Fourth Edition Add-Ons, BackerKit on Thursday, September 20th at 4PM ET (GMT-5)
over 5 years ago – Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 04:18:34 PM

Hello, everyone!

As noted last week, we're here with an update on add-ons to be released next week for Fourth Edition backers!

BackerKit surveys will be released at 4PM ET (GMT-5) on Thursday, September 20th. I'll also post a Project Update at the same time with detailed instructions for those of you who are new to the process.

Fourth Edition Add-Ons

In total, there are nine (9) new add-on items listed here, including the SMALL and TOUCH versions of the Fourth Edition. Each item lists the price in US Dollars and the projected availability.

Ok, let's start with the SMALL and TOUCH versions of the Fourth Edition!

Fourth Edition SMALL ($99 Public | $89 Backers)

The new SMALL version features nine (9) specimens from the Fourth Edition collection:

• Extraterrestrial Amino Acids (c. 4,568,200,000 years old)
• Pangea (c. 200,000,000 years old)
• Plesiosaur (Paddle)
• Roman Bath (Hypocaust Flue)
• Amazon River
• Lusitania (Deck Chair)
• Concorde (Jet Rotor)
• Rough Sapphire
• Human Heart

The SMALL version also includes the following items:

• Custom Display Box
• Certificate of Authenticity
• Custom Micro-Fiber Pouch
• Hardbound Companion Guide

Pricing: Backers of the Fourth Edition at ANY tier will be able to pick up the SMALL version for just $89 in BackerKit. This special pricing will be limited to ONE (1) per backer. Additional SMALL Mini Museums will also be available for purchase at the public price of $99.

Availability: The limited edition run for the SMALL will be 2,500 units.

Fourth Edition TOUCH ($299 Public | $289 Backers)

The TOUCH version of the Fourth Edition Mini Museum features all twenty-nine (29) specimens from the Fourth Edition collection.

All specimens are enclosed in acrylic specimen jars and housed in a glass-topped riker display box measuring 14 1/2 x 7 x 1 (inches). The TOUCH also includes a Certificate of Authenticity and the complete, hardbound Companion Guide.

Pricing: Backers of the Fourth Edition at ANY tier will be able to pick up the TOUCH version for just $289 in BackerKit. This special pricing will be limited to ONE (1) per backer. Additional TOUCH Mini Museums will also be available for purchase at the public price of $299.

Availability: The Limited Edition run for the TOUCH will be 500, individually numbered units.

Space Shuttle Columbia HRSI Tile Coating ($80)

This specimen is a fragment of the black, reaction cured glass coating of the HRSI Space Shuttle tile which appears in the Fourth Edition of the Mini Museum.

NASA disposition paperwork accompanying the tile indicates it was removed after the Space Shuttle Columbia’s 7th mission, STS-61-C, which flew on January 12, 1986.

Roughly the size of a standard Mini Museum specimen (4-5mm), this item will be enclosed in an acrylic specimen jar and housed in a glass-topped riker display box measuring 4x3x1 (inches). A small information card will accompany the specimen.

As you can see in the macro image above, the coating is extremely thin. It is also quite brittle. Since we only have one tile and the material is quite delicate, we limited the initial quantity to just 100 units during the Kickstarter campaign. However, I'm happy to report that we're going to have more than expected thanks to Stephanie's meticulous preparation!

Availability: We won't know the final count until the prep work is complete, but right now we expect to have at least 500 available for backers.

Amazon Water Vial ($29)

This specimen is a vial of Amazon River Water similar to those encased in the Fourth Edition. The item is encased in an acrylic specimen jar and housed in a glass-topped riker display box measuring 4x3x1 (inches). A small information card will accompany the specimen.

Above: 30 second time-lapse of sediment settling in an Amazon River Vial.

This is also the same item the backers of the Amazon River Water tier will receive. A portion of the proceeds from this item will be donated to the Amazon Bee Project, an extension of the Honey Bee Initiative at George Mason University. This program funds the development of sustainable, indigenous businesses in Peru and Colombia.

Availability: No limit on this item.

I am currently working on a much longer video to share all of the things I saw during my trip to Peru (over 1500 clips and images to go through!), but here is a brief look as well as a peek at specimen production:

Stonehenge Bluestone Quarry Slab ($39)

This specimen is a custom-cut and tumbled slab of dolerite bluestone recovered downstream from the quarry at Craig Rhos-y-Felin located on the northern flank of the Preseli Mountains near Pembrokeshire, Wales. Recent petrographic studies have closely linked chippings from these dolerite bluestones to the bluestones installed at Stonehenge roughly 4,500 years ago.

