In Nomine Primo et Philae

Or: How to Get Yourself Stuck Between a Rock and Outer Space

I'm sure a few of you may have realised over the past couple of days the words: Rosetta, Philae, comet, landing, ESA and the sentence: "Holy shit! We just landed a space craft on a comet!" have been thrown around a fair amount. 

But just who, what, when, where, why and how is all this about? And why should you care?

Just a heads up - this is a text heavy post and I'm going to be linking to images rather than posting them directly as they're obviously not mine and are protected by copyright against republishing. Sorry!

Who

Let's start nice and gentle. So who the hell just had the audacity to go and fire a hunk of metal about the size of a classic Mini around 6.4 billion (6,400,000,000) km at an object less than 4km across travelling at 135,000 km/h (37,500 m/s!!!) and actually hit the damn thing? Well the ESA, that's who. You may polish your knuckles now ladies and gents of ESA, you've deserved it.

The ESA is the European Space Agency. An international organisation of 20 Member States whose mission is to provide Europe's gateway to space as well as plan and perform Europe's space program. Founded in 1975, ESA aims to provide, promote and advance space research and technology for exclusively peaceful purposes. 

Alright, that's pretty nifty. Somehow more than 20 country's statesmen and women are able to cooperate enough for a department dedicated to space research to actually run successfully. And that's the simple part - onto the fun nitty-gritty stuff now!

Where

Next up we'll discuss where, another nice and simple one to ease us into it. Well the ESA is based in Europe, funnily enough, with its headquarters in Paris. However, the actual flight control and cool stuff is happening (on Earth anyway) at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. 

The other half of this mission is occurring in, you guessed it, space! But, "That's a big place!" I hear you all collectively shouting in earnest at your screen. It's in earnest, as I can't actually hear you through the screen. Geez, we can land a craft on a comet but I can't hear someone shouting at me through the internet, someone has got their priorities mixed!

Within space there are many comets. I'm sure most of you have heard of the very well-known Halley's Comet. Well, we're not aiming for that, you took a wrong turning somewhere if you ended up there. Where this mission is aiming for is a particular comet by the name of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Catchy, no? From here on out I think we'll stick with the common shortening of Comet 67P or 67P. 

Discovered on the 20th of September, 1969 by the comet's namesake's Soviet astronomers Churyumov and Gerasimenko, (and whoever said that scientists couldn't come up with original naming schemes?), 67P has an irregularly shaped nucleus of two distinct lobes. The larger of these two lobes is ~4.1x3.2x1.3 km and the smaller is ~2.5x2.5x2 km. There are various ways the comet could have formed this way, potentially through a collision of two other comets, through a gravitational affect or through asymmetric sublimation of its surface ice. It is currently orbiting the sun every 6.45 years or so and performing one rotation every 12.4 hours. A comet's orbit will be regularly changing due to the gravitational effect of other objects, particularly when they pass nearby Jupiter, a rather large mass of a planet that also happens to be a major reason why we exist at all! But more about that another time. The current orbital characteristics of 67P are ~8.5x10⁸ km and ~1.86x10⁸ km aphelion and perihelion respectively with its orbit passing between Earth and Jupiter. Aphelion is the comet's furthest distance from the sun and the perihelion is its closest distance to the sun. And the comet is currently about 510 million km away from Earth

The specific landing site is designated 'J' and is located on the 'head' of the comet and was selected on the balance of scientific potential, nearby activity and minimising risk to the lander. Images and more details can be found here.

Phew, OK, there were a fair few number there but they were necessary. And numbers are fun anyway! I know elephants are often used as analogues to help form a relative scale and image in ones head so', to help out, the Comet 67P is approximately the size of 1360 stacked elephants and is ~170 billion stacked elephants away or ~40,000 Earth's away - these scales are mind boggling I know!

When

The scales of numbers involved here are considerably smaller thankfully but still a little complicated. The most timely event occurred yesterday (12 November, 2014 1535 UTC) when the landing craft touched down on the comet. The mission and the whole sequence of events that led up to this point however, started more than 20 years ago. 

The mission was approved in November 1993, ignoring all the of the planning, research, development and building that then occurred, the Rosetta mission launched on 2 March, 2004 from Kourou in French Guiana. The space craft then spent the next 10 years travelling to the comet with various key milestones explained below. The total planned mission life time is about 12 years, nominally planned to end in December 2015 once the comet has passed around the sun and is en-route back towards the outer solar system.

Key Milestones

• March 2005 - Rosetta caught up with the Earth for its first gravity assist (more on this later)
• July 2005 - heading to Mars, Rosetta analysed the collusion between Deep Impact's impactor and the comet Tempel-1
• February 2007 - flyby of Mars for its second gravity assist
• November 2007 - flyby of Earth for its third gravity assist in order to reach the asteroid belt
• September 2008 - analysis of asteroid Steins as Rosetta passed within 1700 km
• November 2009 - final gravity assist from Earth
• July 2010 - analysis of asteroid Lutetio as Rosetta passed within 3000 km
• May 2011 - Rosetta goes into hibernation mode to conserve power as it heads into the outer solar system, almost 1 billion km from the Sun, the craft's solar arrays are unable to gather much energy
• January 2014 - Rosetta comes out of hibernation and begins post-hibernation procedures, ground control is able to communicate with the satellite again and begins updating software to upgrade the rather slow information transfer rate of 8 b/s
• May - August 2014 - Rosetta performs 10 orbital correction manoeuvres to align itself for touch down, slow down and begin to orbit the comet
• August 2014 - Rosetta begins to orbit Comet 67P
• September 2014 - Rosetta begins its first observation and analysis of the comet
• November 2014 - the Philae lander craft successfully touches down on the surface of the comet

Future Milestones

• March 2015 - lander likely to become too hot to operate due to proximity to the sun
• August 2015 - comet will pass its perihelion to the sun
• December 2015 - nominal mission end

A nice and simple section and lots of what is mentioned here will be explained in further detail below.

What and How

I figured these two questions are probably simpler to group together so the discussion of 'how' can be with its respective 'what'. There's no way I can fully go into and explain the mission and all its juicy details here but I will do my best to give a decent summary of what's happening out there.

