Farewell, Constellation, We Hardly Knew Ye

So, yeah the world is pretty much turning upside down here in Space Town. For those that aren't part of the NASA crowd, the 2011 budget published by the Obama administration this week cancels the Constellation program, which was the new human spaceflight program intended to follow the Shuttle retirement late this year. And it has been replaced by - nothing.

I can't even really process all this right now, especially since I haven't been to work in months. I have just two coherent thoughts right now.

First, I like the idea of outsourcing access to low Earth orbit and the ISS to private companies. I really do. However, I am terribly afraid that technical, financial, or legal concerns will get in the way of those private companies realizing their designs and ultimately producing that access. And then the USA will be stuck with no way to get people into space. Without a NASA vehicle as a backup plan, that would be a very bad situation and could last a decade or more.

Second, in my (admittedly limited) experience hobby shop innovation projects that are not connected with concrete programmatic goals rarely ever produce anything useful. This budget removed the programmatic goal and replaced it with a nebulous call for innovation. I see that being a money sink that will ultimately result in the budget being taken away because nothing is being produced.

I could maybe get on board with this if I believed that the NASA budget would be used to fund a series of flight test development projects with very well-defined and concrete technologies that are needed to further human exploration of our solar system. I don't think that's what's going to happen, though.

The administration and the NASA DC crowd is insisting that this is a "bold new vision" for human spaceflight. That we will be exploring to solar system on some yet to be defined timeline. They are going to have a hard time convincing the line troops that's the case. From down here, it looks like the politically expedient way of starting to shut down NASA's human spaceflight program without actually admitting that's what you're doing.

Gone in a Flash

This weekend was so busy! Well, actually we did two special things, but that's enough to make me feel like I blinked and it was over.

Saturday we went to a birthday party for Samantha. There were tons of kids there! I think it was the first one of these I've been to where the kids were at least half the focus of the party. Sam didn't do much better eating her birthday cake than Carina did at her first birthday.

Today, we had our baby un-shower. Cari did a great job hosting. We tie-dyed onesies and shirts, which is great fun. When I get them all rinsed and laundered, I'll post pictures of all of them. There were at least a few that I think are going to make really cute shirts! Everyone agreed we're going to look like total urban hippies dressing our kids in homemade tie-dye all the time. It's more interesting than white onesies, though!

I'm contemplating some changes at work, but things are never simple. First step is figuring out what I really want, then figuring out what the best way to get it would be. Then making it happen.

Debris Dodging

One of the jobs a FDO does is to figure out if we need to move the Shuttle out of the way when orbital debris comes close to us. To do this, we coordinate with the Air Force, which tracks objects orbiting the Earth. We get information from them on where the debris is and calculate a probability of collision between the debris and the Shuttle. If the probability is high enough, we preform a maneuver to lower the probability It's actually a really interesting and complicated problem, and one of the things I've gotten more into analyzing outside mission work. It is not as cool as this, though.



If we could do that, it would be awesome.

Gymnasitcs

Baby B is doing major gymnastics in my belly right now. I think he/she might be trying to turn over. I had a perinatal appointment today, and both babies are still looking good. Estimated weight is 1 lb 1oz each. Both my O/B and the perinatologist comment every time on how active the babies are. What can I say, all my kids were womb gymnists.

Carina really took to the talk we had about the babies coming out. She keeps asking now if they're coming out every time I make a comment about them. My hips are really hurting today from sleeping on my sides, and she asked if it was because the babies were kicking them. Maybe she does get this more than I thought!

I'm not working this Shuttle flight at all, so all the scrub drama isn't affecting my sleep schedule (thank God!). I have managed to get myself a whole parcel of potential new work to replace flight work in a very short time. Now I need to clear my backlog from earlier this summer so I can get to the new stuff.

The Babies are Where?

I'm working in Mission Control the next day, or two, or Heaven forbid three. I'm here until we land, and the weather isn't looking like it's going to cooperate. Since I've been going home at 4:30 the last few days to take a nap, I thought I might be in trouble having to work until 8:30 tonight, but it turns out there's nothing like Important Space Business to keep you from feeling fatigue.

People keep asking me if Carina understands yet about the impending arrival of new babies onto the scene. Of course, she doesn't really. We've been trying to talk to her about the babies in Mommy's tummy, mainly in an effort to get her to be a bit careful with me. At first, she just looked at us like we were crazy, but she's starting to get used to the idea.

Gavin has started to ask her if she wants to kiss the babies good night. We can tell she doesn't completely have the idea, though, since she usually kisses my breasts instead of my stomach.

A Rough Patch

I'm having a rough week. This post is one long whine - be warned.

Friday I went to the doctor to have my swollen sea urchin hand examined. He put me on hefty antibiotics and referred me to a plastic surgeon to remove the spines.

Carina started vomiting on Saturday. Just twice both in the morning. She seemed fine on Sunday.

Monday morning I got to work and called the plastic surgeon's office to schedule an emergency appointment for the afternoon. I then started working on getting the trajectory for STS-400, which was due Tuesday, ready to publish. At 9:30, the daycare called and said Carina had thrown up. She seemed OK after, and they could keep her if she didn't throw up again. Gavin was on his way to the airport already for a work trip. I told daycare to let me know if she threw up again or seemed unhappy.

At lunch I went to the plastic surgeon. I was expecting him to give me a local and dig the spines out with a needle. Instead he looked incredibly concerned and asked a bunch of questions about which antibiotics I was on. In the end, he told me that he wanted to give the antibiotics another week to take the swelling down and then schedule me for surgery under general anesthesia. The words "fillet the skin back and wash under it with antibiotics" were mentioned. After that, I decided it was better not to think about it too much...

I raced back to work after the 2 hour appointment and frantically tried to catch up on my trajectory. Was hoping to get it done Monday - no dice.

Picked Carina up 3 minutes before daycare closed and went to the store to pick up prescriptions for pre-surgery stuff and another gallon of milk in case the milk was bad and that's why Carina was throwing up. Carina didn't eat dinner, and though she didn't throw up again she was pretty fussy like her tummy hurt.

Zoya was carrying her back leg entirely off the floor all night. Great, I bet that other knee blew out and she's going to need another $3000 surgery.

Tuesday I took Carina to daycare hoping she'd be OK even though she didn't eat any breakfast except milk. I had a Flight Readiness Review at work and really couldn't stay home. Daycare got through the deadzone in the conference room at 9:30 to say she had thrown up again. Feeling terrible, I asked if they could keep her anyway since I had my pitch coming up and still needed to finish the trajectory. They agreed.

The rest of the day at work passed in a whirlwind of activity, although I did get everything done. Managed to call the pediatrician's office and get the following advice:

- No milk for 24-48 hours: done
- 1 tsp clear liquid every 5 minutes for 4 hours, then double that every 10 minutes for 4 hours
- After that, bland starcy diet
- Take her to the hospital if she stops peeing

Are you kidding me? Set aside the fact that I was hoping to get another 2 hours of work in, and there was no way the daycare would follow those instructions. I think Carina would start refusing after 3-4 times of trying her to take a tsp of liquid every five minutes. Decided to follow a more sustainable plan of giving her a quarter cup of clear liquids every 15 minutes.

It's 10:00 AM on Wednesday. Daycare has not called yet to tell me Carina has puked again. Maybe I won't have to take her to the pediatrician today after all. I'm waiting on inputs from flight planning so I can finish my backup day trajectory for the flight, which has to be done this afternoon. I am really, really looking forward to my mother-in-law coming down this afternoon and helping with Carina. I have to be at work at 6:30 AM tomorrow.

Friday morning Roxy goes into the vet to get a lump removed from her paw. Hoping that is benign. Tuesday (Gavin's birthday for all the good it's going to do him) I am scheduled for apparently fairly major hand surgery. Won't be able to eat after midnight, but have to come to work to work a sim shift before going in for the surgery. Ugh. Zoya scheduled for teeth cleaning on the 27th, but might cancel that if she's going to need orthopedic surgery soon.

Help.

This and That

Work is so incredibly busy this month. As STS-125 is scheduled to launch on May 12 and land on May 23, with a rescue mission waiting in the wings, followed a few short weeks later by STS-127 launching on June 13... there's a lot going on this month. I'm doing sims for 3 flights, "conjunction FDO" duties for one flight, and Lead FDO duties for a flight. Throw in a DoD meeting and attendant coordination, and I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to find the time. Plus, my parents are coming down for another short trip, so I'll want to spend some time with them.

Carina's lingual explosion continues, but she seems not to want to talk much in front of anyone except Gavin and I. Tonight's longest phrase was "Daddy, your dinner is right there." (Food is very important to this kid.) I think Grammy and Grandpa-pa got her to open up when they had her for 4 days. Hopefully the few days my folks will be here in May will be enough to get the same thing.

