Use what you learn

Why I never thought of doing this before I don't know. The last launch of Discover brought me back to thinking about my summer.

When I arrived back in Hong Kong, a new student in my class was Declan. He wants to be an astronaut. We frequently talked about things I learned that summer. We reconstructed experiments, frequently visited the website, and started an after school activity called Race to Space.

Thanks NASA and the State Department for sponsoring a life changing experience. I'll leave you with one last video ... Reaching for the Stars!

Final Day @ NASA

Survival in Space

… what it takes to survive the extreme space experience!

Today we talked about the environment in space. We played a few games and learned a lot of lessons. NASA has identified six extremes about space that we don’t really find here on earth. Can you guess any of them? Go ahead try before reading any longer … are you guessing … here they are:
What makes space extreme?
You float
There is no air
There is no pressure
It’s very hot
It’s very cold
There are flying objects called meteors

We made our way to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). This is where the Space Shuttle is attached to the external tank (ET) and the rocket boosters (RB – no, not Repulse Bay). Harry, our guide, gave us tour through the third largest building in the world according to volume. This was over 500 feet tall and massively wide! Inside I walked around the RB and ET. They had just been put together to get ready for the next flight in August. Once completed they head to the launch pad by the crawler. These machines move at a speed of two miles per hour when empty. When loaded with the shuttle, they move at a speed of one mile per hour! They were huge! The crawler moves 35 feet per gallon, that translates to 150 gallons per hour. Th crawler was awesome! After seeing all of this I felt like I have become a piece of history.

Our next stop was by one of the most famous sights of a launch … the press area and the countdown clock. I remember as a kid watching the countdown for the Apollo moon rockets as they were preparing for lift off. Another piece of history I could reach out and touch.

Third stop on the tour was the launch pad 39B. We circled the pad. I could just visualize all the scenes I had watched on television of the launches, including the last shuttle lift off. Most of what we see is steam. 400,000 gallons of water are poured over the launch pad seconds before lift off. Why water? It helps to cut down the vibration and noise!

Our day ended at the Saturn V museum. This is the rocket that carried the Apollo astronauts to the moon. When fully fueled, this rocket had the power of an atomic bomb. How would you like to sit on top of that?! We saw one of the only three Saturn V rockets left in existence. I was able to see a presentation on the moon landing. I didn’t realize but Neil Armstrong, the commander of the first moon landing, had to take over the controls of the Lunar Lander to land, all without Mission Control knowing what was going on. They had lost communication with NASA.

What a day … what a fantastic two weeks! Thanks for making the journey with me. Hope to see you in August!
Astronut Dave

Day Seven @ NASA

Build a Station … Build a Future

Today we saw the future. We toured the Orbital Processing Facility or OPF. Very few people get to visit this building. Here I saw the space shuttle Discovery that is due to fly in October. I walked underneath the shuttle, back to front and side to side. It was an awesome experience. Did you know that the tiles cost between $500 and $3000 each. The Discovery has made 33 flights so far. Even after that many flights over 70% of the tiles are the original. I was able to hold one of the tiles in my hand it is unbelievably light. It felt as heavy as a piece of balsa wood. The used ones were very gray. The newer ones were black.

I also went into the Space Shuttle Main Engine Facility (SSMEF). Inside I was able to see the actual rocket engines that will fly the shuttle Discovery into orbit. These engines are huge. They do not start at the same time; they fire .15 seconds apart. All three of the main engines were there. They are 15 feet long and 7.5 feet in diameter.

The rest of the day we spent in class and reviewed the history and future of space travel. In your lifetime we may see a mission to Mars, certainly the moon before you graduate from high school.

Tomorrow we go to the launch pad.

Day Six @ NASA

The Florida Solar Energy Center was an interesting time of finding how to save money. Back in 1997, two identical houses were built here within one block of each other here in Florida. One was a regular house and another with al the latest energy saving devices built into it. It costs $40,000 more for the environment friendly house. It turns out that the eco-friendly house is 92% cheaper to keep running. A couple of great websites to check out are www.energywhiz.com and www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/.

The afternoon we spent in a planetarium looking at the stars. Did you know the sun is 93 million miles from the Earth? Or did you know the sun moves in 11-year cycles? And that the oldest room in the world is located in Ireland?

Tonight we had a dinner with a real live astronaut! It was awesome! His name was Sam Gemar. He rode on shuttle missions STS-38, STS-48 and STS-62. He was one of 5000 people who applied to be an astronaut in 1985. Only 13 of the applicants were accepted into the program. The first two years of an astronaut’s life are spent training and evaluating. Another year is spent training for a specific mission. Currently there are 100 astronauts in the program.
Seven days before a mission lifts-off, the astronauts are placed in quarantine. This is to keep them from getting sick before flight. On launch day, none of them eat breakfast, that’s because they have a 70% chance of barfing if they do. Yuck – imagine having to spend a couple of hours sitting in your barf?! Actually, they are in their 80 pound space suits for about 5.5 hours. Three hours and 15 minutes before flight they’re on their back in their shuttle seats. They really aren’t too busy until five minutes before flight.