Each unique slab is cut by hand so they will vary a little in size, but they should be roughly 1.5-2 cm in length and about 0.5 cm wide. The item is housed in a glass-topped riker display box measuring 4x3x1 (inches). A small information card will accompany the specimen.

Availability: This item is somewhat limited. We believe we have enough material left to produce 200-300 specimens at this size.

Mammoth Tooth Fragment ($29)

This specimen is a larger fragment of a woolly mammoth tooth recovered during the preparation of the Fourth Edition. The tooth was recovered from the bottom of the North Sea in the area referred to as "Doggerland," which was once above water and was home to a rich steppe ecosystem during the Pleistocene.

As you can see above, each fragment is quite unique, varying in shape, color, and texture. The average size is 1.5-2cm in length. The item is housed in a glass-topped riker display box measuring 4x3x1 (inches). A small information card will accompany the specimen.

Availability: We believe we have enough material to make 200 at this size.

Concorde Jet Rotor ($29)

This specimen is a fragment of a high-pressure compressor vane taken from the jet engine of the Concorde. The original titanium vane was divided into long, thin slices using a high energy cutter, after which each slice was hand-polished and cut into the "delta-wing" shape you see here. This is the same process we used to produce the specimen in the Mini Museum itself, but this larger specimen measures 1cm in length.

Please note that this specimen is very sharp. We've enclosed it in an acrylic specimen jar for safety. The jar is housed in a glass-topped riker display box measuring 4x3x1 (inches). A small information card will accompany the specimen.

Availability: We have enough material to create 250 at this size.

Lusitania Deck Chair Cross Section ($29)

This specimen is a complete cross section of a supporting cross-member from the Lusitania Deck Chair featured in the Fourth Edition. The item is housed in a glass-topped riker display box measuring 4x3x1 (inches). A small information card will accompany the specimen.

The size of the supporting cross-members vary widely. The size pictured here is roughly 2x2cm.

Availability: Expected to have less than 200 at this size.

Large Pangea Polished Fragment ($19)

This specimen is a polished diabase fragment from the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province deposits of Eastern North America. The item is encased in an acrylic specimen jar and housed in a glass-topped riker display box measuring 4x3x1 (inches). A small information card will accompany the specimen.

The stones vary widely in shape, but the average size is between 1-2 cm. As with the specimen in the Mini Museum, this item has undergone roughly two months of tumbling and multiple stages of polishing to achieve a smooth shape and brilliant shine.

Availability: We will have 200 on hand with more to come, though as noted above they take months to prepare properly.

Add-On Shipping

Any add-ons you purchase will ship together as soon as your ENTIRE order is ready:

Backing a Large Tier? - If you're backing one of the Large tiers, the estimated ship date of that tier will drive the entire order. Backing PURE LOVE or AMAZON WATER? - If you are not backing a Large tier then you can expect your add-ons to ship at the beginning of November, unless you are only getting the Amazon Water which should go out in just a few weeks.

Shipping rates for add-ons will be calculated by weight when you complete your BackerKit survey, just as we've done in the past.

Thank you!

As always, thank you so much for your support of the Mini Museum. This is our largest assortment of add-ons yet and we're so excited to share them all with you!

Now, it's back to work!

- Hans

P.S. In addition to these nine add-ons, we will also have additional items from the shop set up for purchase inside BackerKit. So, if you've been waiting to pick up a Mummy Beads Necklace or Moon & Stars Necklace, Apollo 11 Command Module Foil, or a Companion Guide from a previous edition, they'll all be in BackerKit along with a few other surprises I'll share next week. Wait, did I say surprises? Yes, I did! See you next week with more!

Production Update! BackerKit Launching September 20th and The Deep History of Copper
over 5 years ago – Thu, Sep 06, 2018 at 03:29:07 PM

Hello, everyone!

We're in the final days of summer here in Northern Virginia and looking forward to some cooler weather!

While we've been quiet the last few weeks, we've been really busy. I'll compensate a little here by sharing a long update!

First, a quick update on production! Right now, everything is on schedule!

The assembly and casting of the first 1,000 Mini Museums is now in process. The draft of the Companion Guide is complete, and we're planning to deliver the files to the printer in the next few days. Custom Microfiber Pouches and Display Boxes just arrived in our warehouse, so we'll get a chance to inspect those a little earlier than expected. All in all, everything is proceeding according to our plan!

I'm also happy to note that the production prototype for the Small Mini Museum is complete and the first Touch Mini Museum has been assembled!

Details about these two items will be shared in a project update next Friday (September 14th) along with the complete lineup of add-ons for the Fourth Edition.

