DC trip

We're safely in Washington DC. Or, more specifically, on the University of Maryland campus in a frat house where the GSFC Academy lives. They have couches. So many couches.

The HQ trip was awesome. The speakers were really great and the Q&A sessions were outstanding. Good job, RAs! More later.

Ah, T-38, old friend. I spent a semester with the 30 or so NASA ones at Johnson. 

Tony Antonelli tells the RAs a little about the T-38, then lets each of us climb up the ladder to peek in. 

Pretty T-38. 

Quick update on early Week 4

Turns out that 11/13 of us went and jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

Then on Sunday we met Tony Antonelli, astronaut, and his T-38, and he went to dinner with us all at Chili's. Monday was typical work day, Tuesday had a lunch "fireside chat" with an education office lady and a past ISU faculty member who pitched the university to us (I’m already sold).

Tuesday and Wednesday evenings had nuclear propulsion speakers, and on Thursday morning (starting at 5:30 am) we have flights to Washington DC for tours of NASA Headquarters and Goddard Space Flight Center. Also on the agenda is a day of sightseeing in DC, meeting with alumni at the annual NASA Academy Alumni BBQ, watching the Deep Impact mission climax event, and seeing the Fourth of July festivities and fireworks on the National Mall. All the while, we'll be staying with the generous GSFC Academy at their frat house.

Pictures of all this will be coming soon, but I should go to sleep now. I have a plane to be on in six hours.

Group shot with our tandem guys. 

MIT Weblog Survey

Strutting back up to the hangar after landing. 

Here's Omar, my tandem guy, and me practicing our in-flight activities they planned. It was so cool... Omar came up to us in midair, grabbed my arm, then the guy spun us one direction, and Omar spun the other direction, and a couple other times. 

Check out that guy on the right he's got an awesome skydiving tattoo. 

Hot orange jump suit. 

I took this pic of someone else, but we pretty much all looked the same coming down... 

Scenes of people looking. For skydivers. 

Dr. Six explains the symbolism behind another cool picture. 

Inside the NSSTC in front of a cool picture. 

Obligatory group shot outside. 

A very long tube full of vacuum. 

Inside one of the X-ray calibration facility labs. 

MSFC Chief Technologist Jim Bilbro has lunch with us. 

Thank you letter time. Again. Still. Morgan's are apparently the most interesting.  

The boys are proud of their new NASA Academy bags.  

My RAs are very attentive and read every piece of paper I give them at our weekly Rap Sessions.  

Week 3

Friday, Friday, Friday! Typical week, this, in that the students worked with their PIs, and I was crazy crazy busy. Wednesday was tour day, and we saw some more propulsion labs, the X-Ray Calibration Facility, some of the NSSTC (which is the building where I have an office, and where there's also apparently lots of wacky science going on in lab rooms I didn't know about).
Jim Bilbro, the Chief Technologist of MSFC talked to us over lunch.

After an afternoon tour of that X-Ray Calibration Facility (or Building with an Almost Mile-Long Tube of Vacuum Sticking Out of It), a there was a seminar on lightning, but I kept receiving a billion calls (my phone was politely on silent, but I was keeping an eye on it) and missed most of it. I came in once and Oklahoma was on the screen because the speaker was talking about tornados and lightning and how they're related.

I got my visa stuff completely sent off on Thursday, so that's cool. About $150 worth of cool.

Completely unassociated with NASA, the NASA Academy, UAH, any Space Grant, any contractor, or anyone who works for any of these, including me, Omar, Dr. Six, or anyone else, we're going skydiving this weekend. Ten out of thirteen of us. That's going to be awesome. I went once with the co-ops a couple years ago in Houston (also not affiliated with NASA). This will be tandem (guy hooked to my back to make sure I do everything right and remember to pull the cord this time) like the other time I went. I really didn't think I'd ever do it again, because it is expensive and seems like something you would do just once unless you were going to make a hobby out of it. Somehow, someone talked me into it. More later.

Week 2, part 2 (finally)

Okay, then. Here's my account of the second half of the JSC trip!

The next day started about five hours after we got home from the Outpost, and wow was I happy for a hotel coffeemaker. That's what kept me going and awake for the day's activities. But slowly, I'm adapting to an average six hours of sleep a night.

The day started with a welcome from General Howell, the Center Director of JSC. He's always a great speaker, really giving a good idea of the purpose and scope of Johnson. After him, Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield spoke to us in a very fancy conference A/V room in the Mission Control Center (MCC). After that was the Apollo era Mission Control tour with Milt Helfin and then the current Flight Control Rooms with our Academy alumna Flight Director Holly Ridings. Then some lunch in delicious Building 11.

After lunch Doug gave his awesome Intro to Astrobiology talk, and it was inspiring as always. Then the Shuttle Avionics Intergration Lab (SAIL) tour with very impressive amounts of cables, a presentation on mini AERcam and one on Robonaut.

Following dinner, we all headed back to the Apollo Mission Control with pillows to watch Apollo 13. The room does look just like in Apollo 13, to give you an idea. It's a very awesome experience.

After that some of us headed back to the Hilton to hang out in the pool for a bit of relaxation, which actually happened after all the other people left. Then we did a couple of laps and had some nice pool talking.

Friday started off with some Building 9 tours, followed by the Jake Garn Training Center simulators, but I skipped out on these on account of there being plenty of people to go with my RAs, and the fact that I'd seen those tours about eighty times each. More importantly, the French Consulate required that I make an in-person appearance in order to get my long-term visa for studying at International Space University this fall. So I took the mini-van and ran to downtown to do just that.

As I headed back to Clear Lake, having got a go-ahead from the lady behind the counter to mail in the rest of my billion documents proving everything that can be proved about me and my residency and my citizenship and my financial situation and other things, the Academy groups were moving along to the Sonny Carter Training Facilty. The SCTF houses the Neutral Bouyancy Lab (the giant spacewalk-training swimming pool as seen in Armageddon) and the Advanced Space Propulsion Lab, where Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz's VASIMR engine lives. I believe they also saw some EVA (extra-vehicular activity = spacewalk) suit equipment.

After that, the Academies broke up, and Goddard went to a BBQ place, while Glenn and Marshall went for the super-cheap Ci-Ci's Pizza buffet. After that, some very awesome contacts eventually helped the Marshall Academy get back onsite to JSC to tour the X-38 (ISS Crew Escape Vehicle) and see the Mars Drill that my buds in EX had been working on since at least 2002.

Following that, we headed back to Hobby and flew out through Dallas again. On one of the flights there was some very beautiful lightening out the window of the airplane.

We finally rolled in about 10:30 pm to Huntsville, and a semi-random guy that Omar knows very helpfully picked up a carload of RAs at the airport, who then returned with their cars to pick up the rest of us.

That weekend we did some ice skating and had a movie night at my place, then went and saw Batman Begins, which was quite enjoyable. Good week.

Here's me with an X-38 test vehicle.  

The Ames crew, running the other Academies (me, Marshal, Graylan, and Doug). 

Here we are after the movie in our casual wear.  

The three-Academy crew heads into Mission Control with pillows to settle in and watch Apollo 13 in the Apollo Mission Control Room. Very very cool. 

Here's the Shuttle Mission Control Room.where they're running a sim. 

New Flight Director and GSFC Academy alumna Holly Ridings speaks to our group.