And back up the side of the canyon. On a road. 

Additional walking in cool places 

Whole bunches of future tiny frogs. 

Tiny frog 

RA group shot 

Down to the water in the canyon. 

Then time for some hiking 

But there it goes... our shiny new 6-7 person tent. 

Team Tent Assemby, involves the girls working and the boys goofing off. Usual?  

We totally walked to Canada. 

Niagara Falls was awesome at night 

Houston

Houston was excellent. I took about 500 pictures, but I'll try to get up a top-ten or so later this week. This weekend is our New York Nature weekend, and we'll be camping at Letchworth State Park and then seeing Niagara Falls. Good times.

  

First Group Picture

NASA Academy at Glenn Research Center 2006
The First Group Picture

Dr. Shelia Bailey talks photovoltaics to us at our first evening lecture. 

Outside the lobby to my building (on the right side, if you look at the pic I posted a couple days ago), on of my RAs saw a fawn that was hiding there for the day. Too cool. There are deer all over the center. 

GRC up in the news

Glenn Research Center is all in the news because it's getting two of the really big chunks of the CEV (our new Shuttle replacement/beyond-low-Earth-orbit vehicle). I don't remember GRC ever being in the news before, and usually they don't even mention a center name. "One NASA" and all. But good on them (us?). I got to go to the all-hands meeting with Shana Dale (NASA Deputy Adminstrator) and that was cool. I got more up-to-date on the Vision ("Project Constellation" now, I believe) efforts.

Also today, I got calls from two of my favoritest people. Marshal suggested an activity we should not do in the Academy (helium balloon exploration), and Omar suggested an activity that we should definitely do, which will be revealed as it comes closer to reality. Marshal later also suggested we not use gasoline instead of laundry detergent or get on planes with snakes on them.

I got the minivan to drive! It is, as of this moment, unnamed. It seats seven. This will be awesometacular and make daily logistics a lot easier and be very good for group dynamics. More than four people have been working on this since I got here.

H-town

We will definitely be in Houston from June 14-18, with free time after 4 pm on Friday and *all day* on Saturday. Anybody want to put up nine awesome college students Friday and Saturday night? Or at least a couple of them?

Or does anyone want to hang out, have dinner, meet the RAs, etc.?

Thanks!
JSC

it's like that, y'all

About 24 hours into this feels like about 2 weeks in. It's like that.

It's going to be a good summer though. I'm feelin' good.

checkin' in

Student #1 checked into the hotel here. Seven to go.

Any of you RAs reading this? Check in on comments if so, please. Initials or first names are fine.

Update: #2, check.

2:30 pm: #3, check. Three others have called to say they'll be here in xx:xx time, and I haven't heard from two...

3:30 pm: four!

5:00 pm: all except one!

7:30 pm: all here and accounted for! Go team!

Now with extra Glenn!

It's a beautiful stormy night and in an hour, Ms. Kamara and I are off to see a midnight showing of X-Men.

We put in, oh, about 24 hours of work in the last two days. Won't go into the details, because there's a lot of them, but good stuff is happening.

Here's my lovely NASA office building for the next 12 weeks:




And "The Hangar" which is all the symbol of GRC, apparently.



If you look at a satellite picture, it says "NASA" on the top of it, and you can see it quite clearly.




Also, another pic from DC, courtesty of Marcia. We're on a patio at the Library of Congress.



Fine looking crew, no? And wouldn't you give them money to explore space if they asked? I would.

places that aren't here

Heading off to Cleveland tomorrow. On the schedule this summer:

Houston, June 16-18
Washington DC, June 30-July 5
Huntsville, AL, July 20-21
And, if I can swing it, at least a couple days in lovely Florida.

The rest of the time: Cleve-land. Dates are iffy, but give me a holler if you're going to be in one of those places the same time I am.

After August... who knows? Looking for a real job.

Happy Summer!