Roxy has a "mass" in her paw. The vet thinks it's probably benign, but not 100% sure. I scheduled her for surgery to remove it. This kind of thing makes me nervous because we lost a dog when I was a kid to a tumor. Here's hoping it's nothing worse than it always is when you have a dog recovering from surgery.

Imagination Made Reality

Image credit NASA
Today I have to talk about this picture.

Leading up to this flight, there was a lot of talk about the flyaround the Shuttle does after undock being higher priority than it usually is because the ISS program wanted a picture of the ISS in its final symmetrical solar array configuration. I was kind of cynical about the idea; gotta have our pretty pictures. Until I saw this picture today, that is. Now I get it.

No matter what you think about human spaceflight in general, or the ISS program in particular, you have to be impressed by this. This is an incredible feat; the assembly in space of a huge space station whose different pieces were built in different countries, launched from different countries, and all fit together to make this picture. This picture which I have seen a thousand times as artist's conceptions, and am now seeing as an actual photograph taken in Earth orbit. I was not expecting it to be so emotional.

Click on the picture above to bring up the full size image, zoom in, and you can see logos of JAXA and ESA, our partners. You can see dozens of antennas, two robotic arms, cameras, and all the little pieces that make this thing work. You can see the ocntrast between the bright sunlight and the dark shadow of the Shuttle as it's flying by and taking the photo.

So today I am proud of us for taking this step toward the completion of this ambitious project. I am happy that human beings have been constantly inhabiting Earth orbit since October 31, 2000, as they did for 10 years on Mir from 1989-1999. I hope the future holds even more exciting things yet to come.

Volcano!

Due to my love of things geophysical, I've been following the Twitter feed for the Alaska Volcano Observatory for about a month, watching for the expected eruption of Redoubt volcano. The eruption started last night, but there are no pictures yet since it's still dark there. Sunrise is in about 20 minutes. They estimate the ash cloud currently reaches to about 50,000 ft.

I've heard a story that last time Redoubt erupted, the ISS crew was the first to notice. They flew over and saw the ash cloud. As the story goes, they asked MCC to patch them through to the volcano observatory. MCC called up the observatory to warn them the ISS crew was about to call, but the folks at the observatory thought it was a joke. They didn't even know an eruption was going on. (This is the part I have trouble crediting, because those guys have these mountains instrumented to an incredible level.) Anyway, the legend says that the observatory folks looked at their data, realized there was in fact an eruption going on, and then bemusedly received a call from ISS.

I haven't been able to confirm the story in a quick Google search, but I'm pretty sure I talked to someone who said they were in MCC when this happened. Cari maybe?

How I Get Behind

It took me a full work day to get my e-mail back under control after the 119 slip and slip and slip fiasco. Then it took me another day to go through the remaining e-mails and respond to the somewhat urgent stuff stuff that I really should have taken care of a month ago. And today I have to go do more of that stuff now that the rendezvous is over, and the control center is available again.

My inbox is now smaller, but it is lit up like a Christmas tree with "for follow-up" flags. Oh, well, I'll go to lunch and deal with it after.

Conjunction

L-1 day went more smoothly this time around, due to better preparation and the dress rehearsal we had on Tuesday. Space debris continues to play a larger role in my life than I would have hoped, but that's life in Low Earth Orbit. The drama of the precautionary preparations for evacuating the ISS during a close encounter with space debris Thursday (tapes of the air to ground comm with the crew on NASA's website) has added its own plot twists to an already interesting week.

For any non-NASA readers, let me give a few facts about how NASA treats close encounters with other objects orbiting in space (we call these encounters conjunctions). We are actually extrordinarily cautious about conjunctions. We use a statistical method to calculate the probability of an object colliding with one of our vehicles based on our knowledge of where both are in space. If the conjunction has a probability greater than 1/100,000, we will maneuver if it doesn't cause huge problems. 1/100,000 says that if you went through that conjunction 100,000 times, you'd probably get hit once. Not very likely. The conjunction on Tuesday had a probability somewhere around 1/2500 (approximately - I don't remember the final number exactly).

So putting the crew into the Soyuz ready to leave Tuesday was indeed precautionary. It wasn't really likely that the ISS was actually going to get hit, just more possible than usual. NASA really does try to play "better safe than sorry" when at all possible, especially where the lives of our astronauts are involved.

4 Day Turnaround

Today, the Shuttle launch was scrubbed because of a hydrogen leak at the launch pad. Just in case you were wondering (because a lot of the press didn't seem to understand), hydrogen is flammable. If you have a high enough concentration around, it will go boom. Which is particularly dangerous when it is sitting next to a rocket that is intended to ride a controlled explosion into space.

So, no launch today. And since it will take a while to find and fix the leak, likely no launch until Sunday. Maybe you would think that a 4 day launch delay would mean that we have more time to publish all our data over again. But since we always publish a prime and backup launch date and often have a third one complete as well, a 4 day scrub meant that we had to start completely from scratch this afternoon. Fortunately, since we got so close to launching we had many helpers available to create new rendezvous plans.

So, I got home in time to see Carina tonight. Only by abandoning the Lead FDO to do the final few steps of publishing the trajectory today by himself, but I hope I left him with not too much work left.

Unfortunately, I will probably have to work Saturday and Sunday. :P

Thursday

It looks like we just might launch STS-119 next week after all. This has catapulted me from a wait-and-see mode to L-6 day mode in the last 24 hours. Unfortunately, I also have a pretty extensive sim and meeting load today and tomorrow. Not sure I can get everything done without working this weekend.

This spring has unleashed a flurry of weddings and house buying amongst my friends. I am reminded of how much I like surfing realty web sites looking at houses. I found a house like ours listed for $225000 - I think that might be a bit optimistic, alhtough it did have a pool.

I'm finding that I have not much interesting to say these days. Either my life is boring or I'm in a months-long period of writer's block.

Head-On In Space

On Tuesday morning, a satellite in the Iridium constellation collided with an inactive Russian satellite. This is the first confirmed instance of an active satellite being destroyed by a collision. There are a couple of suspected cases in the past, but nothing definite.

When two fairly large spacecraft collide, a lot of debris is created. Satellites in orbit go fast, very fast. Even though the two satellites were flying at about the same altitude (~750 km), they were in different orbital planes. So although they were going about the same speed, they were going in different directions. Imagine what happens to a car when it collides with an unmoving object at 60 mph. Now imagine how much worse it is if the object it collides with is a car moving at 120 mph in the other direction. Now multiply that closing speed by about 200, and recall that energy is proportional to velocity SQUARED. That's a satellite collision.

So, now there are hundreds (probably) of pieces of former satellites traveling in two clouds around the Earth. We can track some of those pieces, but most are too small to be tracked. They are all slowly decaying to lower altitudes in the sparse atmosphere, potentially threatening all other satellites orbiting below them. ISS is at about 350 km for reference.

It's a big mess. But this type of event is likely to occur more and more often in the future as we keep launching stuff into space. Every launch creates more debris. Not just the satellite it is trying to put into orbit, but also upper stage rocket bodies, payload fairings, small bolts that fracture to separate pieces of the payload, etc. As things get more crowded, collisions between debris and satellites will produce more debris. In theory, there will eventually become a point where there is so much debris being generated that it is self-perpetuating. Debris creates more debris, which creates more, until it isn't safe to be in orbit anymore.

This is why it is important to deorbit payloads after they have completed their mission, as well as creating methods of cleaning up some of the debris that is already up there. It's an interesting and important problem for space development.

Ferry Flight

One of the problems with putting your spaceport in Florida is that weather can be touchy. We always try to land the Shuttle in Florida if possible, but sometimes weather dictates that we land at our backup site - Edwards AFB in California. When that happens, there are a lot of logistics involved in getting the Shuttle back to Florida for the next launch. Part of the process is loading it onto the back of a special 747 and flying it back to Florida.

STS-126 landed in California, and the Shuttle is currently making its way back to Florida. Today we got word that they were going to be flying over our area at about noon. Since I'm not at work, I wasn't sure I'd actually get to see it well since our house is a few miles further south. I shouldn't have worried.


They flew RIGHT over my head. I was so excited, I was having a hard time holding the camera steady. But once I calmed down and shut off auto-focus, I got a few good ones. See the Flickr stream for more.

Orbital Junkyard

The first movie we got for our new PS3 blue-ray is Wall-E. I love Pixar. I loved this movie on a bunch of different levels. But the one thing that really stands out when I think of it is how when the spaceship takes off with Wall-E clinging to the side, he nearly gets knocked off several times by all the debris in orbit.