Add-Ons to be Announced September 14th - BackerKit Launching on September 20th

Speaking of add-ons, I want to thank all of you who participated in the survey attached to the last update. We received several hundred replies and it was incredibly helpful!

Based on this awesome feedback, we've decided to add more items to our original list of add-ons. To make this happen, we need a little more time to get them all ready to share, so we're pushing the launch of the BackerKit survey back to Thursday, September 20th. As noted above, full details about all of the items will be included in a project update on Friday, September 14th. This should give everyone plenty of time to review the full list!

New to Kickstarter? BackerKit is the way that we get your shipping address prior to sending out your reward items. When the survey launches, you'll receive an email with a special link that will take you to a website where you can provide your address and add any extra items you'd like to purchase. I will detail the entire step-by-step process in a project update on the same day as the launch, so keep an eye out for that!

The Deep History of Copper

The intricate lattice of native copper crystals reveals a story of deep geological processes lasting hundreds of millions of years. Stronger than gold, but still soft enough to be shaped easily into tools, weapons, and decorative objects, this form of copper also played an important role in the development of human cultures across the globe as they stepped out of the Stone Age and into the Age of Metals.

Most metallic elements are found in combined states such as ores and alloys. Even iron, which is one of the most abundant metals in the Earth's crust, is typically alloyed with nickel. Pure or "native" metals are relatively rare, with the exception of less reactive elements such as gold, silver, platinum, and copper.

Native copper deposits are found in both igneous and sedimentary rock formations, but the processes involved in their formation are quite different. In the case of igneous rocks, native copper crystalizes in lava flows which have low silicon and low sulfur content. Known as mafic lava, the lack of silicon makes the flow more viscous and the lack of sulfur keeps the copper from forming ores as it cools.

Sedimentary-hosted native copper forms through a long process of reduction. Copper is extracted from host rocks soaking in chalky or calcareous brines. These deposits occur in highly permeable sediments in shallow marine basins near the paleoequator where there would have been a high evaporation rate.

The specimen in the Mini Museum comes from native copper deposits located near the city of Zhezqazghan, Kazakhstan. The large copper deposits in this region are sediment-hosted with mineralization occurring roughly 300,000,000 years ago, and involving brines from late Devonian and early Permian marine sediments. The earliest copper mining in this region dates back to the Bronze Age, crossing numerous cultures, with extensive trade routes into the ancient world.

Note: The study referenced above is incredible. The history of the region and importance as well as thorough information about the formation of this copper. Highly recommended! [PDF]

Human Uses of Copper

Copper tools and decorative objects date back as far as 10,000 years ago, but for thousands of years, use of copper was limited to the availability of uncombined or “native” metal. Widespread use of copper did not occur until humans learned to extract it from ores through smelting.

[Above (Clockwise from left to right): Late Bronze Age Copper Ingot from Cyprus c. 1450-1050 BCE; Copper Alloy Bracelet Djenné peoples Mali, Inland Niger Delta region c. 1000-1500 CE; Moche (Loma Negra) Warrior Ornament, Peru, c. 600-700 CE]

Smelting is a process which uses heat and reducing agents to cause a chemical reaction which frees the pure metal from other elements such as sulfur (sulfides) and oxygen (oxides). Tin and lead, which can be smelted in simple hearths, were the first metals extracted using this method. Copper smelting came later, possibly as a side effect of the heat generated in pottery kilns.

Later, tin and copper would be combined to create an alloy known as bronze, a durable material that would shape the ancient world for thousands of years.

Copper remains an indispensable metal in the modern world. It is highly conductive, which makes copper useful for all manner of electrical components. It is also ductile and malleable, two traits which allow copper to be stretched and formed without breaking. This makes copper ideal for wiring and plumbing.

And yet, despite its long history, we’re still not quite done with this incredible metal!

Recent studies have demonstrated that raw copper is a powerful antimicrobial material, highly effective at killing bacteria, viruses, and fungi on contact by disrupting cell membranes. Copper ions are also at the heart of studies in molecular motion, and the construction of tiny, synthetic molecular machines.

Creating the Specimen

The dendritic structure of the copper adds great texture to the top line of the Fourth Edition, as well as an interesting geological tale, but preparing the specimen revealed the bright inner shine. Given that different pieces had radically different patina, we made the choice to chemically remove the patina in order to focus on the beauty and structure of the native metal.

The first step in the process is to prepare an acid solution in which to bathe the copper.

In the picture below, you can see copper immersed in the bath, and after as the chemical action begins to subside.