Comets

Let's start with what the heck is a comet, besides that thing that we were aiming to land on? Comets are basically big balls of ice, dust formed in the outer reaches of the Solar System some 4.6 billion years ago during the early stages of development of our Sun and Solar System. This is in opposition to asteroids which are generally made up of rock and metal also from ~4.6 billion years ago during the formation of the solar system. However, there is no clear boundary between comets and asteroids and there are many similarities between them and many comets will ultimately become asteroids once the volatile components are gone. Meteors and meteorites are solid piece of debris that can originate from either comets or asteroids and enter the Earth's atmosphere. Meteors burn up completely in the atmosphere (shooting stars) whilst meteorites survive the journey through the atmosphere and actually impact the Earth's surface. They can range in size from tiny to huge (hope you never see a huge one) with the most recent notable event being the Russian 2013 event. This was the event in February 2013 where a 17m, 10,000 ton asteroid exploded in the atmosphere above Chelyabinsk, Russia at 19 km/s producing a very bright fireball and large explosion damaging over 7200 buildings and causing almost 1500 injuries (mostly from shattered glass). 

There are billions of comets and asteroids in the solar system, even though they rarely appear in the news. The most famous of these is Halley's Comet and the asteroid from Armageddon. In general, only comets will form those distinctive 'tails' one imagines. This is from the volatiles sublimating (transition from solid directly to gas) in the heat of the sun. The 'tail' of the comet isn't actually dependent on the direction the comet is travelling but is always pointing directly away from the sun.

Rosetta Mission

As you may have guess by this point, the Rosetta Mission is an ESA operation aiming to perform a detailed analysis of Comet 67P as well as several other smaller objectives. Rosetta is the world's 11th cometary mission (10th launched - more details here) but is achieving many historic firsts. These include:

• First spacecraft to orbit a comet's nucleus
• First spacecraft to fly alongside a comet towards the inner Solar System
• First spacecraft to examine how a frozen comet is transformed by the heat of the sun, in close proximity
• First controlled touchdown on a comet nucleus
• First images obtained from a comet's surface
• First in-situ analysis of a comet
• First European close encounter with objects from the main asteroid belt
• First spacecraft to fly close to Jupiter with its main power source being solar cells

This mission will be completed using two craft - a robotic space probe orbiter Rosetta and the robotic lander Philae.

Rosetta Probe

The Rosetta Orbiter is a 2.8 x 2.1 x 2.0m aluminium box comprised of scientific instruments, subsystems, communications dish, two large solar panels, the propulsion system as well as carrying the Philae Lander craft. The probe's objective was not merely to navigate to the comet and drop the lander; there is an array of eleven instruments that will actually be performing the primary, most important, long-term scientific investigations of the comet meaning that even if the lander fails, the mission can still be classified as a success. Images here.

The Rosetta probe is named after the famous Rosetta stone. This 762lg slab of basalt was paramount in unravelling the mysteries of ancient Egypt as the stone contained the hieroglyphics and Demotic script used by the Egyptian civilisation and Ancient Greek which was readily understood by modern historians. By comparing the two sets of writings it was possible to piece together an understanding of the glyphs. As the Rosetta stone provided a gateway to an ancient civilisation, the Rosetta Mission will also allow scientists a look back 4.6 billion years to a time before the planets of the Solar System even existed. As an interesting side note, the Rosetta spacecraft is also carrying a Rosetta Disc. This is a nickel allow disc micro-etched with 13,000 pages of text in 1200 different languages, donated by the Long Now Foundation.

Obviously a very important objective of the probe was getting to the comet in the first place. This was achieved through the use of vertical thrust tube and then 24 small thrusters for trajectory and attitude control. Each of these thrusters delivers a force of ~10 Newtons, or about the same force experience by someone holding a bag of apples (1kg). Over half of the payload of the craft is dedicated to fuel (~1670kg of ~3000kg). As discussed earlier, the Rosetta spacecraft had to perform four gravity assist manoeuvres in order to reach Comet 67P. These 'gravity assists' are slingshot manoeuvres to reach the required exit velocity as no existing rocket has the capability to send such a large craft directly to the comet. The journey is beautifully visualised here.

The probe rendezvoused with the comet in August of this year where it performed a series of manoeuvres to place it in orbit around 67P ~30km above the surface where it could then unceremoniously dump little Philae after analysing the comet's surface. Image of the asteroid from the probe here. And talk about a killer selfie!

Instrumentation

The Rosetta orbiter craft contains 11 instruments with which to carry out scientific analysis:

• ALICE - Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer, used to analyse gases in the comet's tail and atmosphere (the coma) and the surface composition
• CONSERT - Comet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radiowave Transmission, used to analyse the comet's interior through analysis of reflected and scattered radio waves
• COSIMA - Cometary Secondary Ion Mass Analyser, used to analyse the dust grains emitted by the comet
• GIADA - Grain Impact Analyser and Dust Accumulator, measures dust grain characteristics (number, mass, momentum, velocity distribution) from the comet nucleus as well as other directions
• MIDAS - Micro-Imaging Dust Analysis System, measures dust environment characteristics (particle population, size, volume, shape)
• MIRO - Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter, used to determine the abundance of various gases emitted from the comet, the surface outgassing rate and the surface temperature of the comet
• OSIRIS - Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging, used to obtain high-resolution images of the comet, equipped with a wide- and narrow-angle camera
• ROSINA - Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis, used to analyse the composition of the comet's atmosphere and ionosphere, velocities of electrified gas particles, their respective reactions and as a secondary device for investigating potential surface outgassing
• RPC - Rosetta Plasma Consortium, comprised of five sensors to measure the physical properties of the comet, examine the structure of the inner coma, monitor activity and analyse the interaction of the comet with solar wind
• RSI - Radio Science Investigation, used to determine the density and internal structure of the comet, define the comet's orbit and study the inner coma using radio signals to measure the mass and gravity of the nucleus.
• VIRTIS - Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer, maps and analyses the solids and temperature of the comet surface as well as identifying gases and physical conditions of the coma to determine the best landing sites

VIRTIS, ALICE and OSIRIS (the imaging and plasma instruments) were used during the Earth flybys for calibration. These instruments were then used as well as MIRO during the Mars flyby to analyse the Martian atmosphere.

Rosetta also performed two asteroid flybys as discussed earlier as well as observing an asteroid fragment in conjunction with the Hubble Space Telescope. Rosetta was able to determine that the first asteroid, 2867 Steins, exhibits a loosely bound rubble-pile structure and was also the first E-type asteroid to be observed close-up. E-type asteroids have a surface comprised of the mineral enstatite (MgSiO₃) and exhibit a high albedo (measure of reflection coefficient, or how much light is reflected from the surface) of 0.3 or higher. The second asteroid flyby of 21 Lutetia observed that the asteroid had a surprisingly high density and surface composition thought previously to only exist on larger asteroids. This third flyby was of asteroid fragment P/2010 A2 where Rosetta analysed its dust tail in conjunction with Hubble to confirm that it was indeed an asteroid and not a comet and the dust tail is likely due to particles ejected from an impact with a smaller asteroid.

