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ed satellites, pieces of rockets, and other scrap steel, the high-orbit version of bent truck tailgates, dead snow machines, and upside-down refrigerators. Some of it is ours, some belongs to the Russians and others. Speaking of Russia and that part of the world, a little space story: Our aforementioned dirt-road astronomer has his birthday in September. On that occasion last year, neighbor Martin, who happens to be Our Nation’s Desk Agent for Kazakhstan (whatever that means), having until recently been only the Desk Agent for Kyrgyzstan, and who lives part-time up on Spook End with all the other spies on the island, came to the birthday dinner bearing an interesting and unique gift that he got from work: an ornamental Kazakh riding whip. This implement, useful for urging on a horse, making a ceremonial presentation, or keeping a slack crew busy at their appointed tasks, is approximately two feet long, of leather with deer fur and silver decorative elements, and is ostentatiously ornate, per-
haps even elegant in a Central Asian sort of way. A couple of weeks later, on October 13, 2007, the International Space Station was due for a crew change, and this otherwise routine operation made big news because the new commander for the next rotation was to be an American woman, NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson. The launch to bring the new crew to the ISS and to bring home those getting off shift was leaving from the former Soviet space base at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. In a moment of lightheartedness perhaps not historically typical of formerly Soviet space agency personnel, the Russians gave the new commander a gift to take on board: an ornamental Kazakh riding whip. I saw the BBC story about it on the Internet. There was a picture of Commander Whitson with her whip. It is exactly the same as the one our stargazer on Matinicus received for his
birthday. Now, as he watches the ISS traverse the early evening sky, our man knows the mate to his, uh, ornamental Kazakh riding whip is up there, keeping the crew in line. Our island stargazer, as I have already mentioned, still doesn’t have a telescope. This fact perplexes his friends, but a good telescope is expensive, and is sensitive to the weather, and is generally a big project to set up and to move. A conveniently portable telescope is apt to be an optical disappointment, and anyway, telescope shopping itself seems to be a full-fledged hobby. Eventually, we suspect, he will probably scrounge up some plywood and a porthole glass and get started. Eva Murray lives on Matinicus Island, where it seems that Mercury is always in retrograde. DEDICATION This one is for John Dobson. Perhaps someone will send a copy to him.
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