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Post by tomanoble on Jan 17, 2011 11:45:29 GMT -9
I was looking at the geocaching.com website and saw a listing for Extreme Geocaching. So after reading about a family that found geocaches in 6 countries in 1 day I saw they have a Geocache of the Week catagory as well. Did you know there is a geocache on the International Space Station? I doubt I will get that one anytime soon. But there is one that made it to space and safely returned which is available. Sputnik 2010: A Geocache Odyssey” GC2JPJJ. It was the geocache of the week for December 20, 2010. They even have a video of its flight. If I understood html at all you could click this link but for now you will have to paste and copy it to watch the video. blog.geocaching.com/2010/12/sputnik-2010-a-geocache-odyssey-gc2jpjj-geocache-of-the-week-december-20-2010/. Since Alaska has its own space port maybe someone can figure out a way for us to have our own space geocache.
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Post by tomanoble on Jan 17, 2011 11:46:43 GMT -9
Hey! What do you know! It worked all by itself!
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 17, 2011 19:00:43 GMT -9
Yes, I watched that cache being advertised on the national forums prior to the launch. Cool idea. Nice that they were able to get permission to keep the cache at the final landing site.
That wasn't the first cache of that type though. There's one on the Left Coast as well; pretty sure it's in California and I remember reading something about one being lofted via high-power civilian rocket instead of the balloon method.
The 2 caches published by the astronaut (one in the space station and the other at the bottom of the ocean where it was placed by deep sea submersible) are, IMHO, silly novelties that never should have been published. They are not accessible by the average, or even the extreme cacher, under any means.
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Post by tomanoble on Jan 17, 2011 20:55:58 GMT -9
The cache in California is currently unavailable, according to the blog talking about space caches.
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 18, 2011 3:37:54 GMT -9
Anyone know anything about these high-altitude balloons?
Seems like Alaska has great opportunity for this with the large park areas where the landing site is guaranteed to be public property if the launch site is figured out correctly.
Of course you could very easily end up with a cache that has a 4.5-star terrain rating, especially in the Chugach Park. There are other tracts of public land that might make for easier access. The Caribou Hills and the Eureka areas come to mind, though you'd still end up quite some distance off the road.
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Post by davemeister on Jan 18, 2011 17:11:52 GMT -9
I dunno, what the heck, there is a chance (albeit a tiny one) of getting these caches. Not sure I want to spend the $$$$$ to hunt for the submerged cache. I agree that these are novelty caches but were placed at the location by a geocacher so by that thought alone I agree with the reviewer.
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Post by li1gray on Jan 19, 2011 14:48:47 GMT -9
Really funning as one of my co-workers is building a rocket and wants to place a payload in it and make me find it with some sort of transmitter to recover it. He has been toying with me tellng me it is going to be a geocache. So don't tell him. I don't want to have to rent a bunch of gear to recover it!
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 20, 2011 10:40:14 GMT -9
Ha, rocketry was my "original" hobby from childhood. Haven't done much with it for the last several years, but I still have all the gear, lots of rockets gathering dust, and a magazine full of rocket motors. Always wanted to graduate from mid-power up to high-power (which requires licensing), but there were no options in Alaska for doing that.
I doubt anyone will remember, but Conoco-Phillips did a series of commercials about a dozen years ago, one of which showed a father and his child launching a large red rocket in their backyard. I was actually contracted by the film company as their "rocket guy" and custom built the 2 rockets we used during the filming. We flew them about a half dozen times from the backyard of a Conoco-Phillips executive's house on the bluff in Kenai. It was pretty cool to be involved with that (by involved I mean I did everything except for pushing the launch button, which we actually let the "actors" do during the filming).
I still have those two rockets.
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Post by NorthWes on Jan 20, 2011 16:02:05 GMT -9
Wow - that's a cool connection! I've launched a few with the kids doing scouting stuff. So... how far does mid-power allow you to range?
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cavyguy
Silver Cacher
Posts: 175
GeocacheAlaska! Membership Level: Sourdough
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Post by cavyguy on Jan 25, 2011 19:52:56 GMT -9
Interesting Thread
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