2010-07-27

Opportunity Sol 536 (Spirit Sol 556)

We've had some blind students working with the project to make the Web pages more accessible. They've also been observing ops for a while, and Callas picks one of them to shadow the RPs today. Her name's Grace King. She's got a fine, self-deprecating sense of humor and is deeply sarcastic. I like her already.

Unfortunately, despite having been forewarned about this by Callas, we don't really have much for her to do. The job is inherently mostly visual -- at least, as we currently conceive it. I kind of hoped there would be a choice we could throw to her, a fork in the road she could help us decide about or something. But I fail to spot any such opportunity. She seems pretty upbeat about the whole experience, but I feel as though we've failed her.

The science team is having a big meeting at Cornell, which has an interesting effect on the dynamics of the SOWG meeting. Instead of people at different sites trying to share the telecom line, it sounds as though Steve is running the game much as the SOWG chairs used to do when all the scientists were gathered here, passing a mike around. "Sounds like Donahue," I mutter to Cooper. "Just as long as it doesn't turn into Jerry Springer," he quips.

Cooper handles most of the driving thisol, while I try to engage our shadow. Neither she nor I really ends up with much to do. What a letdown.

[Next post: sol 562 (Opportunity sol 541), August 1.]

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