruce, Bonnie, Michelle, Stephanie (sitting), Jennifer (standing) and Roger.	Another admin area picture from the car.	What the 70m dish would look like if it was in the Rose Bowl. (WOW!)
Marie, our tour guide, in the visitors' center.	More visitors' center.	More visitors' center.
More visitors' center.	More visitors' center.	More visitors' center.
More visitors' center.	More visitors' center.	The 34m GAVRT Telescope.

Pages 1 ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4

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