Citizens for Space Exploration trip

I just got back from a week in Washington DC supporting space exploration to our law-making folks up there. The trip was sponsored by Citizens for Space Exploration, and was mostly people from Texas, Florida, etc., but they also wanted students from states not traditionally thought of as space-related to come and talk to their Congresspeople. So I got to go represent Oklahoma. My group of 2-5 (depending on the meeting) met the science staff people for each of the six Oklahoma Senators and Representatives and some people from other states.

We got to stay at the fancy Hotel Washington, but we only saw one celebrity there, and that was the dog that we were told plays Duke in the Bush's Baked Beans commercials. It was a really sweet dog that kept wanting to lean on me, just like Classy used to do. Seeing Mikey rassle on the floor with Cooper (real name) has put a grin on my face every time I've thought of it. "Are you gonna tell the secret recipe, are you boy!?!" Truly adorable. When we all have our picture exchange, someone has a group picture of us with him, and I'll try to post it.

One of the coolest things about the hotel was the rooftop restaurant, which had a pretty cool view. We went up there for drinks and dinner a couple times.



The first full day we were there, we had Congressional office visits all day long, then a reception at the Library of Congress in the evening. All the big (Texas) space congresspeople came and talked, and we students got certificates. Space is something that is relatively non-partisan, and it was nice to have minimal issues associated with that arise. Everyone should support space for a whole lot of reasons. Our Ames Academy 2004 project was a website supporting the Vision and addressing negative concerns that we'd heard before.

(Me at the podium after the non-students left)


The students hung around for a bit after the reception for the sunset, because, seriously, how cool is this view?





When it's recruiting time next year, I'll try to put up some info on this yearly trip so people can apply. I just found out about it at the last moment this year, and I'm sure I can get some students from very geographically diverse areas of the country in on the thing.

----------------------

Jacqui (and Amy) graduate tonight! Which means I got to get up at 4:30 this morning to spend over an hour putting surprise decorations all over her (Jacqui, not Amy's) car (although I was following very specific directions from Amy's mom on where to put each element of the decorations [e.g. "two paw prints at the upper right corner of each side and rearview mirror; others at your discression"] so they would all match). Congratulations! Also: ha-ha! You have to walk at the ceremony because I'm here! One last looong corny high school event you're forced to go to!

Jac has a (last?) recital Sunday, and then I'm out of here on Monday at noon. I should probably spend every waking moment between now and then packing and writing Academy-related emails, but we'll see.

my job / televised bedtime / MSB visit!

Looks like my new crop of Academites will be ten strong, with several locals from Ohio.

Also, I'm watching School of Rock here, and I thought I'd share the description of my take on the Staff Position that I sent to the RAs a few days ago:

"The job of the staff member of the Academy is to basically be your group personal manager for the summer. I live, work, and play with you all, 24/7. Since we'll be minutes away from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I'll use a rock band analogy here: you're the ones doing the show, making the music, rocking the house, being out there for people to see. I'm scheduling you for gigs, setting up meetings with producers and other artists, booking your tours, making sure you get places on time, transferring information between you and the label, and just overall making sure you're making the most of your time. This summer, you'll be recording and touring at the same time, and I'll be your entourage of one. Dr. Kankam, the NASA Academy Director at GRC, is your label executive, with all the associated power and influence you'd associate with that position."

So that's what I'll be doing this summer.

-----

Check out the CNN spot on Erin who's doing the 12-week bedrest study for NASA. She's in Cleveland, so hopefully she's come talk to our Academy at Glenn this summer about what they were looking at and the science of it, but, more imporantly, the human aspect of it. It's good to get scientist and engineers to remember that humans are a big part of this exploration game, and
I just checked the cnn.com site again, and her video is on the homepage in the Top Stories! It's labeled "Woman paid to lay down on the job".

