Category: Q&A

Local grad working on EagleCam project

Bedford High School grad William Edwards, now an undergrad at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, is one of 20 students working on “EagleCam,” the first-ever student project to be sent to the moon. Edwards talked about the mission of the project, his role on the project’s software team and what he is learning from this unique opportunity.

Why did you decide to go to Embry-Riddle and pursue a career in aeronautics?

I just like planes, honestly — aviation, aerospace, pretty much any fields having to do with flying or space. It’s something I was always interested in, even as a kid, and I just never lost interest. … A close family friend who knew I was really into aviation recommended the school to me because he knew it was a very good aviation-based school.

What is the EagleCam project?

It’s a module that’s going to be a payload on a Nova-C launcher from the company Intuitive Machines. The goal of the project is to take a third-person photo of the lunar lander actually landing on the surface of the moon. As the lander is coming down on the surface, it’s going to jettison our payload, and our EagleCam is going to take pictures of the lunar lander and send the pictures back to the lander via WiFi, and then the lander is going to send the data back to Earth. That’s the minimum requirements of this project. We’d also like EagleCam to continue to take pictures after it has landed to collect some information on dust plumes as the lunar lander actually makes its descent, and hopefully take some pictures of Earth as well.

How did you end up working on the EagleCam?

I actually had a friend of mine recommend me for it. She was already working on it, and I found out about it and said, ‘That sounds really cool,’ and she said, ‘Well, we need some extra help. Do you want to hop on?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely.’ … One of the reasons I came to Embry-Riddle is that I’ve always wanted to work on something important like this, like anything to do with research, and especially anything to do with space, so once I heard that this was a project based on the moon, I was like, ‘Absolutely, I need to do this.’

What is your role?

We have a couple teams. There’s the electrical engineering team, and they’re the ones who actually choose the computer that goes on board and the cameras that go on board, and they’re going to figure out the connections between our EagleCam and the Nova-C launcher. I’m on the software team, so I’m going to be the one who’s controlling the function of the cameras, when the payload is going to be jettisoned and the way the pictures are going to be taken. Also, the pictures are going to be taken with 186-degree cameras, so afterward we have to do some software post-processing to make the pictures look like normal-field-of-view pictures instead of wide-field-of-view pictures.

What are you working on right now, specifically?

Right now I’m just having to learn the [software] framework, and I’m making an application that controls the camera lens cleaners, so that if any dust particles get on the camera lens we can clean them off.

What’s the most exciting part of this experience for you?

I think it’s just the excitement of being able to do all of this and work on it for so long, and knowing that we’re going to get an end result that I could even make a screensaver on my phone. It’s also a great experience for me as a software engineer to actually be using NASA-based software frameworks to control our EagleCam and the jettison and any internal functions that we have on.

What has been the biggest challenge?

Learning the NASA software framework. It’s called cFS, and it’s a lot of C code, which I’m not too familiar with, so spending the first two or three weeks learning that has been pretty difficult.

Do you think the EagleCam project is helping to prepare you for what you want to do in the future?

Yes, most definitely. As a software engineer, being able to work on a team with electrical engineers and aerospace engineers is definitely an important skill. Since I want to be working in the aerospace industry, having the skills to communicate with them and understand what they’re doing and understand how my code influences their decisions and vice versa is definitely very important to me.

EagleCam
The Nova-C launcher carrying the EagleCam will launch in October 2021. To follow the progress of the project, see @ERAUEagleCam on Instagram and visit daytonabeach.erau.edu/eaglecam.

Featured photo: William Edwards. Courtesy photo.

Windham author Renee Mallett (reneemallett.com) has penned a number of books and articles on New England’s folklore, legends, ghosts and hauntings. She talks about her newest book, Wicked New Hampshire, where she explores some of the Granite State’s darkest history.

How did you start writing about odd history and paranormal encounters?

It all kind of happened accidentally. I was writing a travel article about the bed and breakfast where the Lizzie Borden murders happened. It’s been turned into this lovely little inn, and it’s supposedly haunted. … When I went to go write the article … there was this sort of psychic who … walked me through the house, and it was just so interesting and fascinating. … So, after I wrote this sort of quirky travel article about it, the publisher actually contacted me and said, ‘Do you think you could write a whole book of ghost stories?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ And they said, ‘What city do you want to focus on?’ and I said ‘Manchester.’ I have no idea why I said that. It just sort of came out. So my first book was Manchester ghosts. It was popular, and it was so much fun to write, so I just sort of kept on writing them.

Have you always been interested in the paranormal?

I’ve always been interested in history and folklore, and that’s sort of the fun thing about these ghost stories. A lot of times they share parts of history that you wouldn’t normally learn about. Usually the things that make it into the history books are about generals and wealthy landowners, but a lot of these ghost stories actually tell about the day-to-day life of everyday people.

What kinds of stories are in Wicked New Hampshire?

I’ve spent so long researching and writing about the paranormal side of New Hampshire, and all the time I would find these really amazing stories and scandalous bits of history … so I wanted to collect all of those things in one kind of quirky and fun book about the darker side of New Hampshire history. We have a lot of characters and quirky people in our past. We have scandalous authors. … We have H. H. Holmes, who is known as American’s first serial killer, and a lot of people have no idea that he was born and bred here in New Hampshire. … We have witches, like Goody Cole. … I tried to pick a variety of stories. I didn’t want to focus on just one kind of wickedness or one point in history.

So, do you believe in ghosts?