When spacecraft are launched into orbit, it’s not just the active satellite that stays up there. Most launchers have upper stages, which remain in orbit after the active spacecraft separates from them. There are also covers that are around the satellite for its ride through Earth’s atmosphere, bolts that pop off to separate the pieces, and rings that go between the stages. And then sometimes those upper stages that still have pressurized tanks and lines "breakup", generating hundreds of smaller pieces of debris. Sometimes satellites or other orbiting objects breakup even without pressurization effects from atmospheric or environmental stress, or even possibly collision with other debris.

It all makes for a big mess - tens of thousands of individual pieces orbiting around our planet. Much of it stays on orbit for years or even decades before the upper shreds of Earth’s atmosphere drags it back in. The ISS and Shuttle have seen a dramatic increase in the number of encounters with debris we have during the last year or so. It gets harder and harder to find a place where there is no debris to fly through. That makes things more dangerous for our astronauts, as well as all other satellites.

So, since I deal with this growing issue all the time at work, I appreciated the Pixar folks portrayal of the issue in Wall-E. Now if we can just figure out what material they made that rocket out of that could encounter an old satellite at Earth escape speeds, but just shrug off the junk like nerf balls. That would be a help.

a few thoughts on MSL

Today it was announced that the Mars mission I've been working will be delayed. Instead of launching next year as planned, it will now launch in 2011. Much of the hardware is already built, but there were several loose ends they were working on and the schedule was already tight. Finally, a problem with one of the rover components was found that would require 3 more months. Unfortunately, the opportunities to go to Mars only come every 26 months when, quite literally, the planets align in the proper geometry. Those 3 months push us out of this launch window, and force the two year delay. It will be extra time put to good use for further testing, but it is dismaying to many of us who were looking forward to landing in 2010.

On my very first day, working for NASA back in 2000, I showed up and my boss told me of a new project that we were helping on called the Mars Smart Lander. A few experienced Apollo-era engineers were working it in Houston, and I was lucky enough to be assigned to work with them. Even though it's a robotic mission, Johnson Space Center is providing the entry guidance for the mission so it would be the first Mars lander to fly a guided entry to ensure it would land near an interesting target. The other previous landers didn't have guidance, and most of them came in like cannonballs to land wherever on large, open plains. With a guided entry, now we can land close to mountains or canyons or even inside craters!

Back then MSL was supposed to launch in 2005. Soon it was pushed back to 2007. No big deal, as only a few score of people were working the mission concepts. MSL changed its name from Mars Smart Lander to the Mars Science Laboratory. Some technologies under development, such as autonomous hazard detection and avoidance, was cut from the project. I'm glad to see they're now part of their own technology development project that will help both human and robot missions.

When the Columbia accident occurred, I was working MSL maybe 25% of my time. My mentor was nearly full time on it. Suddenly, both of us were full-time on the accident investigation. Within a few months, he was back to MSL as usual. One of my earlier proposals suddenly came back and took my career in a different direction for 2 years, culminating with the first use of public safety concerns in choosing Shuttle landing opportunities during Discovery's mission in 2005.

When my mentor decided to retire in 2005, I was at a crossroads. I had been in my area for 5 years, had just completed a high-visibility project, and if I was going to make a transition to another area it was a good time to do it.

But Mars...

If I moved on to do something else, someone else would do MSL entry guidance. I can think of one or two guys I would have recommended, and they would have been great. But Mars is something I had always been looking forward to, and I remember being very excited my first day when I learned I'd be working with JPL on one of their missions.

I decided. I was in for another 5 years, since MSL was to land in 2010.

And then things really took off! MSL went from being a mission concept into Preliminary Design -- a real mission! I spent 4 months out at JPL, working closely with the team, as we prepared for our review. The entire team was essentially told, "best review ever". Then a year later we were at the Critical Design Review, which MSL passed. Right after that, Carina was born. And right after that, MSL found in testing of its original heat shield material that it was not robust enough. Which required several months of study to determine what we could do if we were stuck with the original material while other groups researched alternatives. We ended up going with a newer material.

Some other issues popped up during testing. Some were settled quickly, some not. Finding issues is common when you're building something new for the first time. In the last few months, the project and its reviewers were aware that there was little schedule margin to make the 2009 launch opportunity to Mars. Still, it looked like we could do it, assuming no other major hiccups.

Well, there was a major hiccup, as I described at the beginning. Better to do it right than to rush it. Especially since we've spent nearly $2 billion.

And now we will launch in 2011, to land in 2012. I think my mind is still considering what this will mean. I realized last night, as I was playing with Carina, that she'll be 5 years old and might understand enough about what our team is trying to do, and get to watch how well we do. And remember it.

I would love to share that with her.

Debris

Immediately following my slow shift in MCC, was one of my most busy and stressful shifts ever. Shortly before the Shuttle undocked from the ISS today, we received notification that a piece of space debris was going to come uncomfortably close to the Shuttle's trajectory. That kicked off a bunch of planning for how to avoid it. Lots of people have an input into that decision. I have to evaluate the risk that the debris and Shuttle will actually collide, and provide options for how to reduce that risk. The PROP officer has to verify that we have propellant available for my avoidance plans. FAO has to find time in the crew's timeline to place avoidance maneuvers. PDRS has to make sure the Shuttle's robotic arm can be put into a good configuration for the avoidance maneuvers. GNC has to assess changes to the procedures for burning in our current config with the arm. And the Flight Director has to weigh all these impacts vs the risk of a collision with the debris and decide whether to execute the maneuver.

It's a complicated process, with lots of coordination and communication required. The team after me performed the burn a while ago, and the debris seems to have passed us harmlessly by. Phew!

Research

It's a quiet day in space today. The crews are having Thanksgiving lunch, and we just finished ours in the control center. We put up a couple messages this morning. Other than that, we've been doing research on some very important subjects.

- The longest Shuttle mission in history: STS-80, landed on flight day 19 after 2 days of weather waveoffs

- Why we don't eat turkey eggs: turkeys only lay ~140 eggs per year to a chicken's ~300 + turkeys are more maternal toward their eggs than chickens

- What exactly is the C/NOFS satellite: Communication and Navigation Outage Forecasting System. It's a prototype for a system that would forecast areas of active scintillation, which degrades signals between orbiting satellites and ground stations.

Flaming Drink Holders

The Shuttle is docked, and it is a slow night at the FDO console. Since I don't have much interesting to say for myself, I'd like to relate a conversation my sister had with my niece about my job.

Jessica was watching a NOVA special on the Columbia disaster. They were showing launch footage and pictures of the foam hitting the wing. Caroline came into the room and said she didn't want to watch this.

Jessica: "But this is what Gavin and Jen do at work."

Caroline: "What?"

Jessica: "Jen helps the Shuttle take off and fly."

Caroline: "Is Jen on the Shuttle?"

Jessica: "No, she just helps it fly from the ground."

Caroline: "Look Mom! Its aunt Jen sitting on top of the drink holders that are on fire! That's what the shuttle does."

So, apparently to a 4-year-old, one of the greatest engineering marvels of the 20th century looks like it is propelled into orbit by flaming foam insulation.

Rumor

One of the things I don't like about being the birthday girl is that all the decisions get thrust upon me. What do I want for dinner? Where do I want to go? This is all complicated these days by needing to find a sitter to go somewhere beyond our immediate neighborhood.

Anyway, tomorrow is the big 32, and I have to say I've been having to think a bit hard for a couple months now about whether I'm turning 31, 32, or 33. Is that some sort of milestone when you start forgetting what age you are? Or when you don't really think it matters so much one way or another? Honestly, having Carina has done way more for making me feel like a grown-up than any number of birthdays.

The last couple days at work, I have spent a substantial amount of my time discussing and reacting to rumors. Why do rumors play a part of a professional environment? Shouldn't someone "up there" be taking care of communicating things that need to be considered to all those concerned? Isn't that the job of managers?

No Posts

Oh, my. My poor little blog has been so neglected recently.

It turns out that when all of Johnson Space Center takes off a week and a half for a hurricane less than a month before a scheduled Shuttle launch, things are a wee bit crazy when everyone gets back to work. Wee. As in I-made-myself-sick-I-was-so-stressed-out crazy. So.

Then a week later, the Hubble Space Telescope suffered an electronics failure that scrubbed the aforementioned mission for 4-5 months. So.

Still behind. Still working like a madwoman to catch up. But catching up to a different target now.

In other news...

Carina has cut about 5 new teeth in the last two weeks. Her smile is now white instead of gummy. On the down side she did bite me the other day. I'm hoping she just didn't relized yet that teeth hurt. She is running everywhere!

Cari had surgery on her foot Monday. Feel better soon, Cari!

It looks like I will get to go to Seattle for a recruiting fair later this month. SO excited to see my college friends!

