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Satellite Imagery Used to Trace Lewis & Clark Route
Woogiemonger writes "To commemorate the 200 year anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition, NASA and other researchers are using satellite and aircraft remote-sensing technology to accurately reconstruct the path of the Lewis & Clark expedition, down to the precise location of each encampment. Considering many parts of the landscape along the path may have changed dramatically, this is no easy task. The final result will be a 3D interactive map publicly available on the WWW."
...is going on at the Boston Museum of Science. If you don't live in Boston (gosh, why not? It's the hub of the universe), the same movie will probably be traveling to similar humongous-screen theaters elsewhere.
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
With the ISS possibly going unmanned in the near future should NASA try to conserver resources? Just An Idea.
Any way it seems like a good way to use technology for the recording of what man has done...just maybe not the best time to do this.
Who discovered this vast cache of satellite imagery along the Lewis and Clark trail, and how did Lewis and Clark come by it 200 years ago? No wonder they only needed $2,500-they already knew they way, they just wanted to milk the job.
I really think that NASA should have better things to do than tracing the wanderings of superheros and their girlfriends.
traceroute lewisandclark.com
Lewis carried an air rifle on the 1803-1806 expedition. .31 cal, 700-900 lbs. per sq. inch.
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It's a real symbol of how far NASA and in general, the spirit of exploration, has declined that we use our fabulous science and technology to celebrate past endeavors instead of sending humans to Mars or even simply returning to the moon.
NASA is doing something that will actually further our knowledge about a hugely popular subject, Lewis and Clark. Witness the enourmous popularity of the Ambrose book Undaunted Courage. I think this is a much better use of its budget than sending astronauts up to that great trailer home in space just because.
I used an Apple IIe to trace the route and that was nearly 20 years ago. There was this really cool game for that computer. Anyone play it?
There is a huge difference between the two... Lewis and Clark (and their many assistants) were explorers. The Oregon trail was an established wagon train route from St Louis to Oregon.
That said, the (early) Oregon Trail games were quite cool. The original Apple II version had pretty crappy graphics, but the (two disk!!) second edition was much better (though required 128 KB of memory!). The early Mac version was cool as well, it supported LocalTalk LAN play for interactive wagon trains (voting, hunting, etc). The more recent versions for Mac/Win are nothing but eyecandy.
A project like this can be done for the cost of the toilets on ISS; what an interesting use of limited funds!
:)
Sharp-eyed readers will sense my implicit criticism of ISS.
Some claim those mazes of one-way streets were put there on purpose. Keeping a steady flow of 10,000 autos daily going round-and-around-and-around, totally lost, generates enough waste heat to save homeowners millions on fuel oil.
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
What a nice project, to correlate (which does not prove causation*) ground and orbital studies. It must have been difficult -- which suggests skills acquired for future challenges.
On the more aesthetic side, "Earth as Art" is just starting out, but very encouraging.
USGS has done a Landsat study of environmental change and NASA's general collection.
Wasn't it Al Gore who proposed a live video feed from a satellite watching Earth. Please don't share your opinion on Gore or the cost -- but wouldn't that be a nice little channel to have? I could name about 20 cable channels I'd surrender to get it (small loss). You could be one of the first to detect the first nuclear conflict. See, I'm not all that optimistic.
And linked from my home page is the Earth Science Image of the Day with explanations.
There are a lot of amazing photos out there, I am always interested in hearing of more, especially if explicated. I'm glad to see them coming to increasingly creative use, beyond assessing crops and measuring ocean temperatures -- useful as these things are!
*semi-inside joke
I can't think of a better way to relate to their experience than to have a satellite image to trace my finger over.
*sigh
My
Limekiller
The general area of the trail is pretty much already laid out. In North Dakota there are two highways, 1804 and 1806, symbolizing the route they took in the respective years, their are several very nice places to stop in ND such as the Louis and Clark interpretive center in Washburn and Ft. Lincoln in Mandan. My grandfather helped design the interpretive center, some engineering work and although the latter wasn't constructed until 70 years later it gives you a glimpse into the frontier past of the upper midwest. General Custers rebuilt house, a wooden fort circa 1870 and Mandan Indian Earth Lodges you can go into.
/.ers!
The Missouri has been damed up in many spots and only 3 or so spots remain where one can see the river as they did, from Garrision Dam south to Bismarck (canoed it for 5 days last summer for the second time, very very beutiful) and two sections in Montana before and after FT. Peck Dam. South of Bismarck is Lake Oahe and further south then that going into SD and Nebraska it is kinda polluted.
If you were to ever get near this area I would recommend stoping in, I grew up in ND and still live in ND I don't think it gets the credit it deserves for it's beauty and history.
No I don't work for the ND Dept. of Tourism, hehe
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Hopefully NASA doesn't repeat the Mars mission by making a unit conversion area. I think they'll be suspect if Lewis & Clark are shown to have discovered the Congo.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Online text of Jefferson's letter to Lewis. President Thomas Jefferson's Instructions to Captain Meriwether Lewis (June 20, 1803) http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/laven der/jefflett.html
Of course, I dont have the original journals, but I do have Gary E. Moulton's volume 8 that covers the time Clark was on/near my property.
:)
They are thoroughly descriptive.
Excerpt July 24 1806
S.E. 1 mile to a bluff on the Std. (starboard) bend.
N. 70 deg. E. 2 ms. under a bluff on the Std. side Psd. and island on the lard. (lardboard, or port)
N. 20 deg E. 4 m to a lard bend passed island on stard. side high bluff on std. low prarie on lard side.
This is a small part of what was written in each section of the journals. There are actually 2 pages of lat/long descriptions at the beginning of this section. They start each section with Lat/long descriptions of their position, and any visible landmarks. This is followed by accounts of the day.
P.S. Clark spells like Cmdr. Taco, no two words alike.
I, too, still live in North Dakota and have visited most of those places. Lewis and Clark is a huge thing up here and it's getting bigger with the bicentennial approaching. The school district where I work has put together a littlewebsite on Lewis & Clark.
The Map section has information on each of the major L&C locations in ND. It's pretty interesting, I'd suggest anyone interested in L&C take a look.