Philae Lander

The Philae Lange is a little (1 x 1 x 0.8m) 100kg robot designed to perform the first ever controlled touchdown on a comet nucleus. The structures consists of carbon fibre baseplate, instrument platform and a polygonal sandwich construction with a solar panel hood and three legs to provide a gentle touchdown which can rotate, lift and tilt to return the lander to an upright position. Its primary objectives are to focus on the "elemental, isotopic, molecular and mineralogical composition of the cometary material, the characterisation of the physical properties of the surface and subsurface material, the large-scale structure and the magnetic and plasma environment of the nucleus." ^source These samples will differ from the orbiter's and previous gathered dust samples in that they will be in-situ and so will still contain its volatile components and their original physical characteristics unaffected by heat or impact. Images of the lander can be seen here.

The lander is named after the Philae Obelisk, one of two obelisks found at Philae in Egypt which was used in conjunction with the Rosetta stone to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics as it contained bilingual inscriptions in hieroglyphics and Ancient Greek.

Philae deployed from Rosetta on the 12 November this year from its stable orbit (images of departure here). This was a 7 hour journey along a ballistic trajectory that would result in an impact velocity of ~1m/s (image from 40m before touchdown here). As discussed previously, this is the first ever controlled touchdown on a comet as opposed to NASA's Deep Impact probe that effective crashed itself into another comet (on purpose) in 2005 to perform its analysis. So Philae's design concentrated heavily on safely and securely getting this craft onto the comet surface, a feat not to be underestimated as the escape velocity (the velocity needed to break free of the gravity of an object) of the comet is only ~0.5m/s (1.8km/h - you could literally jump off this thing).

First up are the lander's three legs, allowing a landing on a surface up to a 30º angle. These were designed to absorb and dampen the initial impact upon the surface. The three legs each have large pads to distribute its weight in the event of landing on a soft surface and the instrumentation can still operate in the scenario that the surface is so soft the lander doesn't stop until it sinks to the belly of the bulky body. On the bottom of each of these pads is an ice screw designed to be driven into the surface of the comet upon the initial impact. Next up are twin harpoons that would fire into the surface upon touchdown at 70m/s to anchor the craft to the surface. And finally, a thruster on top of the craft would fire to reduce the recoil from both the initial impact and the harpoon firing.

Unfortunately, this landing all went a bit wrong. The harpoons failed to fire and the top-thruster was not functioning. The harpoons were meant to be fired using 0.3g of nitrocellulose which was unfortunately shown to be unreliable in a vacuum environment in 2013, an official reason for the top thruster not firing has not been released as of yet, but unfortunately things do go wrong with pioneering experiments, not to mention 10 years flying through space. So Philae ended up bouncing. Three times! The first ricochet occurred immediately after impact and sent the lander upwards of 800m off the surface. With a bit of luck added into the mix of the excellent design of the lander, the weak gravity of the comet pulled the lander back down... after two hours. Two more gentle bounces occurred after this and the lander ended up over 1km away from its planned landing site. Not only this, but it only has two of its three feet on the ground, is completely un-anchored and is sitting in the shade of a rather large cliff. But it did successfully touch down on the surface!!! First photo from final touchdown here. And image of the target site, rebound sites and final site here (crosshairs - target site, blue lines - bounce sites, red square - final landing. The second image clearly shows the rather shady area where Philae settled.

This shade is a rather large issue as the lander needs to be powered by its solar panels and its battery can only power the lander for 60 hours. This has left the ESA scientists with two options: the first is to let Philae go back into hibernation mode and hope that the rotation of the comet brings it around to a better angle of the sun as it's currently only receiving ~1.5 hours of sunlight rather than the expected 6-7 hours, but this is by no means definitely going to occur. The second option is to try and reposition the lander by using some of the on-board instrumentation to jolt and jump the craft. This is a rather tricky problem having to take into account the lander's angle, its position, the spin of the comet and the force able to be generated from the equipment.

And because scientists don't tend to shy away from challenges (like you know landing a space craft on a comet) and because they're generally just bad-asses, they've elected to try the second option. With only ~20 hours of battery life left, ESA have activated the lander's drill. This could result in the lander being pushed away from the surface as the drill presses down, or if the drill manages to proceed into the surface at all, the resultant torque force could cartwheel the lander into a new position. Either of these could result in the lander being moved into a better position or possibly toppling the craft and ending the mission for Philae right then. If the lander is still alive after the drilling there are a few more radical actions that can be taken. There is a hammer on-board used to measure the hardness of the surface that could be used, the legs could be used to try and hop the lander into sunlight (though this will be very tricky with only two feet on the surface) or the failed harpoons or thruster systems can be attempted to be re-activated. It's going to be an exciting few hours regardless of what happens.

If all of this manages to get the lander into a better position the actual operating time of the lander is anything but certain. The survival of Philae is dependent on many factors, including its initial landing, power supply, temperature and surface activity. Dust may end up covering the solar panels more quickly than anticipated, especially with this bumpy start, and prevent the batteries from charging. But regardless of this, the operational lifetime of Philae will probably not last beyond March 2015 when the proximity to the sun will render the lander too hot to run.

Instrumentation

Philae carries 10 instruments totalling ~21kg, some of which are beneath its hood of solar cells.

• APXS - Alpha X-ray Spectrometer, used to detect alpha particles and x-rays to analyse the elemental composition of the surface
• ÇIVA - six cameras used to take panoramic pictures (check it out here) as well as a spectrometer to analyse composition, texture and albedo of collected samples
• CONSERT - Comet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radiowave Transmission, using radio waves from the CONSERT instrumentation on the orbiter, probes the internal structure of the comet through a analysing the penetrating waves to the lander's transponder
• COSAC - Cometary Sampling and Composition experiment), one of two evolved gas analysers used to detect and identify complex organic molecules from their elemental and molecular composition
• PTOLEMY - the second evolved gas analyser used to obtain accurate readings of isotopic ratios of light elements
• MUPUS - Multi-Purpose Sensors for Surface and Subsurface Science, measures density, thermal and mechanical properties of the comet surface using sensors on Philae's anchor, probe and exterior
• ROLIS - Rosetta Lander Imaging System, a CCD camera (an alternative type of sensor to the more common CMOS type allowing higher quality images) used to obtain images during descent and areas analysed by other instruments
• ROMAP - Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor, used to study the magnetic field of the comet and its interaction with solar wind
• SD2 - Sample and Distribution Device, Philae's drill that will penetrate more than 20cm into the surface, collect and deliver samples to different ovens or instruments. Now also a big hope to being able to relocate the lander to a landing area with more light
• SESAME - Surface Electrical Sounding and Acoustic Monitoring Experiments, comprised of three instruments in itself: CASSE (Cometary Acoustic Sounding Surface Experiment), PP (Permittivity Probe) and DIM (Dust Impact Monitor). These measure the way sound travels through the surface, the surface's electrical properties and analyses the dust falling back to the surface respectively.

