Spring Semester 2003

 

My last semester at the academy I had some pretty good times...

 


Blue Ridge Sumitt, Snow Mountain Ranch Nordic Center, Tabernash, Colorado

Early in the Nordic Ski season on a training weekend, a few teammates and I took the 10 mile, 2000 ft vertical trail up to the top of Blue ridge. I am wearing what the team calls the "Retro Racer" suit. I believe it was issue ski team gear some time in the 80s and a little out of style today. January 12, 2003.

 


Snow Mountain Ranch Nordic Center, Tabernash, Colorado

This is a classic view from our "home course" in Winter Park, Colorado. I was fortunate enough to travel up here several times a year.
January 12, 2003

 


USCSA Sprint Race, Leadville, Colorado

Here is proof that I ended my eight-year skiing career without having learned the proper form. I am on the left and barely pulling ahead of my friend Matt. This was a sprint race taking place at 10,000 feet above sea level in Leadville, Colorado.
January 26, 2003


100s Night, USAF Academy, Colorado
At the academy, every year the seniors have a dinner commemorating 100 days until graduation, at which we were provided a shot of Goldschlager (our designated class drink). Here I am with my friend Len. February 23, 2003


100s Night, USAF Academy, Colorado

Here I am with a couple other squadron friends at the hundreds night dinner.
February 23, 2003.

 


Snow Mountain Ranch Nordic Center, Tabernash, Colorado
Here is the Nordic ski team my senior year.
February 24, 2003.

 


US Collegiate Ski Association National Championships, Lake Tahoe, California

Here I am in my last ever cross country ski race. The course was pretty brutal and it was halfway up the slopes at Northstar-at-Tahoe ski resort. I was the first classic skiier for our three-person relay team.
March 7, 2003

 


US Collegiate Ski Association National Championships, Lake Tahoe, California
Here is the Air Force guys team. Our three-person relay team took third place and this is at the award ceremony.
March 7, 2003.

 


Bridger Bowl, Bozeman, Montana

The second week in March I traveled to Big Sky Ski Area, Montana for the IEEE Aerospace Conference. The faculty member that traveled with me, Dan Miller, went to school in Bozeman. Here we went to the local's ski area called Bridger Bowl. We did some skiing with Ed, his former PhD advisor, and Schmitty, one of the ski patrol that day that also had a PhD in engineering. Schmitty had a ski patrol dog that ran through the snow and followed him down the mountain, as well as took the chairlift up with him. March 12, 2003.

 


Bear Basin Backcountry Skiing, Bozeman, Montana
Dan Miller was an avid backcountry skier. After my conference presentation was done on Friday morning, we went backcountry skiing in a place called bear basin, which is a few ridges away from Big Sky. I am standing on the ridge while Lone Peak and the ski area are behind me in the picture. March 14, 2003.



Bear Basin Backcountry Skiing, Bozeman, Montana
Maj Miller is digging an avalanche pit that will allow him to assess the risk for avalanches before we do a couple backcountry ski runs. He actually got his PhD in snow mechanics and Avalanche prediciton.
March 14, 2003

 


AIAA Student Conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado

A few of the Aero and Astro majors went to this student conference two hours away in Boulder. I gave a presentation and paper entitled "Attitude Determination for FalconSAT-3." Here are a couple of my Astro buds. The guy in the middle, Barry, went into Air Force Special Operations and was actually in charge of my younger cousin Scott when they were going through the same training in 2004.
The other three guys are all pilots now. April 11, 2003.

 


Bull Run 50-mile Trail Ultra-marathon, Manassas, Virginia

My Nordic ski teammate Will and I are posing with the race director for the Bull Run Run. The race director was a 1972 graduate of the academy and invited the Service Academies to send teams to compete for the "Commander-in-Chief Ultrarunning Trophy"--a knock off of the "Commander in Chief Trophy" for the inter-service academy football competitions. Air Force won the trophy this year, unfortunately because Navy and West Point never showed up.
April 13, 2003.

 


Patrick Air Force Base, Florida

Spring Semester senior year, a bunch of us working with the USAFA Small Satellite Program got a chance to travel to Florida for four days--two days of sightseeing and two more of meetings with soem Boeing and NASA folks. In one of our classes, Astro 543, 6 of the 9 people went on this trip and we all missed class the day before the test. So we decided to take a photograph and send it to our teacher: "Don't worry Dr. Lisowski, we spent some time studying for the test when we were on the beach." April 20, 2003.

 


Cape Canveral Air Force Station, Florida
Here's a photo of me standing in front of one of the Redstone rockets, which Alan Sheppard and Gus Grissom rode on the first and second American suborbital flights. April 20, 2003.

 


Boeing Delta IV Launch Pad, Cape Canveral Air Force Station, Florida

Here is the group of cadets and faculty that took the trip. We are standing in front of the Boeing Delta IV launch pad, which FalconSAT-3 might be launched from in 2006.
April 21, 2003.

 


Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
My friend Brian and I pose in the Flame Trench of the Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A, which is where the Columbia last launched from.
April 21, 2003.

 

As you can see, it was a pretty good semester. And then I got to graduate.

 

 

Last updated January 30, 2005.