today i went to the JPL open house and got to see the deep space control room, the mars science lab mid-assembly and lots of robots and scale models. pretty great nerd stuff, and the whole thing had a very science fair-y vibe. scientists with tables set up – from photos and diagrams on poster boards to a model of orbiting stars and an actual model of an interferometer outputting data to a big plasma screen. my favorite part was actually the big shop where they manufacture parts for the probes and satellites.

…i also had a really good giant burrito.