Taylor Zajonc's Blog, page 4

Come See Me at the 8th Annual NW Book Festival!

Come see me at the 8th Annual NW Book Festival in Portland, OR on Saturday, July 30th in Pioneer Square! It starts at 11am, I’ll be sticking around until about 3pm.

 

RED SUN ROGUE Update

Hey gang, been a bit of a gap between the blog post and now. That’s because I’ve been hard at work getting Wrecking Crew sequel novel RED SUN ROGUE done and off to the publisher! So excited about this novel; initial feedback has been great and it’s certain to be a ton of fun.

RED SUN ROGUE: A salvage diver turned smuggler and his unproven crew become the pawns of an enigmatic technology cult with roots in the clandestine weapons programs of the Second World War. (Blank Slate Press, February 2017)

Stay tuned! More news coming soon …

Photoshop Scandal Embroils Indian Everest Mountaineers

Married police constables Dinsesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod claimed to have conquered Everest as the first married Indian couple to summit the famed mountain. The story was a compelling narrative for a well-trod peak where making ones mark has become an increasingly difficult and dangerous prospect. Their claim to fame was made all the more appealing to regional media outlets after three of India’s climbers died in their own summit attempt just days earlier, a fact that did not go unannounced in the Rathod’s tearful press conference upon their return.

However, the photos released by the couple atop the summit seemed a little “off” to many, with a face that doesn’t quite fit the lighting and a background image seemingly cribbed from the website of their Nepalese expedition guides. Take a look at the two following images and see if you can spot some of the similarities between them:

Rathod Facepook Post
Makalu Adventures Website

To date, the couple has denied faking their climb and guiding company Makalu Adventure stands by the claim of successful summit.

As an editorial note, Photoshopped images do not necessarily mean they did not reach the top of the mountain. However, releasing these photos reflects incredibly poor judgement and strengthens Everest’s worsening reputation as an anything-goes circus for attention seekers. It’s also increased scrutiny on the Nepalese Department of Tourism, with government officials at that agency issued “summit certificates” to the couple without first consulting the guide sherpas that supposedly led them to the top.

The Pune police department that employs the Rathods has launched an internal investigation into the incident.

 

 

Undersea Survival Stories with Outside Magazine’s New Podcast!

It was such a pleasure speaking with Outside Magazine’s Peter Frick-Wright for his new podcast “The Science of Survival: Under Pressure”. It’s all about the development of early subs, including indigent wagonmakers, undersea fistfights, Russian sabotage–a ton of fun. Check it out below!

Science of Survival Ep05: Under Pressure 16:29 6/14/2016. When you’re stuck underwater in a submarine, the number of of ways you can die is long and varied—crushing, burning, asphyxiation, exploding, the list goes on and on. Escaping alive requires maintaining calm and focus.

Portland’s BASE4x4 Debuts Prototype Expedition Truck

I’m enjoying an amber ale at Portland’s Base Camp Brewing, and a crowd has already begun to gather. That’s because award-winning industrial designer Mark Shoening has just rumbled up in his prototype expedition truck. It’s a boxy, Mitsubishi Fuso-based design that looks like it just drove off the set of Matt Damon’s “The Martian.”

It’s safe to say that full-sized overland 4×4’s are having a bit of a moment in the United States. Long since popular in Europe and Africa, American interest in these do-it-all trucks has surged. Cubicle-trapped adventurers the nation over have filled their Pinterest pages with these rugged, sturdy vehicles; but too few of us can afford the $600,000 it costs to pick up a factory-new EarthRoamer or UniCat.

Mark opens the back of the truck, revealing beds, a pop-top, fold-out windows, a tidy kitchen, shower floor and toilet. It’s neat, clean, full of right angles and expertly welded aluminum, small but spacious and easily accommodating of Mark’s 6’4″ height. It’s all beautifully utilitarian–and purposefully so, clearly designed by someone who understands, well, design.

“The key is leaving room for the consumer’s imagination,” says Mark. “That’s why books are better than movies. I want the consumer to look at this and see the possibilities.”

Mark Shoening, Right

And possibilities abound for his easily customizable design. He’s forgone the two most common routes of most off-road RV’s, studiously avoiding the molded-plastic marine look, which he calls “good for a toilet.” Nor has he tried to pack an entire living room and dinette set into the box, avoiding carpeting, granite counter-tops, big-screen televisions and other “inappropriate materials” for the great outdoors. It’s everything you need for the backroads–and nothing you don’t.

More than a few acknowledgements of prototype status remain. The side pop-out tent windows are held in place by PVC piping, batteries and other internal components are tidy but exposed, and a number of the switchboards look like they’re designed for frequent removal and tinkering rather than final assembly.

