Read Online How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mike Brown
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walk in.
“Hi, I’m Diane Binney,” she said.
She was well dressed, poised, glamorous, outgoing, radiant. She was everything that you don’t stereotypically expect to find in someone from Caltech (including, in particular, me). I quickly introduced myself, and I thought: Who
is
this person?
Diane Binney was the well-loved director of a group whose members attended tours and special talks and traveled to exotic locations, all associated with Caltech and its research. Diane had arranged this trip to Palomar Observatory and had invited me to speak, and, as I learned much later, everyone except for me on the Caltech campus seemed to know precisely who she was and had known for years. I had perhaps been staring into my computer screen too much to have ever looked up and noticed.
I admit that I did not give the people on the tour the full attention that they deserved. I admit to spending more time telling Diane about the telescope and the dome and astronomy than I did everyone else. But I must have given an all-right tour—at least to her—because at some point while walking on a catwalk high above the ground on the outside of the observatory, she said, “Hey, do you ever use the telescopes in Hawaii?”
I do.
“Would you be interested in coming next spring on a travel program where we take people to the volcanoes and then up tothe telescopes? Would you be able to talk about the telescopes and give tours?”
Not checking my calendar, I simply said, “Absolutely.”
Dinner soon began. I spoke for an hour and showed pictures of the sky, pictures of telescopes, and graphs of what was to be found out at the edge of the solar system. But mostly I talked about planets. I told the group that there
had
to be planets out there and that I was going to find them. Even as I said it, though, all I could think of was that I was halfway through my “maybe” list, and still I had found nothing. I could do the song and the dance and put on the excited face, but it was becoming possible that all of my searching would come to nothing.
When the talk was over, the group got on their bus and left. I walked over to the little cottage where Kevin Rykoski lived. I had talked to Kevin and Jean Mueller on the phone every night discussing where to point the telescope, but now I finally had a chance to go sit on Kevin’s sofa and drink a beer. He had been at my talk earlier and had helped with the tour.
Over time, my conversations with Kevin and Jean every night while taking the photographic plates had progressed from simple efficient talk about the sky and the weather to a more general extended chat. Jean would talk about her plans for a dream house on the river, while Kevin told stories about his teenage daughter or described how he would drive directly to the beach on the last morning before bright time started and sleep all day long. Kevin and Jean had also had inadvertent front-row seats to the demise of my long-term relationship from my days in Berkeley and my subsequent retreat from the cabin in the woods that my girlfriend and I had shared, to the death of my father, to the start and end of a new relationship or two; so, as I sat on Kevin’s sofa for the first time, our conversation naturally steered to the personal.
All Kevin wanted to talk about was Diane Binney and why she kept talking to me. I told Kevin about the Hawaii trip and that we were talking logistics. He thought that sounded like an exciting first date. I insisted that it sounded like work, because that was all it was.
Kevin wouldn’t let up. “Yeah, but she was paying you a lot of attention.”
“She runs trips for people; it’s her job to be nice. I’m sure that all of the guys at Caltech that she has to work with get the wrong impression and make idiots of themselves. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
Six months later, I was in Hawaii with Diane and twenty or thirty people in her group. The group spent an enjoyable week on the lava, at the
“Hi, I’m Diane Binney,” she said.
She was well dressed, poised, glamorous, outgoing, radiant. She was everything that you don’t stereotypically expect to find in someone from Caltech (including, in particular, me). I quickly introduced myself, and I thought: Who
is
this person?
Diane Binney was the well-loved director of a group whose members attended tours and special talks and traveled to exotic locations, all associated with Caltech and its research. Diane had arranged this trip to Palomar Observatory and had invited me to speak, and, as I learned much later, everyone except for me on the Caltech campus seemed to know precisely who she was and had known for years. I had perhaps been staring into my computer screen too much to have ever looked up and noticed.
I admit that I did not give the people on the tour the full attention that they deserved. I admit to spending more time telling Diane about the telescope and the dome and astronomy than I did everyone else. But I must have given an all-right tour—at least to her—because at some point while walking on a catwalk high above the ground on the outside of the observatory, she said, “Hey, do you ever use the telescopes in Hawaii?”
I do.
“Would you be interested in coming next spring on a travel program where we take people to the volcanoes and then up tothe telescopes? Would you be able to talk about the telescopes and give tours?”
Not checking my calendar, I simply said, “Absolutely.”
Dinner soon began. I spoke for an hour and showed pictures of the sky, pictures of telescopes, and graphs of what was to be found out at the edge of the solar system. But mostly I talked about planets. I told the group that there
had
to be planets out there and that I was going to find them. Even as I said it, though, all I could think of was that I was halfway through my “maybe” list, and still I had found nothing. I could do the song and the dance and put on the excited face, but it was becoming possible that all of my searching would come to nothing.
When the talk was over, the group got on their bus and left. I walked over to the little cottage where Kevin Rykoski lived. I had talked to Kevin and Jean Mueller on the phone every night discussing where to point the telescope, but now I finally had a chance to go sit on Kevin’s sofa and drink a beer. He had been at my talk earlier and had helped with the tour.
Over time, my conversations with Kevin and Jean every night while taking the photographic plates had progressed from simple efficient talk about the sky and the weather to a more general extended chat. Jean would talk about her plans for a dream house on the river, while Kevin told stories about his teenage daughter or described how he would drive directly to the beach on the last morning before bright time started and sleep all day long. Kevin and Jean had also had inadvertent front-row seats to the demise of my long-term relationship from my days in Berkeley and my subsequent retreat from the cabin in the woods that my girlfriend and I had shared, to the death of my father, to the start and end of a new relationship or two; so, as I sat on Kevin’s sofa for the first time, our conversation naturally steered to the personal.
All Kevin wanted to talk about was Diane Binney and why she kept talking to me. I told Kevin about the Hawaii trip and that we were talking logistics. He thought that sounded like an exciting first date. I insisted that it sounded like work, because that was all it was.
Kevin wouldn’t let up. “Yeah, but she was paying you a lot of attention.”
“She runs trips for people; it’s her job to be nice. I’m sure that all of the guys at Caltech that she has to work with get the wrong impression and make idiots of themselves. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
Six months later, I was in Hawaii with Diane and twenty or thirty people in her group. The group spent an enjoyable week on the lava, at the
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