Why Why Why?

OK. Deep breath. You've made it this far (I hope) and you're finally going to be rewarded (besides the lovingly assembled and brilliantly written article above you) with why in all hell are we doing this and why indeed you should care!

So Why Are We Doing This?

Why did we send a 3 tonne hunk of metal hurtling nearly 6.5 billion km to land on a piece of dirty ice? Alright, so specifically speaking, how life began on Earth is one the biggest questions in modern science.  Previous observations showed that comets contain complex organic molecules (molecules rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen - the pre-requisites for life as we know it) as well as nucleic and amino acids - the building blocks of our DNA. Whilst it is unlikely that biological cells evolved on comets, the prevalent theory is that during the formation of Earth, comets bombarded the proto-planet billions of years ago bringing the essential ingredients for not only water, but life. These ancient remnants from the formation of the Solar System will also allow for further understanding and development of models pertaining to the formation of planets, the development of hospitable planets and even potentially life.

If Philae survives it will also test some hypotheses pertaining as to why essential amino acids are predominantly 'left-handed'. This refers to how atoms are arranged around their central carbon core where a 'left-' and a 'right-handed' molecule are mirror images of each other. 

Alright, but we've observed comets before why do it again?

Prior to Rosetta, very little is really known about how a comet works and even this mission will only allow us a further step in the understanding. Previous missions may have observed comets at close quarters but Rosetta is much more advanced and ambitious and will not be limited to simple snap-shots from fly-bys. With Rosetta being comprised of an orbiter and a lander it is able to investigate the comet nucleus and coma over a long period of time as well as the development as it transitions towards the sun and goes from inactive to giving off hundreds of kg of debris every second. Operation Stardust was able to capture some black and white imagery and some dust samples from the comets tail - but as mentioned before, these will have already lost their volatile components and the method of capture involves a lot of heat as the captured particle decelerates very quickly and will affects its physical composition. Deep Impact was impact was able to fill in some more gaps when it landed on a comet but its instrument package was nowhere near as comprehensive or advanced as Rosetta's. Basically, Rosetta can investigate the composition and behaviour of a comet in-situ which is a huge development.

Fine. But Why Should I Care!? I'm not a scientist.

OK, let's break it down.

First, it's fucking awesome! It's amazing and cool and interesting and epitomises everything that makes the human race great and unique - curiosity, exploration and innovation.

Onto slightly more practical reasons. At a cost of 1.4 billion Euros, the Rosetta mission seems pretty damn expensive. But thanks to physicist Andrew Steele who broke down the costs into a nice comparison on his website Scienceogram, we can see that we've actually got one hell of a bargain price on this mission! For the same price as 4 Airbus A380 we've sent a craft rather a lot farther than they're capable of! And over the course of the mission (1996-2015), the total cost per person in Europe is ~€3.50, or €0.20 per person per year. So really not a bad way to spend a few pennies of your tax money.

And whilst it is hard to put a hard value on what we get back out of the mission, I think it's glaringly obviously worth it. To start with there are all the jobs that have been created through the research, development, building and operation as well as all the support jobs that go along with these positions. Another immediate pay-off is the engineering spin-offs and know how. The contribution and advancement of human knowledge has huge relevance to everyday life both practically and philosophically. Directly from the Rosetta project is the advancement in solar technology made possible through the development of the space craft. Since ESA did not possess the nuclear power technology used in other spacecraft, they went the solar route. More broadly speaking, if particle physicists hadn't had a need to share data effectively, there would be no internet!

Next up let's look at the inspirational factor. Technology advancement in general and space travel in particular has always been a huge motivator for dreamers and thinkers to come up with ideas. This event could easily be the motivation for a whole swathe of new young minds to enter into the scientific world, further advancing our knowledge and leading to who knows what?

Now let's look politically. This is an example of global cooperation and success in an ever more fractious time. Scientists and engineers from more than 20 countries have been working together since 1996 to make this possible! Not just within Europe, but ESA has worked with NASA on this operation as well.

Now this next one has nothing to do with science. It's beautiful! Look at the images in the article above, check out all the images here, hell there is even a five minute AUDIO recording from the Comet 67P!!! Check it out here. I'm sure you've heard that in space, no one can hear you scream. But we've managed to record a comet! And even loads of other sounds from outer space, check them out here. Whilst the sounds from the comet wouldn't have been audible to normal human hearing, it's amazing that we can even record this data let alone convert it into something we can hear and feel. The sounds are said to come from oscillations in the magnetic field around the comet and occur in the 40-50 millihertz range.

Another big reason. At some point in the future (I imagine sooner than you may think), we WILL be mining minerals and water from asteroids and comets. That's a whole story in itself but if you're interested then head here. Everyone needs the products of mining to survive. If it can't be grown, it has to be mined! Everything around you is built from the products of mining and need more resources every day as the human population expands and the technology advances. Resources on Earth are getting harder to find and mine and pretty soon, asteroid mining is actually going to be the more cost effective method of obtaining raw materials.

I'm sure a plethora of other reasons could be discussed, but I will finish with this one: the very survival of the human race depends on this mission and others like it. Many notable scientists have stated as such including Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan. Whilst we will colonise the moon and Mars in the not too distant future, nowhere will be found as hospitable as Earth without leaving the star system. Earth won't last forever. Be it global warming, nuclear war, genetically resistant disease, an asteroid impact or the eventual heat death of the sun in ~5 billion years, if the human species is to survive in the long term we have the responsibility to venture out to other worlds. And the data, research and technology achieved through these programs gets us a step closer to achieving this every time.

Now that last paragraph may seem a bit doomsday and negative and even scary. But just think of how exciting the prospect is of exploring the rest of the universe! I hope the only reason we spread out into the universe is for peaceful reasons, I have slightly more pragmatic views, but regardless it is a necessity as the population continues to expand and I can't wait to see the developments that will happen in my lifetime.

