Reach For the Stars!: Space Academy - Day #4

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.”