Altitude Quotes

When I worked in astronomy, I routinely observed young college and university students working with liquid nitrogen and breathing nitrogen gas as they discharged it into the indoor environment at high altitude.

Industrial liquid gas containers were left open and venting gas into the indoor environment in high altitude astronomy. On reflection, I realized that I routinely observed mental and physical effects that match those of a low oxygen environment in staff that I supervised.

When I was instructed to use medical oxygen to do my job at the W. M. Keck Observatory from 2001 to 2006, I was never told about the legal health information that is now posted on oxygen cylinders. My memories of the green medical oxygen cylinders that we would use daily is that they had no information on them and we were never given a recognised legal oxygen administration training course for routine daily use or a medical prescription from a doctor. We were shown the three oxygen cylinders at the facility and told to use them whenever we developed headaches, which was multiple times daily. It was common to find all three oxygen cylinders in use by other very high altitude workers and to have to line up to get a turn on the magical medical gas.

After a decade of working in high altitude astronomy the medical profession discovered that I had a hole in my heart, erratic low blood oxygen levels and brain issues. Heart, lung and brain problems appear to be long term known adverse health aspects of high altitude work and unnatural electromagnetic radiation exposures.

The summit of Mauna Kea should never have been developed as it is not safe for humans up there. I am now locked into an endless loop of doctors visits for what appears to be classic very high altitude heart, lung & brain damage because I was unfortunate enough to have worked there.

At the age of 46 I was starting to see the appearance of rainbow halos and starbursts around bright nighttime lights, problems reading small print, focusing issues with my eyes, and image recognition issues. I had been exposed to bright high powered 20 watt scattered sodium LASER light a decade earlier in very high altitude astronomy.