Must Do

I'm definitely in Olympic withdrawal this week. Which is good. I just might get to bed early tonight, and that would be a good thing. With Gavin out of town for the next few days and things at work pretty crazy, I need to be getting out of the house early in the morning.

I'm the lead for our office for STS-400, the Hubble rescue flight. When the Shuttle goes up to service the Hubble Space Telescope, we're on the launch pad ready to go if there is damage to the thermal protection system that would make it so the Shuttle can't survive entry. We had a launch sim today, and it was kind of interesting the different mind set we were in than usual. We had one run where the main engines had some problems. The result was that we were WAY in a different plane than we were supposed to be. On any other flight, I would have looked at the facts and calmly decided that the Shuttle wasn't going to be able to rendezvous. But on this flight, not rendezvousing means the other crew has to risk entry on a vehicle that we don't think will survive.

It made me consider some things that wouldn't have crossed my mind normally. Pretty cool stuff.

HoaxBusters

I am so there!

Rudderless

A common topic of conversation between us and our friends recently has been “what do we do after Shuttle”. Most of us are civil servants, so we aren’t really scared that we’ll be out of our jobs. But, there’s a lot of concern about just what our jobs will entail in the years between the last Shuttle flight and the first Orion flight. We’re at the age where most of us could realtively easily accommodate a career change if that’s what we want. But it’s hard to see into the future and know if we’d enjoy what we’ll be doing in 4 years if we stay - because nobody has told us what we’ll be doing in 4 years if we stay.

During round 246 of this discussion today, I finally identified a feeling that I’ve been having periodically over the last year. Rarely at first and then more and more often I’ve been having an uncomfortable feeling of disorientation when talking about this subject. It finally occurred to me today what it is. I don’t know what I want to do with my life over the next 5 years. Many people might find this strange, but at 31 years old this has NEVER happened to me before. I’ve always had a plan. High School. College. NASA. FDO. Suddenly, I’m facing a huge uncertainty in my life, and I’ve simply never had to deal with that before.

Still, though I might be feeling a little rudderless right now, I’m only moderately worried about it. I don’t anticipate not being able to find a job. It’s just I’m not sure how to go about finding one that I like as much as I do flying Shuttle. I guess I could have bigger problems.

Mid-June Already

We are told Carina took three steps at daycare yesterday. I've seen her take about 1/2 of a step myself. I can't believe we're almost to the walking phase. I expect she'll be getting around pretty well by the time her cousins get here next week.

Speeking of her cousins coming - where did the last month go? Last time I thought about this it was almost a month away and all of a sudden it is next week.

I'm stuck in a two-day meeting of which probably about 1 hour cumulative is going to be interesting to me. I hate that. At least I remembered to bring my laptop so I can work on my e-mail.

"What does the space program represent to you?"

I was asked this question inside the Saturn V building at KSC, an hour before launch. A self-described reporter with a slight Dutch(?) accent was wandering around the crowds and asking them this question. I didn't mind the question; in fact, I felt it was a rather good one. I thought about my answer for a few seconds.

"The space program represents the challenges that humanity can overcome, and our hopes for the future."

Not a great sound bite, I suppose, but not too bad. I would love it if I could come up with stuff like that without having to think hard about it. Feel free to add your own views in the comments.

T+2 minutes

The launch was great! We were maybe 3 or 4 miles away from the pad, and plumes were brilliant against the blue sky as the shuttle climbed. The photo above is just a few moments after SRB separation, at the full-res you can see the pinpoint of light as the shuttle races away from the 'dirty' SRB exhaust clouds. And if you zoom in, you can make out the SRBs tumbling away but they're only a few pixels big.

We're meeting some friends tomorrow and maybe we'll hang out on the beach near Canaveral. Mom and Dad have been emailing us some photos of Carina, and with those plus the ones Sarah put online we're managing to not call every day and see how things are going. :)

L-1

If you've been watching the Flickr screen, you'll see that we are in Florida. There are an amazing number of friends and acquantainces here for this launch as well. We got our tours today, which I have to say was a little underwhelming. They wouldn't let us into any buildings; something about stacking SRBs in the VAB and not wanting 200+ people tramping through.

We went to see Blue Man Group tonight. That was fun. I've never seen so much toilet paper in my life.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we get to see Discovery go to space!

The Pen

I got an announcement at work this week for a "special project" team that interests me. Thinking that I'm might apply for this team, I sat down tonight to work on a resume (haven't done one of those since college) and the requested short essay about why I'm applying. I haven't done any persuasive writing in a long time. In fact, setting aside e-mail and technical writing for work, I think this blog is probably the only (semi)public writing outlet I have had since college.

I've always considered myself a decent writer. Maybe with a bit of a tendency toward pomposity at times, but decent. I felt totally overboard while writing my essay. Metaphores. Symbolism. I think I learned about that stuff a decade or so ago.

Engineers should have to write more. They ought to force us to write pieces on why our projects are important to humanity. Tell a story about working our first Shuttle mission. Write science fiction about what space exploration will look like in 50 years. Something to force me to go beyond powerpoint bullets more than once a decade.

Drama

I’m sad... Nobody has updated their blog today. Even me. But I’m fixing that.

The word of the week seems to be “drama”. I know that office politics happen everywhere, but most of the time I feel somewhat immune to it here. In general, I feel that we do that “team working toward a common goal” thing pretty well. Even with the strong personalities that I work with day in and day out.

This week, though, I have had discussions about hurt feelings like 4 times in the last two days. Jokes that were taken personally. People feeling unappreciated. People not talking to the people they should and instead making a big fuss to those above them. People still bitter over missunderstaindings I thought we took care of months ago.

Maybe I flatter myself, but I consider myself a pretty empathetic person. I think I understand why people are taking things so hard, while at the same time thinking that they might be overreacting a bit. I can see the good intentions on both sides, and it’s frustrating to me that the good intentions are getting lost in the communcation barrier.

Really, I just want everyone to get along. If half the world would grow just a slightly thicker skin and the other half would learn to think before they speak, so much drama could be avoided.

Launch Trip

I'm backseating another operator for a simulation tonight, and it's much more interesting than I was afraid it would be. Luckily, I had checked out a laptop for a 2-day meeting earlier this week, so I can fill the slow times with e-mail and other small tasks. I'm still not totally used to being the "voice of experience" in this job, but I'm filling that role more and more every day.

I bought plane tickets yesterday to accompany Gavin to the launch at the end of the month. It's going to be fun. I haven't gotten any tours at KSC since I was there as a teenager and took the public tour, so I'm pretty excited about that. And seeing a Shuttle launch, of course.

Here's hoping for a launch no later than June 3.

Update

I need to write more. My sidebar is longer than the post column. :P

Let's see... The doctor says I tore the Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL) in my left knee. It's a "significant" tear, almost all the way through. It's not real bad news, though, because the MCL usually heals very well. He doesn't think I'll need surgery, especially considering all the improvement I've already seen. I'm not wearing the brace for normal activities anymore, but no softball for a couple months yet.

This is my first full week in the office since the end of the last mission. There was personal travel, then family in town, then official travel, then personal travel, then being sick. My inbox is feeling the strain.

I have made a resolution to fly twice a week until I'm ready to take my check ride. I've been going too long between sessions since Christmas. Which reminds me, I never got a chance to post about my long cross-country. I'll work on that post tonight.

Launch On Need

I was kind of looking forward to getting a few flights off after being lead for STS-123, but an extended illness that has kept one of the other FDOs out of the office for several months has resulted in another lead assignment sooner than I thought. This one is going to be a bit annoying. It's for the backup mission in case a rescue of the Hubble crew is necessary. In other words, I have to do all the work to get ready for a mission that will hopefully never fly. :P

As Jose pointed out earlier today, if I do get to execute the mission, I'll be the last rendezvous FDO in the history of the Shuttle program.

Let's not go there.

Back Home

It's nice being home after being out west for a few weeks. Roxy is curled up at my feet, snoring softly. The trips out to JPL were both great, I got a lot out of it. And some cool pictures, which will be posted later this weekend. Utah was fun, even though Jen bummed her knee. And I got a kick out of showing some pictures of Carina around. Lots of 'awwwws'.

Virgle

Virgle has me nailed.

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Well, you're distressingly normal and could conceivably adjust to life as a deep space pioneer, though we recommend instead that you leave the Mars missions to the serious whack jobs who scored over 130 and instead finish year 3 of law school, tuck your toddler into bed, design Web 2.0 applications, run for Congress or do whatever other normal, healthy, middle-of-the-road thing you're currently doing with your normal, healthy, middle-of-the-road life.

Weekend - At Last

Here's hoping that the weather report is wrong and there will NOT be a 1500 ft ceiling tomorrow. My luck being what it is, though... The weather looks like crap for the next week. Maybe Becca can get something out of it.

