 Coffee Kepler studies coffee alien coffee 4 a.m. I have a flight to San Jose in about 90 minutes I'm going to visit NASA Ames for one day the reason I'm going down is a student from Germany who I've been working with has Come over for a couple weeks, and this is the only time I can get away to go down and visit her Sunny here in Mountain View. I'm here for one day just to talk about flares and Kepler and K2 and the day is starting Right, I'm gonna meet up gear for a cup of coffee So we've got the NASA turkeys I have so so many questions turkeys Not that I know of we have squirrels There's our elephants That's Kuiper. They used to be the airborne observatory of NASA telescope in a plane So this predate Sophia also infrared. Yep, so it's being auctioned auction Yeah, it's a government auction website. You can buy it for $5,000. That's it. Yeah, 5,000 bucks Oh, it doesn't fly anymore 5,000 bucks for a stork airplane It's getting its catering It hasn't flown since the 1990s, I think I bet it would fly. This is where the pioneer missions were operated from and the first mission to Jupiter the pioneer This is where your office is? Yep NASA basketball Yeah, let's do that. Welcome to NASA. It's gonna be super cinematic. Good morning It is beautiful here. Welcome to Mountain View, California. Welcome to NASA Ames. I've been to Ames four times five times I've been to Ames several times But this is my first time being behind the behind the gate. So I have a visitor badge Makes me official I can officially be here with no escort. Every time I've been here, I've been here for a workshop And so they've got a whole half of the base. You don't have to have security clearance to get in Ames is a really cool place. It was built like originally in the 30s There's a bunch of really big giant hangers including like Durageable or blimp hangers. So I'm here today, but I'm here for one day only got on a plane 530 departure having coffee with my buddy Geert by 8 30. And then I head home tonight at I think 845 is my flight home going from Seattle to California. It's doable I wouldn't do it all the time The reason I was willing to come down here for a day is there's a student visiting from Germany who's been working on Flares so these energetic stellar explosions that I've worked on for a long time. She's Really vastly improving my coach. She's making it way way better She's fixing a lot of the bugs that I told myself I would fix or that I wanted to fix or that I didn't know how to fix So I'm really impressed with what she's doing. Since I said I'd come down for a day just to kind of help out Mostly just to figure out what I can do to make her life easier. What can I delete? What can I remove? I'm not like her main advisor, but she and I have worked on and off together now for about a year We've only met once before in boston actually at cool stars But this is the first time we've gotten to sit down and actually work together for a day Nothing replaces sitting down and just talking and drawing pictures and sketching things out So So the great privilege is to be able to get on a plane and come and talk to people It's also just really neat to visit where kepler happens where kepler runs I'm talking with geert baronstein. He's the head of the guest observer office now here holding right back here That's that's where kepler happens. Basically. We're all the magic happens for kepler. Well, except for the launch facility I guess the real magic happens in outer space. Uh, and then through total happy circumstance, uh, tom barkley Who's now ahead of the guest investigator office a test is here for a few days as well. It should be a fun day Oh, yeah, and the reason my beard has gotten completely out of hand is i'm not trimming it until I submit this paper Uh that I need to finish It's gonna get longer And that means I can say anything at all, right? Correct. Everything's public. Okay. Good The number is soft. Is that because are you worried about the impact on additional motion on the compression? Then they are stars for your purposes Yeah, if you didn't tell me they were galaxies, okay? If you don't tell me the galaxies, they're not galaxies. Correct Thank you steve. Great job. Thank you. Thanks for letting me spectate All right by Kepler headquarters All right, that was a fun day hanging out at nasa Did some good science I got to sit in on a phone con which kind of cool to see how they how they work What is fascinating is how precious the pixels are in kepler and it takes such good care to make sure that every pixel is accounted for Man, it's bright out here Now i'm gonna go with uh tom barkley and gear to go tour around and just check out a bit To go tour it around and look at a little bit of the campus Yes Lead the way. All right Tom, how long did you work at aims? For six years Not for six years Six years Can you miss california? Yeah, yeah, yeah california is pretty great. This rocky used to be over by the mcdonalds pixel. Yeah. Yeah, that's here Rocket Mixed up space. I think that rocket is one that's designed to go off and come down I think that's right. Yeah, I think I found one here You have to dress and part for the job you want. Let's go find kepler It looks like a big oh there it is. It's the size of the smallest channel Do we could put a mirror of it? Yeah, what does it look like inside? I hope you appreciate it. This is one of nasa's most bold and most successful endeavors Thomas barkley It changed the way we look at the night sky Back in the airport long day. Good day being hanging out with geert and tom barkley So two people who have made my life markedly better in terms of their work at the various guest observer offices for nasa I'm sitting around having a drink talking about the missions talking about where we are It was good. It was productive It's illuminating too