 After the bath, individual specimens are pruned from the main body with care.

Then each is carefully evaluated.

The final result is really beautiful. The copper is exquisite, and I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

Of course it could have ended quite differently! So, here at the end, I thought I'd take a moment to share a story we posted online a few weeks ago.

"So I'd like to speak to the manager..."

Today we might post a tweet or drop a comment on Facebook, but roughly 3,768 years ago when something went wrong you had to grab a stiff reed, make hundreds of little wedge-shaped marks in clay, and then wait for it to dry.

This particular cuneiform tablet on display at the British Museum comes from the ancient, coastal city of Ur. It is a complaint letter from the Merchant Nanni to a Copper Dealer named Ea-nasir.

 Translated from Akkadian it says:

When you came, you said to me as follows : "I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots." You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: "If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!"

What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe(?) you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and umi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Samas.

How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full.

Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt. 

[Note: Translations of 150 different letters like Nanni's above are available in A. Leo Oppenheim's 1967 book, "Letters From Mesopotamia: Official, Business, and Private Letters on Clay Tablets from Two Millennia."]

Thank You!

If you need to get in contact with us, we do accept cuneiform (Akkadian, Assyrian, and Old Persian only please). However, it might be more convenient to send us an email at [email protected]. Translation times will definitely be shorter.

The bonus of using this somewhat modern (yet increasingly archaic) method is that your message gets filed in our ticket tracking system, rather than a dusty room like Nanni's letter above. Plus, you can use emoji, which are basically pictograms without the wait! 😀

I hope you enjoyed this trip into the deep history of copper! We are all really looking forward to what we have to roll out to you next week!

As always, thank you so very much and now it's back to work!

- Hans

Production Update, Add-On Survey, Nothing After Would Ever Be the Same: Manhattan Project Glass
over 5 years ago – Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 12:50:52 AM

Hello, everyone!

A quick update here on production. Right now, everything is on schedule. We’ve sent off our first round of production specimens for inclusion in acrylic, packaging and pouches are on the way, and we’re two weeks out from the first proofs of the Companion Guide.

Above: Time-lapse of making Amazon Water Vials

I’m also happy to announce that we’ve settled on the lineup for the SMALL version of the Fourth Edition. The prototype is in the works, so I won’t reveal the line-up just yet. However, everything should be ready when we launch BackerKit in just a few weeks!

Add-On Survey

Speaking of BackerKit and add-on items, we’ll have a number of new things to share with you soon but we thought we’d get your feedback on items YOU would like to see. To make this simple, we’ve created a Google Form where you can quickly indicate your interest in larger or single specimen versions of items in the Fourth Edition collection.

 Click here to take the survey: https://goo.gl/forms/skoLoWLx8fCEPltH2

I can’t promise all of these items will be made into add-ons, but we’ll certainly do our best! Looking forward to reading your responses!

Nothing After Would Ever Be the Same: Manhattan Project Glass

This week is the 73rd anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, so I thought it made sense to shift the order of specimens we planned to discuss in project updates and focus on the Manhattan Project Glass.

"Man’s understanding of nature is usually a cumulative and gradual process. Certainly this has been the case throughout the growth of atomic physics. No single stroke of genius delivered up the finished product. Rather, its present state of development derives from the labors of many individuals from many countries, operating in many fields of endeavor, over a span of many years." ~ General Leslie Groves, "Now it can be told" (1962)

The Manhattan Project was the codename for the research and development effort which allowed the United States to rapidly develop a series of atomic breakthroughs during World War II, including the first industrial-scale plutonium production reactor and the first atomic bombs. This enormous project involved over one hundred thousand scientists, engineers, technicians, and construction workers at more than 30 sites across the United States, including well-known locations such as Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Trinity, and Hanford.

Located in the high desert region of Washington State, the former towns of Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland are now the site of the world’s first full-scale plutonium production complex. The creation of the site was authorized on January 16, 1943 under the authority of General Leslie Groves. 

In total, the Hanford facilities encompass 586 square miles of high desert, including 50 miles of frontage along the Columbia River. Hanford’s facilities originally had 554 buildings, including several production reactors and the unique chemical processing buildings where Plutonium was extracted from Uranium.

These buildings were 800 feet long, 65 feet wide, and about 80 feet high. Standing in one reminded workers of standing in the bottom of a canyon, so the buildings were known as “the canyons.”

On Christmas Day 1944, less than two years after construction began, the first irradiated slugs were removed from the B Reactor and sent to the T Plant (221-T) for chemical separation. On February 2, 1945, Los Alamos received its first Plutonium shipment from Hanford. Plutonium processed at Hanford was used in both the Trinity test on July 16, 1945 and in the "Fat Man" atomic bomb used over Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945.