Tomorrow is my first weekend day at home since March 8. That's 20 days. I got plenty of time off during the mission; I for one am a fan of the work guidelines that say we shouldn't work for 16 days straight. Still, when you aren't home on the weekend, you don't get to see your husband much. I did get to spend lots of quality time with Carina, though.

I'm putting the finishing touches on the trip plans for next weekend. I made daycare reservations today for the skiing days,

Endeavor Is Home

Endeavor landed at Kennedy Space Center about 40 minutes ago. That brings to an official end my first mission as Lead FDO.

For reference, one can watch a Shuttle deorbit burn while feeding a baby dinner, then bath the baby, get her in pyjamas, read her stories, put her to bed, put a load of diapers in the washer, put a frozen pizza in the oven, and sit back down to watch the landing.

Wave Off #1

Today is the first day I've worked in my office in almost 3 weeks. I got to talk to co-workers I haven't seen in many days. I got to go out to lunch for Sarah's birthday (Happy Birthday, Sarah!). I got to go on coke break. I get to go home whenever I want, because let's face it, I'm set for hours.

Sounds like the weather in Florida is looking less good than we hoped. The entry team just waved off the first landing opportunity. The forecast for then second opportunity is still GO, but the clouds that didn't clear for this opportunity might stick around. I hope they make it down today - it has been a long mission. Plus, weather doesn't look that much better for the next couple days. Winds out west are blowing hard, and the cape has springtime afternoon cloud cover.

Dustbuster

Carina is enjoying her newfound mobility. She’s starting to get annoyed when you want her to lie still, say for a diaper change. She’s also very good at finding dirt in the corners of rooms. She will crawl over, pick up some dog hair or a piece of grass and hold it up to me as if to say “Mommy! Look what I found! And guess what? THERE’S MORE!”

Tomorrow is my last shift. It will be Undocking day. I’m glad the mission is winding down – I’m ready to get back to normal working and family hours. Working in the office again after a mission is always a bit of a letdown, though. We have skiing plans for the first weekend in April, though, so it will be all good.

If you’re in the Houston area, set your watch for 8:28 PM Tuesday night. Go outside and look to the Southwest. Three space vehicles will be passing over: ATV, then ISS, then Shuttle. It should be a really cool sighting.

Inspecting

I have three more shifts left during this mission after today. It has been a long, long mission. March has almost completely passed me by while we've been in space.

Today is the "late inspection" day. We're taking pictures of the Shuttle's wings and nose to look for any damage from orbital debris hits. After today, my console is on the downslope of the mission. It will mainly be about getting ready to undock and land. In non-trajectory world, though, there is still one EVA to accomplish tomorrow.

I'm feeling a bit blue about working this weekend. Meg and Mike are down to celebrate Easter with their grandchild (Gavin and I barely enter into the equation anymore!) :) I'm kind of bummed that I didn't get to see their reactions to seeing Carina crawl for the first time, as I was already at work when they arrived. Oh well, it looks like my parents will be here in a couple weeks, so I'll get to see that.

Big Dog

This is the kind of thing that makes me think working for DARPA might be fun. That's a pretty cool piece of hardware. I bet all the actual DARPA jobs are mainly as contract monitors, though.

A Glovemaker's Story

Last year NASA awarded a small spacesuit glove prize, $200,000, to a team who could demonstrate a glove prototype that surpassed the performance of the current NASA glove while still meeting sufficient safety requirements. The current gloves work, but they are hard to use in a vacuum and the astronauts get tired pretty quickly. This a perfect example of a small prize dedicated to a specific problem. I think Rand Simberg may have been one of the first to suggest it.

The guy who won, Peter Homer, wrote a column describing his experience. It's a good story of practical engineering.

Approaching the Ides of March

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Jen's working the mission and it's coming along pretty well. They've had a few pieces of space junk to avoid, and that's about it. She gets home a little after midnight so I get to see her for about 5 minutes before we both fall asleep.

Carina is feeling better, after her 104+ deg fever over the weekend. She still has a runny nose, but, it's not very bad. Attention, oh unsuspecting world: she is now crawling! Last night she crawled 5 feet towards me in the kitchen while she was very unhappy and hungry. Tonight she was crawling around in the room upstairs, chasing the dogs and me. We've been trying to get the dogs ready for this over the last few weeks, and I think they're doing pretty well. Roxy let Carina climb a little on her without getting grumpy, and then Carina left her alone and went on to something else. Zoya's pretty gentle with her now too. We're also working with Carina to get her to softly pet the dogs, instead of fiercely grabbing their fur and skin.

No one likes the fierce grab. She's pretty strong!

My work is coming along. I'm splitting my time between the Mars Science Laboratory mission I've been working on since I graduated and the Orion capsule that we'll fly after we retire the Shuttle. For the Mars mission we've been spending time figuring out what crazy scenarios can break the entry guidance while it tries to get us within 10 km of the target, and how we can counter that without hamstringing the guidance. The desire is to have a robust guidance that still delivers the spacecraft to the target on both good days and bad days. Some of this is done in the flight software. Some of this is done in how we operate the spacecraft. Many of these ideas we've been carrying of for a few years but haven't had time to really start looking at them until now. Meanwhile, the project pushes forward with successful parachute tests in wind tunnels, with flight software being tested in thousands of simulations, and with flight hardware being delivered and assembled. Launching in Summer 2009 doesn't really feel that far away now. :)

The Orion work I'm involved with is interesting, mostly because its new for me. I'm not doing much guidance work with it because I don't have the time available to really sink my teeth into it. But a few weeks ago there were some URGENT! items that had to be addressed pretty quickly as the design settles down for this year's Preliminary Design Review. I've been working with some people to figure out some of the ops concept for the capsule entry and recovery, how often we would try to splashdown where, where should we go if we can't wait in orbit for some reason. It's working with maps and orbit dynamics and constraints such as ensuring the safe disposal of rocket debris, acceptable weather for the capsule to splashdown, where our recovery forces may be, and getting enough sunlight prior to spacecraft return so the batteries have enough juice to last through entry and the time spent bobbing in the water afterwards. The last few days we've been chasing after an issue where one system team's assumptions turned out to be too constraining for us to fly missions, so we had to work out a reasonable constraint that balances our ability to fly the spacecraft and also doesn't drive their system to an extreme.

It is fun designing a spacecraft. It is also a lot of fun figuring out how best to fly one whether it's at Mars or at Earth. That is why I'm pretty glad to be where I am in Mission Operations, getting to help out with both.

Besides work and playing Carina, I haven't done very much lately. We went out on Sunday for steak with Becca and friends in celebration of Becca's birthday; Carina tried to eat the crayons. Jen and I also watched Innerspace on cable. Jen had never seen it. That took me back to some memories when I was a kid. I totally forgot Meg Ryan was in it... must have been one of her first movies since she didn't headline it.

Best Friends

Oh boy, have I been working hard. Not as hard as some people I could mention, but pretty darn hard. I've done document or presentaion editing at home every day this week except one. I hardly dare mention it, in case I invite a catastrophe tomorrow, but at this point I still think I'll get the weekend off.

When I dropped Carina off at day care this morning, I spent a few minutes talking with the teachers about starting to feed her the school's food. While we were talking, one of the other babies crawled over to the spot where Carina was sitting. Now, I've been told that Carina and Mackenzie are good friends, but I haven't had a chance to watch them together much before. They weren't doing much, just looking at each other and reaching out to touch each other a couple times. But, it was unmistakably social interaction.

I found myself a bit jealous of Mackenzie. Unreasonable, but I'm sort of used to being Carina's only "friend" (well, besides Daddy). It made me start thinking that one day she'll be a teenager, and will probably not consider me a friend at all. She'll rather spend her time with her Mackenzies than me. Another reminder that I need to appreciate every day.

Not Much

I only had to work for about 2 1/2 hours today, which actually made me very happy. I was afraid something would go wrong, and I'd be there much longer.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to relax a bit. I decided not to sign up for my cross-country this weekend. I just feel like I've been away from home too much this week. And I know I'll be away a ton during the mission. Next weekend might work, but that's what I thought last week, too.

Twinge

Can stress cause nerve damage? Because, as today wore on my left shoulder started acting up more and more until by the time I picked Carina up tonight I had trouble lifting her.

I love my job, and I love being the lead. But, I definitely get a little insane the last few weeks before a launch that I'm lead for. I need to chill more. Zen.

That being said, the guy that did the entry for Atlantis today had to leave immediately after landing to meet his 8 hour old son. I don't have that kind of stress.