-----

Also, Mr. Marshal Blessing, GRC Staff 2005, Ames RA 2004, will be coming up from Dallas Cityville to visit, talk GRC NA, meet adorable puppies, and help found the Central Heartland Great Plains Mid-ish US branch of the NAAA. It has been decided that the first order of business is getting a better name and, being NASA-related, a decent acronym.

NASA Academy, Take 3

So... Cleveland, eh?

I'll be staffing the NASA Academy at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, this summer.

For those of you keeping NASA-track at home (Grandpa? Jac, maybe?), that's...
- JSC Co-op 2001-2003
- ARC Academy RA 2004
- MSFC Academy staff 2005
- GRC Academy staff 2006
- and I've had tours of KSC, JPL, DFRC, GSFC, and HQ.
Only have Stennis and Langley left to catch 'em all.

GRC was rocked by Marshal (not the center... that has two Ls) from NAABA2k4, so it's been established in the great tradition of the Ames Academy. Time to go rock it to the next level.

off-topic puppy update

Here's some pictures of Ripley when we first got her.





They're both much bigger now.




Remember how small Jolie used to be?

Yuri's Night!

Happy Yuri's Night Day!

April 12, 2006...
45th anniversary of Yuri's flight
25th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle flight

Yuri's Night parties are on all SEVEN continents this year... how cool is that?
YN Website's final count: 86 parties, 32 countries, 7 continents, 1 planet

update and celebrate

April 12 will be the 25th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle flight, and the 45th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight. NASA centers are all up on the celebrating, and have tons of events scheduled at most centers. Find out about the center nearest you, and if they have public events in the press release here.


Also, people in Oklahoma... it looks like the Oklahoma Space Alliance is hosting a Yuri's Night event at 7:30 p.m. at Borders Books & Music in Norman. April 12, of course. Show up! Here's what their section at http://www.yurisnight.net/2006/ says:

Please join Oklahoma Space Alliance at 7:30 p.m. at Borders Books & Music in Norman, to celebrate Yuri's Night, April 12, 2006. After introductions, we'll begin with a talk on "Space Tourism: Where's My Ticket?" by Clifford McMurray, former Executive VP of the National Space Society.

Then we're planning a preview of our "Space Quiz," with prizes for correct answers (members of Oklahoma Space Alliance not eligible for prizes). The questions will be neither trivia nor deep physics, and you're all welcome to debate the answers and the way a question is worded.

We are working on an additional activity involving a space tourism company. Please look for a later details if this works out.

Book & movie lists will be available, and Borders has promised to make some of the titles easy to find.

Afterwards, those attending are invited to a house a few blocks north of Sooner Fashion Mall for the party portion of the celebration. Maps to the house will be available at the talk.


In other news, I'm back in Oklahoma. Again. The conference wasn't bad, and was actually pretty great up until the last hour or so when we hit some harder issues. I think we did some good work. NASA Academy alumni, find out about the specifics on the forums at spacealumni.com (where you should register immediately, if you haven't already). Alumni also have a frappr map that has little markers on the world map for each NA alum who inputs his or her current location. There's only about 50 of us right now (of around 500 possible directly Academy-related people), and we really are geographically diverse like you wouldn't believe.


There's someone doing a long (twelve-week) bedrest study and keeping a blog at http://stardustholiday.blogspot.com/ She seems to keep in good spirits (and is hardcore dedicated to take this on in the first place), but today's post was especially cute. The study itself is to collect data on the effects of exercise on muscles and bone density in space analog conditions.


MSNBC has a "So You Want To Be an Astronaut"-type multiple choice test based on the real standards, they say.

I got to that from a story on (Oklahoma-based) Rocketplane and a game that combines weather prediction action with a spacey fun prize.

NASA Academy strategic conference

"Almost heaven..."

Making some good progress on the Academy. We have a pretty decent mission statement going. Goals and action items, too. Should be some good information coming out of it. Alums: check spacealumni.com for our notes and to contribute!

