Five Days + Space Academy = New Perspective

Space Camp – Day #5

At breakfast, we presented our leader with our Team Unity patch.  He was overwhelmed!

• The hands at the bottom are our team symbol – we were united.
• The Earth and flags symbolize the nations represented on our team: USA, Scotland, United Kingdom, and India.  Actually, one of the teachers is from England, lives in France and teaches in Switzerland.
• There are 15 stars, representing the 15 team members.
• We referred to our Jamie Putman, our team leader as Polaris, the North Star.  We looked to him for direction and guidance, and he always kept us on the right path.  The large star with the letters “JP” are for him.
• The Space Shuttle and Lunar Lander represented our missions.  (We also simulated a mission aboard Orion to Mars.) 
• The names “Inspire” and “Empower” are what we hope to do for students once we return to the classroom in the fall.
• The people holding hands represent our students as well as our team.
• We are forever grateful to the Honeywell Corporation for funding our Space Academy experience.

After breakfast we were learned how to extract DNA from fruit.  I wonder how this process would be different if done in space?

We extracted DNA from peaches, strawberries, and kiwi fruit.

The light colored, bubble laden material at the top of the tube is strawberry DNA.

This is hard work!

Extracting DNA can be fun if done with friends!

This is DNA from a strawberry.

Expert DNA extractors!

After lunch, were given a presentation about life on the International Space Station (ISS).  We learned lots of things that would be interesting to middle school students.  For example:

• How do you sleep? 
• What kind of food do you eat? 
• How do you prepare food in space? 
• What chores do the astronauts have?
•  How about exercise? 
• What kind of exercise do astronauts do and why is it needed? 
• What is the bathroom like?  (Interesting side note: Not surprisingly, the toilet is a bit different – so the astronauts need to be “Potty trained” prior to their missions!  They need to practice a different type of “Target Training”!)
• And something I never thought about before; many astronauts get motion sickness at the beginning of their mission in space.  What happens if someone vomits in space?  (See, I told you these topics would be interesting to middle school students!)

I attended the Honeywell Space Academy for Educators.  There are, however, many more programs offered at the US Space and Rocket Center.  There are Space Camps for almost every age group.  Aviation Challenge is a program for students interested in becoming a fighter pilot.  Dan Oates, director of Special Programs, talked with us about Space Camp experiences for children with special needs – including those with limited or no eyesight!

Click here to learn more about Space Camp Programs.  See me if you are interested in going.  We will try to find a way to send you to camp! 

http://www.spacecamp.com/programs

Our final educational session was given by the NASA Educator Resource Center.  There are so many resources available to us!  It is amazing.  Lesson plans, Cd's and DVDs, video up links, mission updates, speakers, posters, back ground information, etc!  They were so generous!  I almost exceeded the weight limit of my luggage on my return trip to Ohio!

The culminating experience of the week was our graduation.  There were six teams that graduated: Columbus, Destiny, Harmony, Kibo, Zarya, and Unity.  Each team had 13 to 15 members.  All in all there were 37 states and 19 countries represented among the 85 teachers that attended the Space Academy.

Before the actual graduation ceremony, Jamie (our team leader), put our names upside down on our flight suits.

My suite-mates during the Space Academy (from left to right):

Gillian (Gilli Vanilli) from Scotland

Me (Duct Tape)

Whitney (HM) from Texas

Laine (Sunscreen) from West Virginia

 

We all earned “handles” or code names.  Others included: Papa Bear, Preacher, Hip Hop, Space Cowboy, Parachute, Princess, and Are we there yet?

Astronaut Leland Melvin was our graduation speaker.

 


He liked to build things as a child and once set his mother’s living room carpet on fire while doing a chemistry experiment.  (Mom and Dad, aren’t you glad that I had my chemistry set in my “laboratory” out behind the garage under the pine trees?)  He played sports though out school and was drafted by the NFL. 

He is interested in supporting STEM education for middle school students, and currently works with NASAs Summer of Innovation Project. 

 

He is working with American Rap Star Will.I.Am to write a song about the NASA Space mission to Mars.  The song’s debut will be played in outer space and transmitted back to Earth!  Cool!