For decades, the Hanford facilities produced plutonium for America’s nuclear weapons programs. The last reactor at Hanford ceased operation in 1987. Soon after, the U.S. Department of Energy, the EPA, and Washington State University’s Department of Ecology signed an agreement to clean up the hundreds of billions of gallons of liquid and millions of tons of solid waste stored there.

Today, there are 8,000 employees involved in the deactivation, decommissioning, decontaminating, and demolishing the site’s facilities and structures. Tours of the site are available to the public, government officials, the media, and other interested parties. As part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, public tours focus on efforts to decommission and decontaminate buildings and building sites, and the disposal of radioactive and industrial chemical waste.

Creating the Specimen

The specimen in the Mini Museum comes from a leaded glass window installed in the T Plant (221-T) Plutonium Recovery Building, the first and largest of two production bismuth-phosphate chemical separations plants used to extract plutonium from fuel rods irradiated in the Hanford Site’s reactors.

The glass was acquired from the window’s current owner, Dan Dunn. Dunn owns several windows from the site which were sold during a government surplus auction in the late 1980s as part of the long (and continuing) decommissioning process. 

As you can see, the glass is beautiful. It is also very unusual.

The yellow color of the glass is due to a high concentration of lead-oxide (up to 70%), which blocks blue and near-UV spectral frequencies, and also gives the glass its protective qualities. Due to the high lead content, the glass is quite brittle and resists clean shearing even with careful scoring.

Those of you following us on Instagram might remember this image taken way back in March when I was working on samples of the glass.

I spent many weeks devising the best method for preparing the glass, working with local glass artisans and learning new techniques. I've spent even more time doing the actual cutting, especially as the weather has not been particularly cooperative here in Northern Virginia this summer.

The method of preparation involves preparing the surface over numerous stages of sanding and filing. After preparing the surface, I carefully score the material and extract long strips.

A clean break is very difficult to achieve. In the video clip above, I just got lucky. The more typical result requires a lot of trimming with glass nippers. While it's taken a long time to get to this point, I am very happy with the end result.

There are so many personal stories to tell about the Manhattan Project, from the people of the Wanapum tribe and the townspeople of Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland who were all displaced by the construction to the thousands upon thousands of people who worked to make it a reality. But I felt it was important to close this update with just two: an American physicist named Luis Alvarez and Nagasaki bombing survivor, Sumiteru Taniguchi.

Please Note: The language used below and the images may be disturbing, but of all the possibilities I felt these two were very important to juxtapose against each other given the gravity of this particular specimen.

Luis Alvarez was one of the most prolific physicists of his day, winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for his work on elementary particle states. Later in life, he worked with his son Walter, a noted geologist in his own right, to author the Alvarez hypothesis. The Alvarez hypothesis was the the first theory to suggest that the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event was the direct result of a massive asteroid impact.

During World War II, Alvarez was attached to the Manhattan Project, working first with Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago before moving to Los Alamos to work with Robert Oppenheimer. On August 9th, 1945, Alvarez was aboard the B-29 bomber, The Great Artiste, which was assigned to monitor the blast over Nagasaki. On the return flight home he wrote the following letter to his son, who was just five years old at the time.

August 6th

10 miles off the Jap

Coast at 28,000 feet

Dear Walter:

This is the first grown-up letter I have ever written to you, and it is really for you to read when you are older. During the last few hours I have been thinking of you and your mother and our little sister Jean. It was tough to take off on this flight, not knowing whether I would ever see any of you again. But lots of other fathers have been in the same spot many times before in this war, and I had a job to do, so I can't claim to be any sort of hero.

I wonder if you will remember the time in Albuquerque, when you climbed all through a B-29 Superfortress. Probably you will remember climbing thru the tunnel over the bombbay, as that really impressed you at the time. Well, I have been in this B-29 for eight hours so far, and we won't be back for another five or six.

The story of our mission will probably be well known to everyone by the time you read this, but at the moment only the crews of our three B-29s, and the unfortunate residents of the Hiroshima district in Japan are aware of what has happened to aerial warfare. Last week at the 20th Air Force, stationed in the Marianas Islands, put over the biggest bombing raid in history, with 6000 tons of bombs (about 3000 tons of high explosive). That means that the days of large bombing raids, with several hundred planes, are finished. A single plane disguised as a friendly transport can now wipe out a city. That means to me that nations will have to get along together in a friendly fashion, or suffer the consequences of sudden sneak attacks which can cripple them overnight.