Hodgepodge

In case you were wondering why my Flickr stream has pictures of empty parking spaces on it, it is because I took those photos as evidence of the mismanaged parking situation at work. I counted 62 empty unreserved spots on my way into my building today. It’s rather rediculous. All the parking people have told us to allay the frustration is that they’re going to eventually build a new parking lot - much further away from the building than the existing parking lot that they decided to tear up for a new office building, which means more people working around here… You get the picture.

In less boring news (to me), I got my kitchen fixed today! I’m not sure I ever blogged about our kitchen woes… Short version: The dishwasher was leaking. We didn’t know for a long time. The crap builder-installed particle wood cabinets disintegrated. Anyhow, it took two months of on-again, off-again looking for a contractor to hire one. We finally found one that a) showed up for the quote appointment, b) was on time, and c) actually seemed reliable. I’m very much looking forward to having a dishwasher again soon.

In even less boring news (to me and a few others), I dropped $122 today for four Astros tickets to the Yankees and Red Sox series. They're totally taking advantage charging more for those games - nearly double! And so begins the down side of not having season tickets this year.

Go, Atlantis!

Go, Atlantis!

Big Day

Gavin's been quiet about it, but I'm excited so I'll blow his horn for him. He got a special award at work this week. It involves VIP travel for him and his spouse (me!) to go see a launch this spring. That's right, SFA!

The competitive part of me notes that this is the third time I've gotten to go to a cool space awards thing because of my husband. That would be him 3, me 0. But let's be honest here - he totally deserves it. I'm good at what I do, but I haven't done anything above and beyond. He has.

Anyway, at first I was totally bummed because the launch that was on his award is the mission I'm lead for. No way I can go to Florida for that launch. Fortunately, it wasn't a big deal to change it to the next launch. So, now I get to go. Yea!

For the current launch date, the window opens at about 8:30 AM Florida time. If the launch slips a week or so, it should be a night launch! :)

ReelNASA

What do you think of this? Me, I think it's a step in the right direction.

Scrub

No Shuttle launch today - those damn ECO sensors!

For those of you who don’t know all the NASA acronyms by heart, ECO stands for Early Cut-Off. The ECO sensors reside in the big orange fuel tank of the Shuttle. Their job is to detect when the propellant in the tank has been depleted. If the propellant has been depleted early, the sensors send a command to shut down the main engines. This is very important because if the engines were to continue to run after the propellant had been depleted, the turbines in the engines would spin up faster than their design speed. They would likely disintegrate, causing an explosion. Alternatively, if the engines were to shut off too early, the Shuttle probably wouldn’t be able to make it into orbit and an abort would need to be declared.

We’ve been having problems with the ECO sensors fairly regularly since we started flying regularly again. The good news is that they’ve got some instrumentation onboard this vehicle to try to track down the root cause. I wish we’d launched today. The silver lining for me is that I was going to have to sub for someone this weekend if we launched today, but now I don’t have to.

Conciousness

Everybody pray/hope/whatever for good weather at KSC on Wednesday. I'm ready to be done with this one. I totally got cheated out of my good hours. I was only supposed to have to do 4:00 AM once this mission, but I have to do it again tonight, and the night after that. And the night after that if we don't land on time. And crazy people are even talking about another day of extension if the weather doesn't cooperate.

I want to sleep at night again.

Carina is starting to really amaze me with her emerging abilities. She's started reaching for and grasping things now. And then trying to eat them. She can sit by herself for a short time, but she gets tired/bored of that pretty easily and topples over. And cries if you aren't there to catch her. She's decided carrots are OK. Mommy needs to make her something else to eat soon. You know, once I'm not keeping the vampire hours anymore.

I got in some flying today. I had to call my instructor for advice on whether the rough running I felt was OK or not. He told me to run the engine at high RPM for a bit to see if it was just a fouled spark plug. It was. It was rather hazy today, and a bit tough to see the horizon. I did pretty good, though. I practiced steep turns and did much better on them. I also landed in a higher crosswind than I've seen recently very well. I was proud of myself.

OK, I'm sure this just sounds like rambling. I tend to go stream of conciousness at 2:00 AM.

Beautiful Baby

Before going to work tonight, I took Carina out for a walk around the neighborhood in the stroller. Every time I'd look at her for a little while, she'd smile as if to say "Hi, Mommy! I love you!". And then she'd go back to staring at the trees with a tired look on her face as if to say "Why am I not in bed right now?". That girl would do nothing but sleep if she didn't need to eat 5 times a day.

This is the second weekend of the mission. This is right about when I start thinking that I've been working an awful lot lately and I'm glad it will be over soon. The EVA went well today, so we should be trying to land next Wednesday as planned. Much work is still ahead of me, though.

What do you know?

Well, what do you know? An on-time launch! I was so sure the weather wouldn’t allow it. Now for 14 days of flying in space.

Carina is sick again, and I think she gave this one to me. I have a pretty stuffy nose. Fortunately, if I can make it through tomorrow, I get Friday and Saturday off. Hubby should get home Friday afternoon, so I can sleep extra if I need to.

The Rockies aren’t doing so well in the first game of the World Series. 13-1 in the 6th – yikes! I hope all that time off didn’t kill all the momentum.

Cold Front

Even NASA waits until the last minute to do things. I have to work from 8:00 PM - 5:00 AM tonight, but I still had to go into work this morning to finish up some of the last minute work. It's not done yet, but I needed to come home to get things ready for Gavin's parents who are generously going to watch our daughter for four days.

After saying goodbye to Gavin, I packed Carina into the car to go to day care for a few hours. It was about 80 deg outside. 4 hours later, I picked Carina back up at day care. It was about 60 deg outside. That's right. An honest-to-God cold front came through Houston today.

Fire

I’m sitting at my console in Mission Control, working a very slow simulation. Suddenly, the guy sitting next to me turns to me and says:

“Do you smell smoke?”

Me: “Now that you mention it, I do smell something.”

We start looking around, and then the guy behind me pops up. “I smell smoke.”

Within 10 minutes, there are guys in the room with air quality sniffers looking for the source of the smell. The smell dissipated pretty rapidly, though, and they didn’t find anything.

That was the most exciting thing that happened all day. I got to hand over to my next shift, though, that if they smell fire they should report it immediately.

Backlog

I found this post that I started writing a couple weeks ago and never published. The outcome of the story is that I won't be in danger of getting arrested for abandoning the baby at home. It will require a lot of coordination, though. AND, there's only a 10% chance that weather will allow a launch tomorrow. Which means multiple pre-launch shifts. Joy.

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Working with a baby is tough. I mean that in the every-day sense, and also in the special circumstances sense. You see Gavin is going out to JPL for a week the same week that STS-120 launches. My shift is ~2PM to 10PM, so Carina definitely can't stay at day care that whole time. We had asked Gavin's mom to come help us for the week. She very obligingly rearranged her vacation schedule so she could stay with us for that week, and then she had a little accident and broke her leg!

She's drafted my father-in-law into service for diaper and lifting duty, so they will be able to cover us Monday through Thursday at 7:30. I think Cari will be able to come over Thursday night. Then either Gavin will figure out how to get back for Friday, I will have the day off or ??? I really don't want to pay a full week's tuition at day care for 4 hours on Friday, but I'm not sure what else to do. Many of the folks that I know are home during the day are going to have their own stuff going on that week.

Snakes in Mission Control

No kidding - they found a baby coral snake inside mission control this morning. It was apparently living inside a steel door. I'm not sure if this beats the aligator they caught inside a building at KSC earlier this year.

CRAZY NASA ANIMALS!

Understanding

"I can explain it to you again, but I can't understand it for you."

I heard that Mike Griffin said this to a reporter during a press conference once. On the one hand, I laugh because I know exactly how he feels. A few days ago, I was reading the comments on this post Wired's science blog, and I got so mad I had to quit reading. I don't understand how people can possibly think that NASA is just being dense about the foam falling off the tank. Don't you think that if it was easy, we would have fixed it long ago? I mean obviously we just love having to go through all this analysis and discussion every mission.

On the other hand, it's the job of the administrator to make congress and the nation understand the difficult technical issues that face us. It's his job to explain why it's so hard for us to solve these problems. It's unfortunate that it seems to be difficult to get a person into the position that both has the technical skills to understand the problem and has the people skills to explain it.

Exhausting

I'm so exhausted. Carina caught my cold, and she was a bit fussy last night with all the congestion. She kept me up from about 4:00 to 5:30. Fortunately, Grammy and Grandad Mendeck were down for the day, so she didn't have to go to day care. She didn't sleep much, though, so she's pretty exhausted now. Maybe she'll sleep all night.

My two shifts for the mission were just about right. Working console is much more fun than working in the office, but it's just a bit more time, a bit more stress. I don't really need either right now. I'm trying not to speculate on what the big gouge in the belly is going to do to our ability to launch again soon, not to mention any problems with the entry for this mission. I just hope the analysis comes back and says this isn't a problem.