I am a skeptic. … I’ve had experiences that people who are hardcore believers look at and say, ‘Yeah, you saw a ghost.’ I’m not ready to say that yet. I think I’m still waiting to see that one thing that makes me go, ‘Yes, that’s definitely a ghost.’ But with each book, I’m a little bit less of a skeptic. I’ve seen some weird stuff that I can’t explain. I’ve talked to so many people at these places who do not know each other but have had similar [paranormal] experiences. … Another big thing is ‘orbs’ in photos. A lot of times, if you take photos at a place where there is supposed to be a ghost, you get these fuzzy little dots in the photos. People who are big believers say that’s the manifestation of the ghost, and people who are skeptics say, ‘Well, that’s just dust on your camera lens.’ I will say that, going to a lot of places that are supposed to be very haunted, I get a ton of orbs in my photos, and I’m a pretty good photographer. I mean, my photos have been shown in art galleries. I don’t get those orbs in any of my other photos.

Why are these stories worth telling?

For me, the stories are really about the people. We think of these people who lived so long ago as being completely different from us, but at the end of the day, people today are not that different from people hundreds of years ago. A lot of the stories are about people who made poor choices in spouses or people who drank too much and it affected their jobs. People are people no matter what the time period or the situation.

Who are your readers?

I do a lot of book signings and talks in a year, and I’m continually amazed at how these stories seem to appeal to different people in all different ways. I’ve had everyone from middle schoolers up to little old ladies ask me to sign their books. … I think it’s the local history that appeals to them, because at first they think, ‘Oh, New Hampshire — we’re just like everywhere else; it’s not that interesting here,’ but then they’re like, ‘Oh, no, wait. Look at these wacky people who have been here and all these things that have happened.’

What are you working on now?

I’m actually writing two books right now. … I’m writing one book that’s about abandoned towns throughout New England, and that’s been another fun kind of road trip book. … I’m also writing my first true crime book; the Peyton Place novel was actually based on a crime that happened here in New Hampshire, so I’m writing about that.

Featured photo: Wicked New Hampshire

Why the drought will continue, and how to save water

According to the United States Drought Monitor’s most recent data on New Hampshire (released Oct. 6), 21.99 percent of the state is experiencing extreme drought and 73.07 percent of the state is experiencing severe drought. Stacey Herbold, manager of the Water Conservation and Water Use Registration and Reporting programs at New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and a member of the Drought Management Team, talked about how the drought has affected the state and what residents can do to conserve water.

What impact does a drought have on New Hampshire residents?

We see agricultural operations having to work really hard to keep their crops going. … [Residents with wells] may see their well supply running low or going dry, and they may notice that their water has some sediment in it. … [Residents using community water] have restrictions put on their water use, mostly for outdoor watering … and that can range from a total ban on all outdoor watering, to watering on only certain days of the week, to no lawn watering and only hand watering of gardens. … Right now we have 165 community water systems with water restrictions in place.

What caused the drought? Is it due only to environmental factors, or are people also partially responsible?

It’s the increased water use during the summer, coupled with [environmental factors]. … Spring is one of the most important times of the year for recharging groundwater. … We had a really low snowpack in early spring and below-average rain in the spring, so that started us off in a deficit as we went into the summer. In the summer, we continued not to get enough rain to make up for it … and when temperatures rise, a lot of water ends up going to evaporation. … Water use also increases during the summer months because of outdoor watering. … A lot of people turn on their irrigation system and leave it running even when watering isn’t necessarily needed.

What kinds of water systems are used in New Hampshire, and what does a drought do to them?

Approximately half of the state is on their own private residence with well water, while the other half is on some kind of community water system. Community water systems usually have a diverse set of water sources. They may have wells in various areas, surface water sources and backup [sources], so they’re a bit more resilient when it comes to a drought. … Residential well owners tend to have either dug wells or bedrock wells. Dug wells are shallower wells that are in unconsolidated material above the bedrock. During a drought, they’re the first to run low on water, but they’re also the first to recharge when it rains. Bedrock wells are drilled down into the bedrock and receive water from various small fractures, and it takes longer for them to be impacted by low groundwater levels, but they take much longer to recharge. … It could take weeks to months.

How can people conserve water during a drought?

During the summer months, a reduction in lawn watering is the main thing, and not washing down driveways, power washing houses or washing cars with the hose constantly going. … As we move into the colder weather, people really need to focus on how to conserve water indoors. Do full loads of laundry and full loads in the dishwasher. Take shorter showers. Don’t run water while doing other things. Turn off the faucet while you’re brushing your teeth. When you’re doing dishes, fill up a basin rather than letting the water run. One simple thing that people don’t think about is that you don’t always need to have your faucet on full blast. If you’re just rinsing vegetables off, you could turn it on halfway. … Residential well owners need to space out how they use water throughout the day and throughout the week. You shouldn’t be showering, running the dishwasher and doing laundry all at once.

Should people be buying their drinking water?

Not necessarily. The percentage of the amount of water we use for drinking is so small, it doesn’t really make a difference. But if you have a well and you’re starting to see sediment in your water you may want to consider buying bottled water just to prevent yourself from drinking anything like that.

When is the current drought expected to end?

Different outlets are predicting that the drought will improve over the next month but not necessarily go away. We could enter the winter while still in a drought. Then, our next chance for a really good groundwater replenishment won’t come until next spring.

Is water conservation important even when there isn’t a drought?

Yes. It should be practiced every day. Water is not an infinite resource, and it takes all of us to make sure we have the water supply we need … One of the basic things homeowners should be doing is replacing their outdated water fixtures. … [Older] toilets and washing machines are some of the biggest water wasters. … This can also save you money on your utility bills, and [newer appliances] can save a lot of energy, which could save you money on your electric bills.

Featured photo: Stacey Herbold