What regrets I have about being a party to killing and maiming thousands of Japanese civilians this morning are tempered with the hope that this terrible weapon we have created may bring the countries of the world and prevent further wars. Alfred Nobel thought that his invention of high explosives would have that effect, by making wars too terrible, but unfortunately it had just the opposite reaction. Our new destructive force is so many thousands of times worse that it may realize Nobel's dream.

After that little sermon, I'll try to describe what it is like to go into combat for the first time. I had not made up my mind to go on the mission before I left the states, but I was pretty well convinced that I would end up by going. I thought the thing through on at least a dozen nights, while I was trying to go to sleep. I think these mental trips were the worst part of the deal.

When I arrived in the Marianas, I told the commanding officer that I thought I should go. I got cleared after a lot of radio messages to and from Washington. The mission was held up for several days by weather, and this was tough. We would get keyed up and read to go, and then the weather experts would call it off. Finally we got the go-ahead sign and then worked most of the day checking instruments. We had several briefings which were quite exciting. I had attended bombing briefings in England for the RAF, but it is quite different when you are to go on the mission yourself. Data on anti-aircraft batteries and enemy fighters becomes of great personal concern. One of the planes of our squadron had come home with large flack holes in its wings two days before, so we felt some concern in that score. We were told a lot about landing the plane in the ocean. The big worry, of course, was landing on the Empire and being captured by the Japs. They have been particularly savage with ordinary pilots, and I am sure they would have a special reason for disliking us immensely.

We were to take off at 2:45 A.M., and this last waiting was the worst part. We saw a movie until 9:30, and then packed up last minute supplies for the plane. Then we got equipped with our combat flying suits, which weight about seventy or eighty pounds. First comes a survival vest, with fish hooks, drinking water its, first aid packages, food, and a host of other things useful to a man forced down on the ocean. Over that was our parachute harness, to which could be clipped a chest chute pack, and a one-man liferaft. With this equipment, it is possible to go into the water from a plane, some distance from anyone else, and survive. Over this already bulging mess, we wore our flack suits, to protect our bodies shell fragments. This is a very heavy and clumsy thing, like a suit of armor, but we were glad to put up with the discomfort during our 65 minutes over the Empire. Finally, we wore a cloth helmet with an oxygen mask attached, and over that a flack helmet to protect our heads.

We arrived at the plane an hour and a half early, as there were lots of historic pictures to be taken with the aid of a big batter of lights. It looked just like the opening of a gas station in Hollywood. We had our pictures taken in front of the place which held the big bomb in its bombbay, and then went to our own plane. By this time all my tension had gone away and I haven't felt any since, with the exception of a little tingling sensation when the Japanese shores appeared on the horizon. All of the civilians had thought we would be scared over the empire, but I can say truthfully that I was completely at ease, and so were my two companions. We weren't excited, as we were too busy with our work. After the bomb was dropped we made an accordingly sharp turn to get away from the blast. We got 2 g's, which made our 80 pounds weigh 160.

A few moments after we completed the turn, the plane was hit with the blast wave from the explosion. It gave the ship a couple of good jolts, but only about what we expected. We went to the portholes to see the results of the explosion. It was awe-inspiring. Already the smoke cloud was up to 35 or 50,000 feet. The ground was covered with a layer of smoke so that the city was blotted out from view. I forgot to mention the most spectacular effect of all—the light flash. It was many times brighter than the sun when we were seven miles away. I had looked at it directly, through dark glasses, on the trial shot in New Mexico last month.

Well, here we are over Iwo Jima, and on the home stretch, so I'll stop writing and go up and talk to the pilots. I wanted to tell you about this while it was still fresh in my mind.

With much love from

your Father

P.S. When I saw the pilots, they said they saw flack bursting a mile below us. The Japs apparently didn't have their good anti-aircraft in this region. 

Over 200,000 people perished in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Roughly half died on the first day, while others struggled on (sometimes for months) with burns and radiation sickness before succumbing to death. Surviving victims of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are referred to as hibakusha (被爆者) or “explosion-affected people."

One of the most active members of this community is Sumiteru Taniguchi. Taniguchi was just 16 years old on August 9th, 1945 when the Fat Man bomb exploded over Nagasaki. Color photographs and film of his back, stripped of flesh as he was riding his mail delivery bicycle, were so shocking that they were kept from public view for twenty-five years.

In 2010, Taniguchi took the stage at the United Nations Headquarters in New York during the Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. He showed the pictures taken during his hospital stay to the delegates:

“When the bomb exploded, I was burned on my entire back by the heat rays of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius, which could have melted rocks and iron, and exposed to invisible radiation. The next moment I was blown away together with the bike for about 4 meters and smashed to the ground by the bomb blast. I am not a guinea pig. I am not an exhibit. But please look at this again without averting your gaze.”