Thank you

If you made it all the way through this beast of an article, thank you so much for taking the time to read it! I hope you enjoyed it and please chime in your opinions and comments. Discussion is always good!

Interlude

If your life was a story, what is the title of your current chapter?

I recently came across this question whilst spending some of my far too abundant time online. Using some of my other time I also started listening to audio books a few weeks ago. I've never actually listened to audio books before but I found it as an awesome way to manage to get through more of the books I want to read faster. I'm sure at least some of you will understand the relationship between books I own/want to read and books I actually manage to read. Please see the very scientific graph below illustrating this relationship:

As this graph demonstrates the exponential amount of books that I want to read quickly out paces the linear amount of books that I am able to read, and this dear bibliophiles is clearly quite an issue.

So back to audio books. This effectively doubles my reading ability and also provided both excellent amusement as my cycles got longer and music no longer was making the cut, and also excellent motivation to get back on the bike to find out what is happening. So I started listening to Patrick Rothfuss' "The Kingkiller Chronicles" whilst reading Steven Erikson's "Malazan Book of the Fallen".

Let's start with the Malazan series. Click here to get yourself started or support your local bookstore!

This is an epic fantasy series of ten volumes and is a complete series. And for anyone out there who doesn't enjoy reading fantasy series themselves, having a complete series, especially if that series also happens to be awesome! The fact that there are also five further novellas, six canonical novels by the Malazan Universe co-creator Ian Cameron Esslemont, two further incomplete follow-on trilogies, and a yet to be published extensive guide to the series just makes the Malazan Universe even more exciting knowing that I'm going to be able to enjoy it for years to come. I've been reading these books for a few months now based on the recommendation of a friend and they are fantastic. There are a huge number of diverse characters that you get to know slowly and whilst the plot build-up of each book can be a little bit slow to begin with, the picture that is painted using this process produces an absolutely amazing climatic end of each book that has you reading longer into the night with each chapter and excited to start the next in the series.

And now The Kingkiller Chronicle. First one here or go peruse the shelves at your local book store!

I do actually have the physical copies of these books as well, even though I'm listening to the audio books. But I also have most of the physical copies of my e-books as well. I love books! Books books books! One word that won't lose meaning no matter how many times you repeat it!

I was introduced to this series whilst perusing the shelves of Elizabeth's Bookshop in Perth. It was heavily recommended to me by one of the staff of the store upon seeing the hearty pile of books I had placed on the counter to purchase. She was so enthusiastic about it I excitedly agreed to start the series. Over to the shelves we went, only to find the second book in the series... I was physically deflated upon not finding this book as I really wanted to read it after the recommendation. And so I went into the store regularly for months hoping it would come back in. For anyone who's not lived in Western Australia, books can be rather hard to come by and insanely expensive to boot, plus I enjoyed this book store and was happy to give them my custom. But every time I went looking, every time I was let down. But I eventually managed to track it down once I returned to the UK, and thankfully it was worth the wait!

The Kingkiller Chronicle is a fantasy trilogy of which two of the volumes are so far released. There is also one released and unreleased novella and one novel on different characters from the books and a further trilogy from the same universe planned. These books are a story of two threads: the first is of the 'present' day protagonist Kvothe (pronounced nearly the same as "quothe") and the other is of Kvothe's life story told in the first person narrative. It is presented in the form of him telling his autobiography to the character Chronicler with each book representing one day of the story telling. It is full of action, suspense and evokes plenty of empathy, allowing you to really get into the book. I have loved every word of this book including every word of character and plot development and I have moved on to listening at many other times besides cycling as I can't stay away from it.

And this book is what brings me to my chapter. Within the Kingkiller books, when we are with Kvothe in the 'present' day, the chapters are title 'Interlude'. Don't worry I won't actually reveal any spoilers. At this point in time in the books Kvothe is laying low, he is not his normal self and he is doing very little. And this is the point I find myself at now myself.

I came back to the UK in May and finished travelling around the end of August with a couple of very slow weeks in June applying for jobs as well. I spent my time applying for dozens of jobs, received a handful of replies and got one offer exactly two months ago in another stroke of serendipity. Two months! And I still don't have a start date. I can't do a huge amount with my time as unfortunately I don't have an income and money makes the world go around as much as anyone may hate that sentiment. If nothing else, petrol costs money. So I find myself waiting around, going slowly crazy, getting increasingly irritated with the state of the economy and human resource departments and not quite slowly dwindling my remaining savings on Christmas errands and getting out of the house enough to not go insane. So here's hoping to a rapid resolution of the seemingly convoluted hiring process. Apparently choosing to leave the country at all is a big negative check mark on the CV... Who would have thought in 2014?

So anyway, if anyone else wants to share your current chapter then feel free to comment below! I would love to hear your stories.

Until the next time.

As Northern as a Yorkshireman

After racing up the coast to reach Exmouth, we are now as far north as we will likely be travelling in Australia. There's a possibility of getting up to Cairns on the east coast, but I'm not sure yet whether time will permit.

Exmouth Excitement

We spent about a week in and around the Exmouth peninsula. Originally developed as a World War II military base (evident by the old bunkers, monuments, the naval base and the massive radio antennae that used to be used for communication with submarines), now a days, Exmouth relies on tourism for its survival. With the spectacular Cape Range National Park and the incredible Ningaloo Reef on its doorstep, it's no wonder the town's population almost triples during the peak holiday season.

The beginning and end of our time in Exmouth was spent in the Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort generally relaxing and trying to avoid the sun and oppressive heat. The staff were incredibly nice and friendly (with just a couple of exceptions unfortunately), prices on par with most of WA camping: $10-15 pppn and very nice and clean facilities, including a 25m pool that was very nice to use to wake up in the morning (alas - it had no shade for afternoon swimming). But, by far the most important and exciting feature this caravan park has, is the little Italian restaurant called Pinocchio on the grounds. Owned and run by the wonderful Sabrina and Salvatore, there are a good variety of reasonably priced (for WA) food and drink options, but most importantly is the gelato stand. This is some of the first, proper Italian gelato I've found in WA (hand made in house by Salvatore) and even though I've yet to visit a lot of Australia, I can confidently say, that this is the best ice cream that there is on offer in this country!

Every ice cream since has had the bitter taste of disappointment.

On our penultimate day, we decided to go for a kg of chocolate,
banana and amaretto ice cream.

There is a myriad of wonderful flavours that change regularly, from the regular chocolate, ferrero, etc. to some more original mixes, such as Tim Tam, amaretto, banana and tirimisu. We went back every day (and sometimes twice) to get ice cream, and I would thoroughly recommend anyone within 100km, to visit there (which is exactly what we did one afternoon whilst in the national park).