Social Studies

I'm off to Colorado Springs in a few hours for a work trip. I'm rather looking forward to studying the reactions of a room full of Air Force staff to the 7 1/2 months pregnant NASA rep. I actually packed clothing that I thought would make me look as un-pregnant as I can at this point. That's still pretty pregnant, but maybe I'll be able to avoid worrying people that I'll actually go into labor during the meeting.

We had a lovely weekend with my mom and sister here, as well as Gavin's aunt and uncle and grandmother. The shower was lovely, and Baby got tons of stuff! It's starting to feel like we're actually going to do this parent thing after all.

It's Raining

Very bad news today. Thunderstorms with 2" hail and Space Shuttles sitting exposed on the launch pad do not mix well. Just when we start to get rolling again...

I made a Baby Countdown web page to answer some of the questions I was getting. I'll be updating in periodically, I hope...

Baby Mendeck Countdown

Gripes and Goods

Today's Gripes

1) Work has started blocking access to Blogger. This is understandable, but annoying. Maybe I'll install movable type after all.

2) Apparently, BBQ doesn't go so well with a pregnant stomach. This sucks because I like BBQ.


Today's Good

1) The teddy bear my co-worker got for Valentine's Day. There's a picture in my photostream. It not only looks that cool, but it sings "I want to be loved by you... Boo-boo-bee-doo". Good for hours of amusement

2) Trading casual e-mails with an astronaut. How cool is my job?

Reflecting on 1 Feb 2003

Introspective post today. This is the fourth anniversary of the Columbia accident. It was a day where I learned a lot about myself and the people I work with. It seems that every 'generation' in the NASA workforce has suffered a human spaceflight accident to remind them how unforgiving spaceflight can be. Will accidents happen in the future? Most likely. But we do what we can to push that day further into the future. How do we learn from mistakes, both our own and from those before us? How do we pass on such wisdom to the next generation? It is sometimes harder than I would have expected.

Below is an email I replied to a friend of mine the night after the accident. My friend had asked beforehand if he could share the words I sent, and I ended up striking a 'never give up' tone near the end. At the time, I really felt that way; I was ready to charge back into the office and work 12 hour days for weeks to help the investigation. And that is what we did. The next shuttle launch was two years later and we found we hadn't fixed the problem completely. That took another year. It doesn't feel like it took years, but it did.

Thanks for your words, my wife and I have commented several times today how good it is to know we have such good friends in the world. You can share this with those you know, if you wish.

We woke up with a phone call from one of our friends who was watching the news this morning. My work at NASA involves spacecraft re-entry for other vehicles besides the shuttle and I have also worked on analyzing entry breakups such as the Space Station Mir. I immediately recognized from the videos that we were seeing a breakup... and that the chance of the crew surviving was infintismal. It was not going to be a good day. I thought of the astronaut families that would have been excited and eager to see their loved ones arrive, and now never would. I tried to imagine what the last moments of the astronauts might have been like, and realized I really couldn't handle that right then. So my engineering mind took over.

The space shuttle should not have been visible from Dallas. It was too late in the morning, the sunlight too bright, to make out the shuttle or the usual plasma trail it leaves behind. Given that it was clearly visible was not a good sign -- breakup was probably already underway before the bright and large fragments were videotaped splintering away over DFW.

During and after breakup, each debris piece would create its own sonic boom until it slowed below the speed of sound. The reports from people on the ground of hearing a 'train-like rumbling' or several explosions was likely the effect of dozens or hundreds of overlapping supersonic booms being heard as the debris soared overhead.

Later that morning as we watched the news reports, I received a call to head in to work to perform some analysis work. A few of us were asked to estimate where debris may have fallen to help direct the emergency response teams and focus the search area. By the time we had that done, there were already reports of fragments in Nacodoches and other locations. It looks like our estimates were very close to what others were finding. By 2pm there was little else I could do today. So my wife and I went home.

As we sat at home I realized how nice it had been to be busy and working, instead of having a lot of time to dwell on the events of the day. It was the first time in my career that I had dealt with and observed something of this magnitude, and now that I think about it I was proud. Not of what I did, because it was but a small part, but of how the people at Johnson Space Center were responding: efficient and professional.

I'm proud to be a part of this team that can deal with unexpected situations, the team that is going to determine what happened, and the team that is going to find solutions and return Americans to space. The months ahead will be difficult and challenging, but they will be months with a purpose that I imagine few ever experience. Those I saw at NASA today felt great sorrow, but by no means felt disheartened. And hearing all of the thoughts and prayers from our family, friends, and even strangers steadies our resolve even further. I don't think I can ever express how much that means to us.

One of the experienced flight directors commented in a news conference this afternoon how it is events like this that really bring this country together and how it is too bad that we don't come together more often in times of happiness rather than in times of tragedy. I thought they were good words. I look forward to us all coming together again when the next crew launches from Florida for the skies above.

Thanks for writing me, hope you are faring well.
Gavin

Confidential

I had an interesting day at work today. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about it much. But, let’s just say that I ended up on the 8th floor of a 9 floor building where you can pretty much assume that the higher up you go, the more important people you’re talking to. I also know that people in other places had to go up to their “8th floor” and tell their bosses about the same thing.

It’s a three day weekend this week, and we don’t have anything special planned. We should really do something. Anyone interested in a “game afternoon” on Monday? Gavin, Becca, and I learned how to play Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve, and I really enjoyed it. Or we could go back to the old standbys.

Rude Welcome Back

I've had a rude welcome back to work this week. I had two simulations that were pretty tough. They were both 4 hour morning deals. This meant that after two weeks of working graveyard shifts, and one and a half weeks where I shifted back to a late morning schedule (sleep 1 AM to 10 AM - or later), I had to come in two days in a row at 7 AM. And then I get out at between noon and 1PM, eat a very late lunch, and then feel wiped out for the rest of the day. You'd think that this would mean that I could cut out early today, but I have a meeting scheduled at 2 PM that I'm sure will go to 5 PM or beyond.

Now that Christmas is over, I'm starting to think about all the things we need to do before the baby comes in June. List so far...

1) Find day care (there's one at work, but the waiting list is years long)
2) Get a financial planner and reinvest all our money
3) Wills
4) Find a pediatrician
5) Take CPR and childbirth classes
6) Buy/acquire all the STUFF (furniture, feeding gear, clothing, etc., etc., etc.)
7) Set up maternity leave at work
8) Change life/health insurance

I’m sure there’s a bunch more. Whew.

Neurotic

You know how some people can't stand the sound of nails on a chalkboard? Well, for me it's the sound of someone handling tape. You know, the sticky sound when it peels off your fingers. It gives me the chills. Literally, I get goosebumps. It's a strange neuroticism, and I'm rather shy about telling people about it. I think Gavin and I were actually married before I fessed up.

A couple nights ago, the trainee on my shift spent most of the last hour we were there peeling a sticker off his notebook. Piece by little piece. I'm getting shivers just thinking about it now. But I didn't want to ask him to stop, because then the sticker would be half peeled off, and that offends my sense of neatness. So I waited, shuddering from time to time, while he peeled every little piece off. I internally celebrated when the last piece came off and went into the garbage.

And then he started picking at the sticky stuff that's left after you peel a sticker off. Eew eew eew eew eew eew eew!

Flattened

Busy couple of days. My mission shift is 1:00am to 10:00am. I'm having a harder time sleep shifting than normal. In the last three days I've had 4 hrs sleep, 4 hrs sleep, and 6 hrs sleep. Considering that I've been averaging 10 hrs a night recently, it's not so good. At least it's improving.

I decided to sleep after my shift this mission so that I could at least see Gavin in the evenings. There's only one problem - he's in Cali this week for work. So, I'm all alone all night. I took the dogs on a long walk in the fog tonight. I hope it will help them not care that I'm gone all night.

Oscar's family is coming back on Wednesday. He'll be really glad to see them, but I'll miss him. He's really a sweet dog. I'll also have to explain to Nick and Heather why the sides of his bed have been crushed flat. See, Roxy really likes Oscar's bed. She watches until he gets up and then sneaks into it. Only she's really too big for it, so she hangs out over the sides. And her nose gets pushed into the side, which makes her snore really loudly.

Countdown

One of the bad parts of my job is the uncertainty in my work hours. If the Shuttle launches today, I have to come to work at 0330 tomorrow morning. If not, then I have to come in at a normal time. I know I’m going to have a harder time sleep shifting for this mission than normal, so I’m stuck with complete indecision about what to do as far as sleeping tonight. I think I’m just going to go to bed at a normal time and call it a ‘nap’ if we launch.