Taniguchi passed away in 2017 at the age of 88 as a result of pancreatic cancer. Shortly after his death, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the Nobel Peace Prize. When we finish working on this particular specimen, a donation will be made to ICAN to help further their mission.

As you can imagine, this specimen has been particularly difficult. The physical material is very challenging and the psychological impact of the legacy tries the mind and the spirit. This long process has given me a lot of time to think about everything that went into and came from the Manhattan Project. I hope that this update does the same for you and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

- Hans

Thank you! What Happens Next? Thoughts on Five Years Together
over 5 years ago – Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 04:55:27 PM

Hello, everyone!

THANK YOU!!! I am floored once again by the generosity of so many people around the world! Thank you all so very, very much, and welcome to all of you who are new to the Mini Museum!! 

What Happens Next?

During the next 14 days, we will continue preparations for the first production run of the Fourth Edition. At the end of the 14-day period, Kickstarter will release the campaign funds and we’ll move forward to the next stage of production.

In early September, we will begin gathering addresses through BackerKit. We’ll also announce the line-up for the SMALL version of the Fourth Edition as well as the details about the TOUCH version. Both of these items will be available in BackerKit to purchase along with a number of special add-ons yet to be announced.

While we're in production, we’ll share more details about select specimens, including more from my trip to the Amazon River in Peru:

There will also be a few fun surprises (including a reveal of this item we teased a few months ago on Instagram):

Thoughts on Five Years Together

This weekend, I came across this article by Craig Saper in the Atlantic: “Microfilm Lasts Half a Millennium”. I had to smile because it reminded me of all the work Jamie put into getting the names of all 5,030 backers into the First Edition.

If you count the preparation work we put into getting MM1 ready to launch, the core team here has been hard at work sharing a love of science and history with the world for five years. Just thinking about all the things we've done during that time set my head spinning.

But when I really thought about it one thing stood out... While we’ve added more friends (both here on the team and in the family of Mini Museum backers), the core of the Mini Museum remains the same. Together, we are all sharing the universe through our love of science and history. I really couldn't ask for anything else and I am (and always will be) so grateful to all of you!

As always, thank you all so very much. Your support makes this journey possible for all of us!

Now, it’s back to work!

- Hans

P.S. This update was prepped earlier today so that I could take advantage of the weather and cut more of the Manhattan Project Glass!

Production Update, Add-On Mini Museums, Why Kickstarter, We are Made of Starstuff: Extraterrestrial Amino Acids
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 06:11:31 PM

Hello, everyone!

I hope this message finds you all well! Here in Northern Virginia, the whole team is hard at work preparing for production!

As with past projects, we've spent a considerable amount of time preparing specimens in advance so that acrylic casting can begin soon after the release of funds. The Companion Guide will go to print at about the same time, which puts us well on track to meet the shipping schedule we've set for the Fourth Edition!

As always, thank you for making this journey possible!

Add-On Mini Museums Plus Why Kickstarter

In the midst of all the production prep, Stephanie and Andrea are sending personal messages to each and every one of you to thank you for backing the Fourth Edition. Sure there’s software to do this, but to us it is important to take the time to say hello! Every message that comes back is shared with the whole team and we LOVE hearing back from you.

Speaking of which, I thought I'd share the answers to a few of the questions that have come in from several backers, plus add a little bit of inside information we couldn't fit on the project page itself:

Q. How do I pledge for more than one Mini Museum?

A. A few weeks after the campaign closes, we will open up BackerKit so that you can provide your address for shipping. When this happens, you’ll have the option to add more items to your shipment. This will include add-ons like an additional Amazon Water vial, extra Mini Museums, and a few yet-to-be-announced items. We’ll take payment for those extra items at that time. You can also increase your pledge on Kickstarter to cover an additional item and those extra funds will appear as a credit in BackerKit. It’s really up to you!

Q. How do I pledge for the TOUCH or SMALL Mini Museum?

A. The TOUCH and the SMALL Mini Museum will be announced when we’re ready to open up BackerKit. Anyone who pledges to this campaign will get access to special pricing and priority on these limited items. So, if you’d like to reserve a spot, pledge at any level (including PURE LOVE) and you’ll be ready to get a SMALL or TOUCH as soon as they are available. Alternatively, you can join our email list and we’ll let you know when these items are available to the general public at regular pricing.