I can imagine it parked in a corporate lot as a wannabe adventurer stares longingly over their cubicle wall; dreaming of their next road trip. But perhaps best of all, they don’t have to be a corporate titan to afford it; the target MSRP is just $100k. If successful, that price point would land significantly lower than many competitors; potentially even bringing in new recruits to the overlanding phenomenon. The Fuso base platform is ubiquitous; and though the BASE4x4 sticks out like a crash-landed UFO in the city, it’ll still fit in a typical parking spot or a winding European road. Mark hasn’t taken any orders to date, but hopes to scale up production soon.

“It’s a fantasy,” says Mark. “”You’re stuck in a cubicle 40 hours a week. You can look at it in the parking lot and imagine going anywhere.”

 

 

Price drop! “THE WRECKING CREW” on Kindle/Nook now just $4.99

Really pleased to announce that THE WRECKING CREW is now available for just $4.99 on Kindle, Nook and other ebook formats. New reviews continue to come in on Amazon and GoodReads – check out a few of my favorite new ones below!

Lots of fun and a cut above the Clive Cussler seagoing yarn

… a smart, fast paced story filled with characters that you can’t help but love. The author’s execution is astonishingly refreshing, clever and keeps the reader on the edge of the proverbial seat and guessing until the very end. Wildly entertaining, exciting and fun throughout … I highly recommend this book and can’t wait for further adventures of THE WRECKING CREW.

I am already getting impatient for his next novel

If you haven’t already grabbed a copy, there has never been a better time!

Exploring Caves with Bill Steele

It is my great honor to interview legendary cave explorer Bill Steel for the latest in my Interview with an Explorer series! Bill Steele has explored the greatest caves in the world, appearing on National Geographic Explorer, NOVA and other TV shows in addition to his career as an author and keynote speaker. Bill is an Explorers Club fellow and the recipient of numerous awards and other recognition for his many contributions to science and exploration.

He’s also recently launched a Kickstarter campaign in order to purchase equipment and supplies to further explore Sistema Huautla, the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere.

Tell us about your current project.

It’s called Proyecto Espeleologico Sistema Huautla (PESH). Tommy Shifflett and I launched it in 2014 as the restarted, renamed, rebranded project to continue the speleology of Sistema Huautla in Oaxaca, Mexico. Our goals are: 1) Conduct month-long expeditions for ten years, 2014-2023 2) Do full speleology, meaning all the disciplines: geology, biology, paleontology, archaeology, cartography, and technology (gear development, etc.) 3) Support Mexican cave scientists 4) Take the depth of the cave system from 1475 m to 1610 m (which is 5,280 feet, or a vertical mile), and the length from 65 km to 100 km 5) Publish our findings.

I consider Sistema Huautla my masterpiece of exploration, as do some of my colleagues. It currently stands as the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere, the 8th deepest cave in the world, and the longest of the 17 deepest caves in the world. I wrote the book “Huautla: Thirty Years in One of the World’s Deepest Caves” about my trips there 1977-2007, and plan to write another one when we finish our current project.

What inspired you to begin this expedition?

Tommy Shifflett and I are veterans of many expeditions to the caves of the Huautla area, beginning in the late 70s, and continuing most years until 2007. After that we started going other places in Mexico, China, and elsewhere, including many US states.

In 2011 I heard from a young British caver/cave diver who was interested in organizing a major expedition to go to the very bottom of Sistema Huautla to dive the deep water sump there using mixed gas. He asked for assistance with logistics. I came through for him in many ways and asked if Tommy and I and a couple others could join their expedition at its end. While there, Tommy and I talked about how much we love that cave and area and how much work remains to be done. So while waiting for our planes in Oaxaca, we sketched out on a napkin our new project name and goals.

What do you hope to learn from this experience?

We just completed our third expedition. We’re up and running. Things are clicking. We have a long list of accomplishments of the 2016 expedition. One chief one is that we made the best progress yet with community relations, in hopes of eventually being allowed to explore the highest entrances, to the north of the known extent of Sistema Huautla, where the more isolated Mazatec Indians live, who have ancient-held beliefs about the caves and the cave spirits in them.

What would be your advice to someone that wants to take on their own larger-than-life challenge?

Understand that it will not be easy. It will be hard. There will be obstacles at every turn.

In October 2015 interview  I was asked, “How did you finance and make the time to do your explorations?” My answer concluded with this sentence: “Following your passion and making a difference in this world is not about taking it easy.”

Who is your favorite explorer, adventurer or scientist?

I am well read on the subject of exploration and have a bunch of favorites: Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortez, William Clark and Meriwether Lewis, John Colter, Kit Carson, Walter Bonati, Reinhold Messner, E.A. Martel, Norbert Casteret, and Roger Brucker. My favorite scientists are: Patti Jo Watson, Alexander Klimchouk, E.O. Wilson, Lee Berger, Bob Ballard, and Oscar Francke.

What’s next?