Here we are at work:




This was out in the woods of West Virginia at a national parks training place, and we saw deer in the trees when we walked to breakfast in the morning.



It was good to catch up with folks like Dave and Doug and Laura again, and to meet Natcho and Johnny (from whom I've received many emails), and others in the NASA Academy family. We all drank lots of coffee together.

More travel coming up...

Tomorrow I leave for a few days in West Virginia for the NASA Academy future-of-program conference. I'm really excited about making some progress in securing a future for the Academies and representing for Ames and Marshall. Hopefully we'll come out of it with some good headway and better networking between alumni from different centers.

Then in mid-May, I'm going with some cool people on a trip for Citizens for Space Exploration to Washington DC to visit with congresspeople about how much I support my US space program. Therefore the decision-makers should, too. I'll say it better than that, of course.

Figuring out this Picasa thing. Hey, look, it's me in Moscow by some shiny Kremlin domes. Very pretty place.

In Moscow!

Here in Russia now and officially on so many levels. There's a lot of paperwork involved in this country. Nice hotel. Star City tomorrow!

gang's all here

I'm in Strasbourg. My bag's very very likely to be in Strasbourg. We're just not in the same place yet. No biggie. But for you worry-types, I am here safely at International Space University again. Later!

Spring Break

Okay, I'm off to Strasbourg tomorrow, then on to Moscow with the ISU crew. I'll post from there, most likely, and I'll be back, oh, let's say, a week from tomorrow, if all goes well.

SB

Spring Break: Strasbourg and Star City. Already got the tickets. How much does that rock?

Brushing up on my Russian.

past, present, future

Former astronauts all over TV... or at least in two places:

1. This season on Survivor: Panama, Dan Barry.

2. Tonight on The Daily Show, Mike Mullane, promoting his new book Riding Rockets.

* * * * *

Looks like Star City Spring Break is on!

* * * * *

Gratuitious sleepy puppy time. Look how she's grown already...

Are you a champion... a Space Champion?

"TORONTO/EWORLDWIRE/Feb. 10, 2006 --- IPX Entertainment, a
Nevada-registered corporation, is issuing a casting call for American
and Canadian athletes to participate in a reality television show about
a sport played in zero gravity. The show, /Space Champions/, will
premiere on SpaceChannel.TV in the fall of 2006."

Space Champions

Exciting find annouced today... the smallest extrasolar planet yet. Not quite home, since it's still 5.5 times as big as Earth and 2.6 AU away from its sun. We're not quite there yet, but we're getting better at it.

Here's the NSF story. And CNN's story... "New science finds Earth-ish planet," if you feel like reading a story with the word "Earth-ish" in its front page headline. The actual story calls it "Earth-like" (and now it's all fixed, but trust me that it said "Earth-ish" a couple hours ago), but how do professionals get away with that, unless they were just being cutesy? Not really a cutesy story, dude. Serious scientific coolness.

During the NASA Academy at Ames 2005, I did some educational outreach work for the Kepler mission which is planned to launch in summer of 2008. That mission's goals include getting an idea of how many of these little habitable Earth-y (I can say this because I'm not supposed to be a reliable national news source; I'm a student with a blog, and this is my standard) planets are out there. We're expecting a decent number.

In completely unrelated news, she's officially Jolie.

New puppy

It's distracting. Distractingly adorable. My current vote for her name is Jolie.

Hmm.

It occurs to me that I still need to post the Paris/Luxembourg write-up and pictures. Don't think there's not already two pages of it written. My photo program (which quickly and conveniently resized and autolinked pics for me) stopped working on my computer right before my move back to OK. I like to break up text with pics and vice versa, so I'll see if I can't get something to work so I can put that up very soon.

In the meantime, here's an obligatory picture of me with the Eiffel Tower. Imagine that, but all over the page. It'll do until I get the real post.




Congrats Stardust and good travels to New Horizons!

Stardust@Home ... more work that SETI@Home, but better chance of payoff. Support both!