Q. Why Kickstarter for your Fourth Project?

A. This is a question that came in on Facebook. It’s also something we wanted to address on the project page, but we hit the character limit when putting together the project page.

P.S. Did you know there is a character limit for a Kickstarter project page? There is! The limit is 35,000 characters and we've ALWAYS hit it when building the project page. That’s one reason why the specimen descriptions are longer on minimuseum.com.

I asked Jamie to tackle this one, and he turned our collective thoughts into an article of its own. If you are interested in the business decisions that go into using crowdfunding as an alternative to traditional financing, you can find the article here: "Why We’re Still Crowdfunding Projects"

Spoiler Alert: It begins and ends with YOU!

We are Made of Starstuff: Extraterrestrial Amino Acids

"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff." ~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980

Each year nearly 40,000,000 kilograms (88.1 million pounds) of meteoritic material rains down on the Earth from outer space. Less than 1% of these falls holds traces of organic compounds, and within this tiny subset scientists sometimes come across even rarer material: amino acids.

The story of these extraterrestrial amino acids begins at 10:58 AM on September 28th, 1969. A bright fireball appeared in the sky near the small, riverside town of Murchison, Australia. Under tremendous stress, the bolide separated into three main pieces, spreading fragments across 13 square kilometers (5 sq.mi.), including one lump which crashed through a barn roof and landed in a pile of hay.

As astronomical as the odds might be for this soft landing, the Murchison meteorite would turn out to be literally one of the rarest of all meteorite finds: a remnant formed at the very birth of the solar system, which also happened to carry the building blocks of life.

The oldest of these meteorites, known as carbonaceous chondrites, date to the formation of the solar system. Recent studies suggest that the amino acids found in some carbonaceous chondrites may have come from the pre-solar nebula.

This type of meteorite is distinguished by calcium–aluminium-rich inclusions (CAI), minerals that are among the first solids to condense in the high temperature gases of a young, protoplanetary disk. In addition to CAIs, Murchison also carries a fantastic array of more than 70 different amino acids, including 8 of the 20 proteinogenic amino acids used to build proteins encoded in our DNA as well as all life here on Earth.

From This Day Tonight (1970): Murchison Meteorite (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Since the discovery of amino acids in the Murchison meteorite, scientists have discovered that other carbonaceous chondrites also contain amino acids. Recent studies suggest that the amino acids present in these meteorites may even pre-date the formation of the solar system. Further studies have revealed that the diversity of amino acids in a particular meteorite can be used to study the original parent or "host body" and how geological processes (including aqueous alteration) may have enriched these early organic chemicals prior to the emergence of life in this solar system.

The specimen in the Mini Museum is composed of two special carbonaceous chondrites: Murchison and Jbilet Winselwan. Both of these meteorites are CM2 class carbonaceous chondrites, a class known to contain the highest density of amino acids.

P.S. If you are interested in learning more about this fascinating process I highly recommend reading this 2016 study, "Meteoritic amino acids: diversity in compositions reflects parent body histories." Led by Dr. Jamie Elsila (Cook), an astrochemist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Solar System Exploration Division, the study walks through the entire process and talks about other types of meteorites which also carry amino acids. Really incredible science!

Creating the Extraterrestrial Amino Acids Specimen

The process for creating this specimen is similar to other meteoritic amalgams from past editions.

The source material is cleaned and then carefully reduced by hand using a steel mortar and pestle.

Once we have prepared various densities of material, we begin making small test sheets. The process of making a sheet is slow but very satisfying. As you can see in this short video clip, multiple passes are made over every section.

After finishing the test sheets, they’re allowed to cure. The image below shows the very first test sheets for this specimen, which Grant then turned into finished specimens for review.

Once we have confirmation that our process is solid, we produce full sheets like the one below.

Here’s a short video of Grant removing a cured production sheet. Sometimes they stick a little but they are really quite durable.

The sheets are then carefully cut into slices using a guide like the one pictured below.

The completed slices for the production sheet Grant removed look a little like a jigsaw puzzle, albeit one with pieces that are 4,568,200,000 years old. :D

The slices are then turned into specimen sized pieces. Every piece is examined carefully to make sure that material is evenly dispersed throughout the specimen and that it will be visually appealing when encased in the Mini Museum.

I’m really happy with the way this specimen turned out. The material was great to work with, and as always there is nothing quite like working with some of the oldest matter on the planet.

I’m going to close out this update with a clip from Cosmos. It comes from Episode #9 “Stars - We Are Their Children.” I think it really encapsulates the entire feeling of this specimen so well.

You really are making this journey possible in so many different ways! THANK YOU!

Now it's back to work!

- Hans