The rest of our time in the area was spent in the National Park. We camped at Lakeside, one of the few camp grounds with a a bit of shade provided by mature trees. We spent a few days enjoying the picturesque landscapes of limestone gorges, pristine beaches and beautiful near-shore and shallow reefs. In the waters are a plethora of flora and fauna to observe from rays to sharks to coral. Unfortunately we weren't there in season (winter) for any of the big migrations (whale sharks, manta rays, doogongs, dolphins and humpback whales), but it was the right time of year for turtle nesting and hatching! We went for a walk along the beach one night to hopefully see some nesting turtles but unfortunately we only saw one baby turtle being eaten by a crab and one turtle nest being raided by another crab - so a little bit of a sad ending to that venture, but we did get a great view of the Milky Way:

I love me some long exposure

Unfortunately my GoPro decided to flood at 3m on my first snorkel, so I don't have any underwater footage, but I will hopefully post some submarine pictures from Will in the album later. There are also a number of hikes through the limestone gorges, most notably at Yardie Creek and Mandu Mandu sites - here there's lots of opportunities to see an abundance of wildlife such as fish in the creek, turtles, galahs, pelicans, osprey, kites, falcons, eagles, kangaroos, hares, goats, black tailed rock wallabies and plenty of reptiles and insects.

Yardie Creek looking west towards the sand bar

When we weren't galavanting through the bush of the Cape Range, a lot of time was spent trying to rig up some kind of shade (mostly successfully and significant improvements made each day), napping in the searing heat or failing at fishing for short periods of time. There were plenty of sharks spotted throughout the week, including one feeding on something in some very shallow water by the beach one time when we were thinking about going for a late night snorkel. Gave that one a miss that night, and so I still have all my appendages to continue this blog!

Until next time.

Renew and Restore

This article was written for the blog Assortment run by the wonderful Sarah Lou.

As a means of introductions, I'll skip the formalities and just go straight for photos, as the saying goes - they're worth a thousand words...

Just hanging around

Just saying hello

I feel that these two pictures summarise me fairly well. The first picture is me abseiling down a 40m rock face upside down. The second is me hungering for brains in the new John Butler Trio music video "Only One". 

Now, what do these have to do with renew and restore you ask? Well, everyone has a different idea of what renews and restores their well-being. For me, these are two prime examples of what makes me feel awesome: being outdoors, climbing rocks and being up high, and putting on a costume and make-up and generally making a bit of a fool out of myself in front of thousands of people (this is not the first time). Some of you may think I'm crazy that these kind of things relax me, but at the same time I kind of think the same thing about people who sit in front of the TV for hours, or facebook or just go for a drink to relax. The more I sit still, the less I do and generally the more I end up sleeping regularly, the more worn out I feel and the more antsy I get to get up and go run around in a circle.

And so, I have recently quit my job as a geologist in Western Australia, so I can satisfy my itchy feet and go and explore the world. I wasn't feeling particularly happy or satisfied with my job and was travelling for short times fairly often. I got the opportunity to travel to Puerto Rico for 3 weeks where I was able to spend my time being restored to my former self by doing so many things I love doing: photography, cinematography, SCUBA diving, climbing, hiking, exploring, eating and caving. The last of which, I don't get to do very often, but always love when I do. Below is a video I put together of my caving adventure so you can also enjoy it (from the safety of your own home for some or as inspiration for others).

I can wholeheartedly recommend taking the chance to go to Puerto Rico if it ever comes up. Ticket prices are not outrageous, it's cheap once you're over there and it's an easy mix of westernised and Caribbean culture. And if you do make it there and fancy a bit of adventure, the Aventuras Tierra Adentro who took me caving were absolutely amazing.

During my time over there I travelled all over the country by car: Fajardo - San Juan - Ponce - Arroyo - Humacao - Arecibo - Isabela - Rincon, and many other smaller stops along the way. But I will leave those stories for another time. For now, I will leave you with a hello, an introduction and a good luck to renew and restore in this new year!

Until the next time.

Tom

The New and Improved Family

And we're off!

This first week (and a bit) has gone rather quickly. We spent the first three days driving straight up the coast (with a day in Carnarvon - more on that later) to Exmouth, in order to meet a very good friend of mine and his girlfriend for a few days of sun, sand and shenanigans around the Ningaloo reef. 

The first day was rather short - setting off in the evening, picking up Zoe and then stopping by Kim's best friends place for a very civilised cheese and crackers and slightly less civilised game of cricket with a 5 year old and crawling around the floor with a 10 month old. After a slightly longer stop than planned, we high tailed it a whole 30 minutes to a camp site at Moore River. I did the obligatory group photo day 1 and had a little play with my camera which resulted in a picture I'm quite happy with:

Obligatory first day group shot - a "before" if you will permit me

Happy snappy night time shot

The next three days were rather uneventful with all the driving, so I will swiftly move on to the new introductions. First up, I will introduce you to Claire:

Yes, Claire is a car...

I've had this car for a little over a year now, but it was only on the drive up the coast last week that I finally named my trusty Rav 4. I decided to name my car Claire after a very good friend of mine for a multitude of reasons. I bought this car at about the same time the human Claire came into my life, they're both very strong and fully capable no matter what anyone else may say and despite their misleading demeanor and of course they're both gold (though my Rav 4 is slightly more on the beige/champagne side). So I've decided that Claire will help me get around Australia for the next couple months as human Claire has helped me this past year.

Next up, is George. Or George Aslan II to be precise:

A refined name for a slightly less than refined trailer

This little(ish) bugger is the reason we got stuck in Carnarvon for a day after only two hours of driving. We very quickly realised that we weren't going to have quite enough space in the car as Zoe was already cuddling a lot of the gear in the back and we were going to have a fourth permanent person on this trip when Sam joins us in a couple weeks, let alone two extra temporary family members for the next week or so when we meet up with Will and Sam (different Sam). So we hit the internet to find out the best option for extra storage space, between a roof rack and a trailer. We managed to pick up George here for a mere $100 (down from an advertised $800!), but then had the very fun job of getting him road worthy as he was currently unregistered - and so it begins... First up, poor old George has been sitting in a back garden unloved and unused for a few years - so he needs a new plug, so we head to the local garage who promise to call us back within an hour when it's done - 2.5 hours later, I give them a call - oh yes, it's been done for ages... Alrighty, so next up we go to the post office to try and organise a change of registration - they send us to the bigger Department of Transport office down the road. Drive on down there: yep, here's a form to fill out with all yours and the sellers details on, and by the way, you need to have it inspected, but not at the normal garage, at the registered Toyota dealership just out of town. Back to the previous owner's house for a bit of a sit down form filling session and then off to the Toyota dealer. 