Take off is loud and rough. 6.5 million pounds of thrust hurdles them into space. A 747 produces only 60,000 pounds of thrust. Eventually they are flying at 17,500 mph. How fast is that? For every heart beat they fly five miles! In one day they will cross the Equator 32 times and observe 16 sunrises. They prepare for landing when they are 4,200 miles away. The temperature outside the shuttle in daylight is +250F, in darkness it’s –250F. In the shuttle temperature is maintained at 70 – 80F. Inside the spacesuit at landing it gets up to 102F.

So what kind of technology does the space shuttle computers use? The they have 512k memory and use only 256k. As a matter of fact, the next mission, STS-118 will be using a GPS – like what most of the new mobile phones have. Did you ever stop to think that the computer you are using right now to read this is just as or likely more powerful than those on the shuttle!

Pretty much the whole flight is run on auto-pilot. Once the shuttle passes through Mach 1 on the return, the pilot usually switches to manual control.
That’s about it for today. See you tomorrow.

Weekend @ NASA

What can I say? It wasn''t my fault. Today we had to spend time at Disney’s EPCOT center. The day started behind the scenes as we were able to go where only cast members are allowed to go. Unfortunately, we were not able to take any pictures. We started with a tour of the ride, "Mission Space." One of the more fascinating things we were able to see was an actual moon rover car. It’s the only one of the four ever made that is still on earth. The other three are on the moon. These little cars zoomed around at 8.7 miles per hour! Of course, after all the training I have been through, I am almost ready to become an astronaut!

After the tour of the space ride we headed over to the house of Nemo … The Living Seas. While there we were able to go behind the scenes again. This time we went above the aquarium tanks. We saw where the dolphins trained, a 450 pound turtle, and 950 pound manatees. We saw where they prepared the food for the animals and where the veterinarians worked. It was amazing to them take x-rays of eels, fish, sharks and all the other members of the aquarium.

I finished the day visiting the exhibit of China and watching the fireworks show.

Sunday afternoon we visited the Lone Cabbage. A lot of bikers were there. I looked for but didn’t see the Wild Hogs there. We rode the airboats and look for gators while we were there. We did see quite a few of them while we were floating around. It was okay but I enjoyed the bikes even more … guess that’s because I used to ride a big bike before I was married. :)

Another adventurous week ahead. Signing off,

Astronut Dave

Day Five @ NASA

Today’s Topic: Reasons for the Seasons and Rocket at the Ready
We started out today with myth busters … most people have a misconception of why the seasons occur. I wonder if all you remember what the reason is since we studied it. Hmm… did it have anything to do with the rotation of the earth on its axis? I have a neat experiment with a bicycle tire, just come by and ask me.

The rest of the day was spent studying Newton’s Laws of Motions. We built rockets, launchers, and then flew the rockets. Want to try an experiment at home? Send me an email and I’ll send you the directions. It’s really cool and really easy. I made two rockets today, one used my blowing in a straw to launch it. The other was an 11 inch rocket. I named it in honor of you! We launched it with 40 pounds of compressed air.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to watch the space shuttle land today. It had to go to California due to bad weather here. However, if we’re lucky enough, we’ll be able to see it next Wednesday as it flies in on the back of a specially designed 747.

I met a new friend today so I thought I would send you a picture of her. Have a great day!

Today is gone and tomorrow is Disney World and Epcot.

Day Four @ NASA

Did you know that...

Aw shucks ... Shuttle Atlantis, STS 117, was scheduled to land today but was postponed until tomorrow. The weather was pretty bad and they needed to have better conditions. They get only one chance. However, I did have some fun. We watched a humongous Imax movie about the Apollo astronauts walking on the moon. It showed a lot of actual footage from the different spacewalks on the moon.

I was so inspired by the movie to walk on the moon I talked a couple of guys to suit up and get ready to go with me. Hey, I can be a kid too!

Remember the prisms we studied in math? Today we found out how the colors of the spectrum can be used to identify the properties of different elements. Once we know what color the planets or stars are, we can tell what elements the planet is made up of.

I did pick up a lot information on the space program ... stuff like

• The runway at the Kennedy Space Center is 15,000 ft long and 300 feet wide!
• The Shuttle lands at 217 miles per hour - that's 8 miles per second!
• The Shuttle orbits the Earth in 1.5 hours
• It takes 45 minutes for the Shuttle to land once entering the atmosphere
• For every pound of weight sent into space it takes an additional 100 pounds of fuel
• When astronauts take a shower, they vacuum the soap and water off their body
• The Shuttle travels at 17,500 miles per hour ... that's 10 times faster that a bullet.
• The names astronaut and cosmonaut are both translated as star voyager

Here's another website to check out for the animations!

That's it for today ... have a great one.