Two weeks ago I got home from an intense six week-long PESH expedition. I’m writing about it and have already started making a list of objectives for next year. I’m hearing from cavers from various countries who want to go next year. Tommy and I decide in September who is on the team the following April.

I’m represented by World Explorers Bureau and I’m leaving in one week to do a two week cruise ship speaking gig in the Mediterranean Sea. I find the time on those ships do some writing. I’ve got two books underway now, both about caving, of course.

Thanks so much to Bill Steele for sharing his incredible adventures! And be sure to check out the video about his expedition below!

1968 Satellite Launch Failure Dropped Nuclear Batteries into Californian Waters

The Nimbus satellite program was an ambitious 20-year program designed to take weather forecasting, ozone analysis, sea ice measurement and global positioning technology into the space age. These second-generation satellites were used as both atmospheric data collectors and sensor test-beds, becoming the basis of nearly every earth-observing weather satellite launched over the subsequent forty years.

But not every launch was a success. The Nimbus B-1 rocket booster failed shortly after launch due to a malfunction in the guidance system, forcing operators to issue a self-destruct command just two minutes into the flight.

Critically, she carried a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) to provide power generated from the decay of a plutonium 238 core, a type of radioactive isotope not used for either nuclear weapons or nuclear reactor fuel. The generator was destroyed, disconnecting the hardened battery casks and leaving them intact on the ocean floor. The casks were successfully recovered and redeployed on the subsequent Nimbus III mission.

I still have a number of remaining questions on this case; and I wish I had more time to chase down archival documents on what happened next. On one hand, this seems to be a case of a controlled failure. The launch itself was a bust, but the self-destruct command and robust design of the plutonium batteries went according to plan. The search and recovery operation for the batteries was similarly successful, but I can’t immediately find any details on how it was performed. Depth would have been the greatest consideration, as the waters between Jalama Beach and San Miguel island bottom out at 1,500 feet. Period divers were limited to 120 feet on air, 210 on mixed gas and 350 in hard-hat rigs. Any deeper than that and they would have had to use manned submersible systems like DSV Alvin or remotely-operated systems such as the ones used in the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, where four nuclear weapons were lost and one recovered from waters over 2,500 feet deep.

So how did they find and recover these batteries? I don’t yet know, and the information isn’t easy to find. NASA responded to my inquiry with a form letter pointing me to online resources I’ve already checked. I’ve emailed a friend of mine at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum. He’s graciously reaching out to some of his NASA contacts, I’ll have to wait and see if anything comes out of it. For the moment this will remain in my “interesting but unexplored” file.

They’re going back! Team returns to Greenland to excavate WW2-era P-38 warplane from 350ft of ice

Jim Salazar and other members of Lost Squadron Greenland are returning to the glaciers of Greenland to recover a second World War 2-era P-38 Lighting warplane buried in over 350 feet of ice. Operations are currently scheduled to begin as soon as mid-May 2016.

It’s not his first trip – he and his team recovered their first P-38 in 1992, using innovative ice-melting tunneling equipment to reach the plane they’d nicknamed “Glacier Girl” from nearly 270 feet of snow and ice. “Glacier Girl” then underwent an extensive overhaul, returning to flight-worthy status in 2002. She still tours and attends air shows to this day.

The six P-38 fighters and two B-17 bombers embedded in the ice were lost in July 1942 during Operation Bolero, the massive US military troop and equipment movement across the ocean in preparation for an eventual invasion of mainland Europe. The flight group of the 94th Fighter Group and 97th Bomb Group were forced back by weather and were forced down onto the Greenland ice cap by low fuel in the largest single loss of the operation. All of the crew were rescued, and the aircraft were abandoned.

There is no plans to return the current target (nicknamed “Echo”) to service. She’ll instead be donated to the Wings of History aviation museum of San Martin, California.

The operation is far from complete. The team will have to contend with extreme dangers–storm, bitter cold, shifting ice, even the risk of the under-ice chambers collapsing. “Echo” may be in worse shape than the others of the squadron, she flipped upon landing. However, the remaining plane appear to be in an ice crevasse, too dangerous to recover at this time.

The team has secondary objective as well. In November 1942 a single-engine amphibious Grumman Duck disappeared in the same region during a storm. Though the plane was rediscovered in 2013, the bodies of the three crewmen aboard remain unrecovered to this day. The location has likely shifted, meaning the team will have to re-locate the crash site.

I only have one question … can I come? Please?

More about the Lost Squadron and the recovery of the P-38 Lighting “Glacier Girl.”

Last Chance to Enter Book Giveaway!

LAST CHANCE to win one of two signed copies of my debut novel, THE WRECKING CREW! Contest ends midnight on Sunday, May 15th (PST). The giveaway his hosted by GoodReads, enter to win below!

Goodreads Book Giveaway


The Wrecking Crew
by Taylor Zajonc

Giveaway ends May 15, 2016.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Thanks everybody!