Go to this link to learn about Will.I.Am’s interest in the “Spin off” benefits of NASA’s Space technology: http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/04/02/rap-arist-will-i-am-introduces-nasa-spinoff-technology/

 

He even likes to play Angry Birds – the space version of course!

 

During graduation, our names are ripped off by the director of the Space Academy and replaced right side up. We are also given our wings which we wear on our lapels.

 

And I thought it couldn’t get any better than this!  After graduation, Honeywell gave us a graduation dinner and party that I will never forget. 

Our banquet was in the Saturn V Rocket Hall.  The 363 foot Saturn V rocket with the Apollo Payload is displayed horizontally.  The three stages are separated for educational purposes.  It is the largest rocket ever constructed and in 1968 was the first manned spacecraft to leave earth orbit and propelled many astronauts to the moon.  We ate directly under the capsule stage of the rocket. 

Great food, wonderful people, and terrific dance music!  It sure was fun celebrating with all of the new friends I had made this week.    The friendships made this week will last a life time.

Thank you Honeywell!   I would especially like to thank all of the Honeywell employees who donate in order to make this program a reality.

For more information about Honeywell go to: http://honeywell.com/Citizenship/Pages/corporate-citizenship.aspx

Space Academy - Day #4 - The Expanded Version!

Space Camp – Day#4 (Adding more details from a previous post.)

We started out our morning activities with the challenge of building part of a lunar post.  My team was given the task of building a medical facility.  We were given a list of requirements, supply list, and a budget.  Not only did we need to “build” the facility, we needed to provide power and food for those using it.  There were several power options and building configurations with which to choose.  Coming at or under budget was very important.  Concerning STEM education, this was a great “M” – or math – activity.  Jamie, our leader, also gave us super teaching, focusing, and assessing techniques to use in our classes back home (on Earth!  Ha-ha)

Some of the supplies we could choose from

We were broken into five teams (USA, Russia, Japan, China, and the UK).  Our leader moved pins on a map from Earth to the Moon and then on to Mars.  Our progress on the map was a measure of our success on a variety of tasks including: knowledge of the space program, sucessfully building our part of the lunar base, and coming in or under budget.  I was on the Russian team, indicated by the red pin.  Please notice that at least at this part of the simulation, we were ahead (Ha-ha)!

Later in the morning we had the awesome opportunity to use a real-time video link to talk to Aquanaut Steve Squyres aboard the NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations).  The current NEEMO Commander is Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger.  She is a teacher and a Space Academy alumnus!

Here is some information about NEEMO from the Discovery and NASA’s websites:

Aquarius is an underwater laboratory and home to scientists for missions up to 10 days long, but to call Aquarius a home is like calling the space shuttle Discovery a mode of transportation. Aquarius is made to withstand the pressure of ocean depths to 120 feet deep. Presently, Aquarius is located in a sand patch adjacent to deep coral reefs in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, at a depth of 63 feet. The laboratory is attached to a base plate that positions the underwater habitat (underwater laboratories are also called habitats) about 13 feet off the bottom. This means that the working depth of those inside the laboratory is about 50 feet deep. Located inside the 81–ton, 43 x 20 x 16.5–foot underwater laboratory are all the comforts of home: six bunks, a shower and toilet, instant hot water, a microwave, trash compactor, and a refrigerator even air conditioning and computers linked back to shore by a broadband wireless bridge by Motorola! Using Aquarius as a base for research diving expeditions definitely has its advantages.

NEEMO will send a six-person team to an underwater laboratory near Key Largo, Florida, to "field test" new technologies for a possible manned mission to an asteroid in the future.

Asteroids come in many different sizes, but they have next to no gravity, and rocky surfaces that aren't always stable. You'd need to find a way to anchor a spacecraft to the surface, and the NEEMO mission will explore different strategies for accomplishing this.

There are many other unique challenges astronauts would face on an asteroid-bound mission, including how best to maneuver around the surface, and how to best deploy instruments designed to collect useful data. The NEEMO program is designed to simulate the kinds of hostile environments likely to be found on celestial bodies.

In this case, the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory can be used to simulate the very low gravity of an asteroid, so the crew can determine whether the equipment and procedures they would need for exploration are feasible under those conditions.