"Yep, we can inspect it, have you got a weight certificate?"

"A what now?" - Apparently, trailers are registered and taxed by weight in WA, but this garage and the other one don't have a vehicle scales, the RAC a bit more out of town does... So down the road we go. Something else was on the scales and unmoveable at that time, so a couple hours and $35 later (yes, $35 to put a trailer on a scale and print out a piece of paper) - back we go to the Toyota dealer. Inspection takes about 10 minutes, for which my assistance was required and involved a couple tape measurements. 

"Great, come back tomorrow to pick up the documentation."

"What!?" Apparently the documents need to be faxed to Perth, checked and returned, and apparently, at 1530, the people required to make this happen have already left the office... But at least it should be done by 0900. So 1100 rolls around - no phone call. I call them up, and once again, apparently they've had the documents back for a couple hours... great. Another $40 down the drain for another bit of paper and 10 minutes of someone's time to take some measurements. Back to the DoT. Finally after about 24 hours, I finally drive away with a legally registered and slightly cleaner trailer. I'm pretty sure it would have been cheaper and easier to not do the right thing and just pay the fine for an unregistered trailer...

So we load up George and off we head for Exmouth, and 6.5 hours later we arrived in time to set up the tents, chilled out in the pool for a bit and had dinner with a cider that didn't feel quite as well deserved after the debacle with Goerge and then to bed to get up very early to head to the airport to pick up Will and Sam.

Which segues perfectly onto the introduction to the two new temporary family members:

The intrepid explorers

Will is a very good friend of mine back in the UK and Sam is his girlfriend. We spent a few days in the National Park on Ningaloo reef enjoying the amazing snorkelling and relaxing before they had to head back to Perth for Sam to get back to work. More on those few days in another post!

Which brings us to the final new member of the gang: John. He's a bit sensitive and is currently head deep in a tub of guacamole so I can't currently upload you a photo of him. But I will paint a picture - John is a lit bit twisted (literally), and a little bit hairy as he tends to catch a lot of fluff on his head, he's also a spoon (literally), and Zoe found him in the middle of a dirt track on one of her jogs. She felt inspired by her older brother to name it John.

There was one other very temporary family member:

I have no idea what it is, and it didn't survive long enough to name, but it looks like a giant flea. If anyone has any insight - do let me know!

And so that sums up the new editions to the travelling family. I'll close with a cheesy silhouette photo!

And so it begins

It's the first night of the adventure!

I finished at Fringe festival last night :( and have some wicked posts about that to come. And today I set off with Zoe and Kim a whole 90 minutes outside of Perth! This was planned however, as for the next 3 days, we'll be making a blitz all the way up the coast to Exmouth to meet some friends there, before slowly working our way back down the coast.

So I'm going to sign off here for the night, as need some sleep after only 3 hours last night and get some better posts and photos up soon!

Sending Out A (Samsung) SOS

At the end of September last year, I received an email from Samsung with tickets attached for flights to Puerto Rico and a chance to win my own private island.

Alright, now that I got your attention with a bit of excitement and disbelief, I'll take us back a bit. It was a cold, dark, winters morning in August and I was over 1000km (~2.4 million Babylonian Trade Cubits for those wondering) from civilisation, in the middle of the Pilbara Region of West Australia. It was about 530 in the morning and I was going through my normal routine of reading the news before work started When I came across an article stating something very similar to "Samsung is doing something ridiculous for the sake of advertising again", on the technology news site BGR. I click through the links, discovering a Survivor type deal, showing off new camera/mobile products with training from Survivorman Les Stroud, set on a desert island. I think - Hell, that sounds amazing and something I'd be great at, may as well apply. So I send off a quick application and a photo, not expecting to ever hear anything back again, but hey, it was a way to keep myself occupied for a few minutes.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. I'm back on site and I'm the only rig geologist there, along with my supervisor, after a rather brutal cut-back due to costs. Early morning again, checking my mail, a subject line with "Samsung" catches my eye. I open it up to find a message telling me that they found me interesting and would like me to fill in the second round of applications - follow this link. So I click on this link and it takes me to the longest, most in depth and detailed questionnaire that I have ever seen. I mean, I thought Rio Tinto's application process was long and intensive with multiple police checks... So there's no way I can do this in a few minutes, so I leave it for the moment and off I go to work. Being the only rig geo on site, it was fairly busy and tiring so this email sat there for a few days. Until I can't get to sleep one evening and have the chance to try and fit what seems like my life story into this application. I fill in a few questions thoroughly, but quickly grow jaded and pessimistic at the chance of getting a response and so end up filling in a fair few answers with a single sentence or sarcastically. I finish that up, attach a couple more pictures and send that off, thinking to myself, what a waste of time...

But, much to my surprise, a few days later I received another email saying that they really like me and could I send in a video entry. Well damn, I don`t particularly like being in front of a camera at all, let alone on video, I much prefer to be behind the lens. That, and I didn't exactly have much time to put together a video during my 12 hour shifts out in the desert with limited connectivity. I managed to find a few minutes to quickly record something during the day and then send it off that night straight from the camera with no editing. Phew, that was hard work being in front of the camera, but now I'm sure they will realise that I'm a terrible choice and I'll never hear from them again. 24 hours later... "We really liked your video, but we need you to record it again as there was too much wind in the soundtrack."

I heave a sigh of resignation, I'm going to have get on camera again... But even more difficult than that, is finding a place out of the wind in the Pilbara... At some point during the day, I managed to find a few minutes again, somehow, miraculously found a place a little bit sheltered from the wind, re-recorded my video and sent it off again that night. I wake up to an email saying thanks for the entry, we'll be in touch in the following weeks. To any of you interested, here it is:

Somehow, I've yet to figure that out, this video got me a place competing on Samsung SOS Island. The first thing I think when I get notified of this in September is - hopefully I can get the time off work. Luckily, due to a variety of circumstances and having already asked for two weeks off at the time, I was allowed an extra week to head over to Puerto Rico!

Here I spent a week doing live streaming shows, with some training by Les Stroud on various survival techniques such as building shelter, finding water, making a fire and survival food. You can check out the full story here.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it through to the actual island, but I reckon I got the best deal out of it, I got a free flight to Puerto Rico, free survival training, met some great people, and then had 2 weeks to travel around and explore Puerto Rico.

