Show Date: December 21, 2005  
Pam Eastlick for THE DEEP on line

EXTREME RACING
AND
MILDER ADVENTURES

Greetings and welcome to The Deep column and the deepest radio show on Earth. The Deep is the science talk radio program that takes you from the depths of the ocean to the farthest reaches of the universe. This week on The Deep, aired at 6:00 this evening on K-57, we’ll talk about life at the extreme with Lt. Brian Evans who plans to race across the Gobi Desert. Then we’ll talk about a kinder, gentler adventure that’s a little closer to home. Then perhaps we’ll have some expedition calls. We’ll also have some science news updates and we’ll be taking your phone calls. Tune in tonight and join host Jim Sullivan, Pam Eastlick and our expedition coordinator Peter Melyan for the latest in scientific news! Then log on to www.thedeepradioshow.com for more information on all the latest and deepest news!

RACING DRY
We feature a lot of extreme sports on The Deep. From mountain climbing, through dogsled racing to rowing across the Pacific, the courage of our fellow humans is an inspiration to us all.

Most of our extreme sports stories are featured in expedition calls, but this week we are lucky to have an extreme sports enthusiast in studio. We’ll be talking to Lt. Brian Evans who is a doctor stationed aboard the USS Frank Cable. He’s originally from Arizona and he plans to participate in the 150-mile long Gobi March, a race across one of the Earth’s most hostile deserts in May of next year.

The Gobi Desert is nearly twice the size of Texas and is the world’s largest ‘winter desert’. Unlike the Sahara, which is hot year round, the Gobi experiences some of the most extreme temperatures on the planet. “Gobi” is the Mongolian word for ‘waterless place’ and in addition to those extremes in temperature; the average annual rainfall is less than 3 inches (our annual rainfall in the Marianas averages around 8 feet). The Gobi Desert is located on an elevated plateau in central Asia and the western portion of the desert is entirely sandy. The eastern portion has essentially been scrubbed to bare rock by the prevailing northwesterly winds, which have deposited most of the region’s soil into north central China.

The Gobi Desert hasn’t always been this way, however, many amazing and valuable fossils of ancient mammals lie buried in its endless wastes. Archeologists have also found prehistoric stone implements and believe there may be the remains of cities hidden beneath the sand and among the rocks. But mounting an expedition to one of the world’s most hostile places is difficult and many of the Gobi’s secrets remain hidden.

So why would a presumably sane doctor be willing to run 150 miles across such a hostile environment? Well, the answer is the answer that motivates many of us; money.

But this is money for a good cause. Lt. Evans hopes to raise money and awareness for the Christopher Reeve Foundation, an organization Evans says he strongly supports. The Christopher Reeve Foundation is a charitable organization committed to finding treatments and cures for paralysis and other neurological disorders, as well as improving the quality of life for people living with disabilities. Lt. Evans hopes to raise $10,000 for the foundation by the time the race is over.

The foundation's mission holds special meaning for Evans because he was racing with a close friend in August of 2000 when his friend fell and severed his spinal cord. The Christopher Reeve Foundation helped his friend recover from this devastating injury and adjust to his paralysis.

Lt. Evans learned about the Gobi March after reading an article in an adventure magazine. The race is hosted by Race the Planet and is known locally as “the race of no return”. Each racer must carry everything they need with them including their water so the most important piece of gear is the pack.

The pack holds everything from his food-camping rations and electrolyte drinks-to his multipurpose knife. He'll also be carrying a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, a camera and if he has enough room, an MP3 player. His clothes are specially designed mountain and desert gear whose synthetic fibers will help keep him cool during the day and warm at night.
Evans has been hard at work training for the race. Right now, he said he is focusing on increasing his base mileage, the preparation needed to get the body in preliminary shape for the longer, more intense training as the race approaches.
Join us tonight on The Deep as we talk to Lt. Brian Evans about his training and the upcoming race. We’ll be taking phone calls so don’t miss it!

ADVENTURES FOR THE REST OF US
Most of us aren’t quite up to walking across a desert, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have adventures. The Deep Outpost has been sponsoring adventures for the rest of us, and last weekend we had an awesome time. We went stargazing!

The night sky from the Gobi Desert is an awesome sight. That 3000 foot elevation and the clear air (when the sandstorms don’t blow) makes the stars appear so close you could almost reach out and touch them. There’s also virtually no light pollution, the real bane of the modern stargazer. The pollution from streetlights and cities has cut most of humanity off from the TV of their ancestors.

Here on Guam, we can see most of the stars because we’re so close to the equator, but we’re generally plagued by cloudy skies and salt haze, although our light pollution isn’t as bad as it is in the mainland US, Japan and Europe.
It’s possible to have some stunning stargazing nights here, and we were lucky enough to have one last Sunday night on The Deep Outpost cruise into the Pacific. We had many adventurers and we saw some astounding sights. We saw two planets, two galaxies and the oldest light you can see with your unaided eyes. We saw the brightest star, the North star and the place where the stars disappear. We saw the three brightest objects in the sky, and some of the dimmest and we saw a rare and beautiful sight; the Zodiacal light. Join us tonight to learn all about our “Adventure for the Rest of Us”.

RACING DEEP
Although there’s only one spacecraft involved, NASA is preparing to launch a deep space explorer that will definitely be in a race. Our fastest spacecraft will be strapped to a gigantic rocket and will fly by the Moon in only nine hours. It took the Apollo astronauts three days to make the same trip. If the launch goes well, this piano-sized spacecraft will get a gravity assist from Jupiter to make it go even faster. And why do you need all that speed? Because this little robot is traveling to the farthest planet, Pluto.

The mission is called New Horizons and even at its incredible speed, it will still take at least 10 years to get there. That should give you some idea just how far away Pluto is from the inner solar system. For most of that 10 years New Horizons will ‘hibernate’ using just enough power to keep its insides at room temperature. New Horizons is deeply bundled in thermal ‘blankets’ to allow it to keep warm in the ultimate winter of space.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s best picture of Pluto.

Electricity will be provided by a thermoelectric generator powered by the heat from radioactive decay of non-weapons-grade plutonium. With the 200 watts supplied by the generator, New Horizons will operate seven different scientific instruments.

About 12 weeks before New Horizons's arrival at Pluto, the spacecraft's cameras will be able to get pictures better than those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and the data will improve steadily as it approaches the planet.
The spacecraft has no moving parts, so engineers will program its hydrazine fuel thrusters to turn the spacecraft. When New Horizons reaches Pluto, communications between Earth and the spacecraft will take four hours and 25 minutes. That’s almost 10 hours to send a command and get a response back at the speed of light (180,000 miles per SECOND). No wonder this is the speediest spacecraft ever!

Racing across the Gobi, racing to Pluto. Whether we’re learning about extreme adventures or a milder variety, The Deep, hosted by Jim Sullivan with Pam Eastlick and Peter Melyan is the place to be on K-57 tonight at 6:00 p.m. Don’t miss it!