The Space Academy teachers in the audience asked questions about living and working on the underwater laboratory, mission successes and failures, tools used, findings, etc.  They even wanted to know if there was seafood on the menu!  (The answer: No seafood)

For more information about NEEMO, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NEEMO/index.html

While talking with Aquanaut Steve Squyres, cool-looking fish kept swimming past the windows! This is a brave man! He went on a night dive. He described the bioluminescence his bubbles caused was one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen.

He had some very encouraging things to say to middle school students. He implored them to never give up; to follow their interests and passions, and never take “no” for an answer – no matter what obstacles stand in their way.  Right on!

After lunch we went to Homer Hickam Field near the Marshall Space Flight Center to launch our rockets.  This was very exciting for me, because Homer Hickam is one of my heroes.  Have you ever seen the movie, “October Sky”?  He is one of the young men from Coalwood, WV who won the national science fair for their rocket design.  As an adult, he worked as an aerospace engineer for NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL.

Follow this link to learn more about Homer Hickam: http://www.homerhickam.com/about/bio.shtml

                                                              5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1  Lift Off!   

                                 

One of the teachers on my team gave his rocket to a little boy who had come by to watch the launch with his grandfather.

In the afternoon, we were given an outstanding tour of the Saturn V Hall and Rocket Park.  These are world-class exhibits.  We followed rocketry and the history of space flight from Goddard through the Space Race (during the Cold War) and up through future space exploration projects.

"A Time for Courage"

  

 Notice the rocket engines on this little red wagon!

My favorite quote from Dr. Von Braun - "Research is what I am doing, when I do not know what I am doing."

Dr. Von Braun and President J. F. Kennedy (1963) months before the famous speech that challenged the USA to land a man on the moon and bring him home safely before the end of the decade.

Another great quote by Wernher von Braun: "One test result is worth one thousand expert opinions."

This is the type of rocket that got Astronaut John Glenn into space.

This NASA Mobile Laboratory lead to the development of the Apollo Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV)

The mightly Saturn V rocket

 

The Lunar Lander

Apollo Capsule

This is the date that ignited my interest in the space program.  I remember my father calling me to come down to the basement.  On our mini-black and white TV, we watched the Apollo 11 astronauts land and walk on the moon.  I was only 9 years old.  It changed my life forever.

These are the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets.  They are currently being developed by the United Launch Alliance to send future missions to space.

The Orion mission will take future astronauts to Mars.  It will be a long trip.  Are you up for the challenge?  I wonder if they need any teachers to go along?

The rocket on the right is a modek if the Soyuz rocket.  It is a Russian rocket that is currently used to take astronauts to the International Space Station.

We also got to see an IMAX movie called “Space Junk”.  Wikipedia defines space junk or orbital debris as “the collection of objects in orbit around Earth that were created by humans but no longer serve any useful purpose. These objects consist of everything from spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to erosion, explosion and collision fragments. As the orbits of these objects often overlap the trajectories of newer objects, debris is a potential collision risk to operational spacecraft.” 

This is definitely something I want my students to learn about next year!  Just think of the ideas we could come up with to solve this problem!

Go to this link to learn more about space junk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris

A super full day was topped of with a presentation on the History of Spaceflight by Ed Buckbee, author of The Real Space Cowboys.  He worked with all of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts, including Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, and Deke Slayton (the first seven astronauts).  On the cover of his book, it states, “They (the first seven mentioned above) were our first astronauts.  They were star voyagers.  The path they blazed now shines for others; on a voyage that is a measure of the best in us all and the Mercury 7 were first.  There are the Real Space Cowboys.”

Mr. Buckbee is not only a senior advisor to NASA on the space program; he was selected by Von Braun to be the first director of the Alabama Space & Rocket Center. “Buckbee is the visionary who assembled and managed the world’s largest space and rocket exhibition and founder of the highly successful U.S. Space Camp and Aviation Challenge programs.” 

 Ed Buckbee    

 The original Apollo astronauts

If it were not for Ed Buckbee, there would not have been a

Space Academy for me to attend! 

Thank you.