You can check out all the videos on my YouTube page and I've put a select few below for your enjoyment.

Until the next time!

The Motley Crew

It's less than 2 weeks until the adventure begins! Today was the first day back in work after a few weeks off where I had to, rather suddenly, pack all my belongings, organise my life to be shipped back to the UK and then to move out of my flat, all this the week before I was to head back to the UK to surprise my family for Christmas day. My oldest brother knew I was turning up, and originally he was to pick me up on the Saturday, but circumstances changed and had to head back a few days earlier and so I was then going to turn up on my mum's doorstep on the evening of Christmas day. Between my older brother and I, we predicted precisely what the other three were going to say:

Mum screamed "Oh my god!" - but that was an easy one;

Oliver said: "What are you doing here?" - don't worry, not quite as unloving as it seems - there was intonation involved!;

and Nick said: "Look it's a hobo." - sarcastically commenting on my magnificent, man-tastique new beard (yes there was plenty of facial hair jealousy involved), but again, not quite as unloving as it seems.

So this was me Facebook-ed a few moments after arrival:

But after that initial excitement I spent a very nice couple weeks at home and occasional trip out to see other friends and family.

But, now onto my initial reason for this post - sorry got distracted reminiscing about my holidays already, the introduction to myself and my lovely travelling partners! *Pause for dramatic effect and time for gasping/applause* Here we go! Please excuse the descriptions - just trying to provide some context (and relative to myself as it is my blog).

Tom (portraying myself): I am a 26 year old technology, adventure and food enthusiast. My hobbies include climbing, cycling, hiking, SCUBA diving and baking to name a few, but when I'm not running around I love to sit and read fantasy, sci-fi and popular science books (not all inclusive). I'm always on the run and always looking to experience something new, but I am a caring, loyal geek at heart.

Kim (as the beautiful girlfriend): Kim is a 22 year old qualified physiotherapist (they say you're only as old as the girl you're dating) who born and raised in Perth WA, but grew up travelling all over the world. In her spare time, Kim loves to spend time playing basketball, boxing, generally running around and teaching aerial silks and trapeze - this coincidentally is where we met. Kim quit her job late in 2013 to start travelling the world as well, and I am lucky enough to have her agree to join me on my adventures! Check out her blog here: This is me: Nothing more, nothing less!

Sam (fulfilling the role of Kim's twin sister): Sam is the older of her and Kim by a few minutes. However, it is widely agreed that this was because Kim booted her out of the womb after stealing many of her nutrients in-utero (Sam is the slightly smaller of the twins). Sam is also a qualified physiotherapist and also teaches aerials silks and trapeze, and whilst these two are very close and similar in a scary number of ways - Sam is very much her own 'special' person (just kidding Sam!). 

and Zoe (the far more travelled friend and resident expert (hopefully anyway)): Zoe is a 25 year old qualified mathematician, who decided that she would (rather wisely some might say), go teach English in China for a year after graduating. Having finished that last July, she has since spent the past 5 months or so working her way across SE Asia down towards Australia to join us across the continent. I have known Zoe for many years as our mum's were very good friends when they were young. Outside of travelling all over the world and being generally pretty awesome, Zoe also loves dance hip-hop and break dance - ending up in some fairly contorted positions.

Clockwise, from top left - Tom, Kim, Sam, Zoe

So I guess that kind of connects all of us four, we all have hobbies that would make the general onlooker wince in pain.

and together we make the...

>INSERT NAME HERE<

Well that needs to be decided, seeing as we aren't all in the same country yet - but feel free to give suggestions and input!

Over the next 3 months or so, we will travel around Australia and New Zealand. The rough plan is to drive up the west coast of Australia to Exmouth and back over February, drive along the southern coast and up the east coast over March and then explore the north and south island of New Zealand over April - hopefully getting some motorcycles involved in there somewhere (particularly NZ).

Come May, Australia boots me out of the country and Kim, Sam and I will be heading back to the UK to start tackling that part of the globe (here motorcycles will definitely be involved!)

So stay tuned for more updates! I can't wait for it to begin!

Obstacle Course Extravaganza

This past year I ran various obstacle courses in Australia and the UK as both a personal challenge and to raise money for various charities. The lengths ranged from 5km to 20km but the minimum I ran at any one time was 10km (ran a 10km one and the 5km three times).

I'd like to thank everyone that donated to my effort! It was very much appreciated by both myself as a sign of support and the charities that received the funds!

Check out the video compilation below. It's been a long time coming I know!

Hello World!

Hello world! Привет мир! Hej världen! Olá, mundo! 你好世界! مرحبا العالم!

I thought that when it comes to beginning travelling and writing that it would be best to start simple. Unfortunately there's not a simple program for this "hello world" and I will just tell you a little bit about me and what I hope to do with this blog!

For the past two years I've been working as a geologist in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Before this I was studying in the UK as a Mining Geologist and Materials Engineer. I lived in the UK for 11 years in North Wales, London and Cornwall, but am originally from Buffalo, New York. I have been lucky enough to live, work and travel in various countries around the world, but this amounts to a metaphorical drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things. So this year I decided to resign from my job and venture off into the epic vastness of the world that I have yet to see. And yes,I know that 'epic' is rather overused nowadays, but I honestly don't think that there is a more suitable adjective to describe what is possible to see around this planet.

So what do I hope to achieve with this blog? That's a question I'm still trying to figure out exactly as I'm pretty new to this. I'm going to aim to document my journey and share my adventures. This means that I will hopefully end up with a very nice journal of my travels to look back on, allow others to see what I've experienced if they're planning on going somewhere similar and to make sure my mum doesn't worry too much that I've dropped off the face of the planet. So I'll be producing videos of my exploits, posting photos of the incredible sites and sharing stories, anecdotes and my experiences. This will hopefully be wide ranging from reviews of specific places, general or specific advice or even recipes I've picked up along the way. If I'm very honest I also hope that I will be able to achieve something that grabs someones attention enough that they would like me to write, photograph, report, review or document for them so I can continue seeing this beautiful planet for a living (yes I know, another cliché - I'll try to minimise their use in future).

>Insert world into oyster here< - just kidding!

I'm going to start with a few back stories to get a bit of content rolling and to get used to this whole blogging thing. But don't worry, I'll make sure it's all fairly recent exploits and I won't go back farther than 12 months. So keep an eye out for some (hopefully) exciting posts from the UK, Thailand, Australia and Puerto Rico. I'll finish off this first longish post now, and I'll hopefully see you back again soon.

Until the next time - wherever it may be!
Trekking Thomas