Weather is really bad for the rest of the weekend, so let’s hope that we find a break in the storms tonight.

No. 1

I landed an airplane yesterday! Well - sort of. It was basically just following the step-by-step directions from my instructor. The term controlled crash may be a bit more applicable than normal, but I got a little '1' under the No. Landing column in my log book. I was kind of high and definately not appropriately trimmed, so I felt like I was fighting the airplane all the way down. But, I hit the runway and didn't damage anything.

My instructor keeps telling me that I'm doing really well. I definately felt less confident in the things I was doing this week, though. It's one thing to do this stuff with him there telling me exactly how to do it. It will be something else entirely to do it on my own, though. I think I have several more weeks before I have to worry about that, though.

Electonics Failure

I'm having a bad week. Much of this badness has to do with electronics.

Tuesday night, I went into the control center for a sim, dutifully turning off my cell phone before entering the "no transmit zone". Five hours later I walked back out, and turned my cell phone back on. Nothing appeared on the screen. Hmmmm.... Turn off again and back on. Nothing. Dial my home number, and it rings. So, just the screen, apparently. Crap.

Wednesday morning, I get into work and turn on my computer. It freezes as it's loading Windows. I try again, and get the "Windows failed to start properly" screen. I try to boot normally, in my last sucessful configuration, and in safe mode. Nothing. I call the IT guys. It turns out (expectedly) that my hard drive has failed. They can't get anything off the disk, although they see that there's probably still data on it. If I want to try to get my data, I have to talk to some other people.

Today I talk to the other IT people. I'm told that they will only attempt to recover my data if I can "prove it's worth the money". So I spend several hours trying to list all the things I've done in the last six months that I'll lose if they don't help me. The 6 months is because I manually backed up my data before my computer got refreshed last spring. (Work also doesn't think that it's worth it to pay for backup services for us.)

One bit of good news... I took the battery and sim card out of my phone tonight, and it turned on. I put the sim card back in, and it seems to be functional again. I'd better never turn it off again.

Space Race

There is a space race these days. It's not between governments, like the last one. It's a race between companies to see who can capture the (perceived) suborbital tourism and transport market. Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites seem to be pretty far along, given the flight of Spaceship One a couple of years ago. Other companies seem to be behind by at least a year or two, but it isn't always clear how far. One company that enjoys being mysterious, Blue Origin, appears to be reaching a milestone soon given the recent FAA approval they received to proceed with low-altitude testing. I wish them luck. The shoestring budget DC-X, a similar VTOL demonstrator in the 1990s, had several fantastically successful flights before the overworked ground crew failed to set up the landing gear correctly for an otherwise perfect flight, resulting in the loss of that vehicle.

Woah!

This week went fast! I need to cut back on my extra-curriculars. I usually have something after work at least 3 nights a week. I have always liked being busy, but it's starting to wear on me a bit.

No flying this weekend :( because my instructor is out of town. Gavin is going to an all-day bachelor party tomorrow. What am I to do? Maybe relax? Maybe talk someone into going to see the Nightmare Before Christmas re-release with me. That's probably doable.

Flying Back West

Next week I fly back out to JPL for a few days, talking about software and then the Mars atmosphere. Should be a nice trip although it will take nearly the whole week. I get to come back to the Halloween party that Jen and Mark are co-hosting. Maybe I'll find a costume out there.

Today Jen and I lazed around the house, watching football (Huskies lost in overtime, A&M won in overtime) and last week's Battlestar Galactica episode. Perhaps one of the most exciting TV I've ever seen! It was great. I went back and rewatched a few scenes. Adama is my hero.

Tomorrow my parents come down for lunch and then perhaps I'll go over to Ellington Field to catch the end of the airshow. If the weather is good tomorrow morning Jen may have her first flying lesson.

00 - Dark - 30

I've almost made it through my single overnight shift. Nothing much
happened. Well, to be honest, the building with the simulator in it
suffered a power failure that lasted most of the night. Which isn't
nothing for the poor electricians that had to come to work in the middle
of the night to try to fix it, but it sure made my night less
interesting.

I'm fighting hard to stay awake right now. I'm at the point where just
thinking the word "sleep" sends shivers of anticipation through my body.

Urgent

I've had a somewhat low motivation for work this week. I think it's because after flying two missions in two months, we now have to wait until 12/7 for another launch attempt. Still, though, that's better than how things have been in the last few years.

That being said, though, I've wished every day this week that I could just play hookey. The weather is really nice, and it would be wonderful just to hang out in my backyard all day. (Nicer if we had a deck, but that project is still in its infancy - pre-natal actually.)

So, I was pretty happy this morning that today is Friday, looking forward to a fairly easy day with only one meeting.

Then I got to work.

It's like miniature bombs have been going off on my desk all day. Every time my phone rings or my e-mail pings, it's something new and annoying. And urgent.

Take That

The following was printed in the Houston Chronicle in response to this article.

OK, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that your jab at the astronauts for having "butterfingers" and losing bolts was meant in jest and that you are truly not that ignorant of the complexity of the tasks they are performing. If not, try this easy simulation at home and find out how many bolts you lose:

Go buy a piece of ready-to-assemble furniture from Ikea with 240 bolts. Suspend the pieces from the rafters in your garage. Go don (that means "put on" in NASA-speak) a ski suit and ski gloves and a football helmet with face mask on. (Remember: You can't cheat by using your mouth to hold anything temporarily or you will die when you remove your spacesuit helmet.) Put all the bolts in a pouch tethered to your ski suit. Stand on a ladder (you can tie yourself to the ladder for safety purposes), and see if you can put the thing together without dropping a bolt on the floor. Remember, there is no floor in space . Consider anything you drop during your simulation to be floating in space from now on. Good luck.

Susan Hanley, Houston


The columnist claims that he was kidding.

Smile

I've been on call for most of this shuttle mission. I worked two shifts in the back room at the beginning. I'll probably be in the back room for the next couple days, too. Yesterday and today, I worked in the front room (once as FDO and once as TRAJ) to give a some of the other folks a day off. And I managed to work it so that I was FDO on picture day. :)

Everyone is very excited to see the pictures from the flyaround tomorrow. For the first time in 4 years, the ISS will look different when we leave than it did when we came. It's nice to be making progress on construction again.

Desires

Today I'm in the office, only on call for the rest of the mission. It's nice to be working a mission and still getting to keep normal hours. And since I worked Saturday and Sunday, I can even go home early if I want. (I have no doubt that I will want.) It's starting to cool down here - highs only in the upper 80's this week.

Gavin is after me about what I want for my birthday. I think he's feeling a little pressure since he loves the camera I got him for his birthday last week so much. The thing is that I can't think of anything that big I want right now. My computer and camera are still hanging in there, and I want to wait a bit longer to replace them.

There must be something. What secret, burning desire has stolen into my heart while I wasn't looking?

Decision Point

Today was frustrating. And depressing. And amazing.

The people who make the big decisions about human spaceflight have a TOUGH JOB. Anyone that thinks these things are obvious has no idea. There are lives at stake. A lot of money is at stake. International agreements are at stake. There is pressure from the public, pressure from the congress, and pressure from engineers. Nothing is ever 100% for sure.

This is why I have such a hard time with people who want to condemn decisions made by others. What I see is a lot of people that are never put on the spot like this jawing off about how this or that or the other thing is so obvious and those jerks at NA*SA don't have a clue. I believe those people would look like a deer in the headlights if they were ever asked to put their asses on the line for a decision like the being made this week.

Every flight controller knows that anyone can make a bad call. And that a bad call can have devastating consequences. Usually, my decisions aren't so big. There is more guidance available from the past. But there's always the chance. And so I'm reluctant to say "they should have known". Because most of the time, you don't.

Not Motivated

I got up early to observe a sim at work this morning. The run was boring. Basically what I've gotten out of the experience is sleepiness all day so far. Plus, the uncharacteristically low humiditiy in Houston this week is really tempting me to ditch work early and fall asleep on a blanket in my yard. If only.

Sarah already wrote about the confusing end to last night's baseball game. You need one of those every so often. Something that just makes you go, "huh?". It's particularly nice when it results in a win.

Tonight is our first game in the new "competitive" co-ed softball league. I had heard that some of the annoying co-ed rules (like if a guy is walked with 2 outs, the next girl can just take the base) were not going to be used for this league. But I just went and read the rules on the website, and it still has that rule and a couple other annoying ones in there. I think it's basically going to be like co-ed rec with homers.

Life's Soundtrack

Yesterday's soundtrack...

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know


Today's soundtrack...

Why does the sun always shine
On the other side, on the other side
Why does it always have to be
Oh raining
Always raining on me

Fame

So after Becca's post today, I googled my name. Interesting results...

"Jennifer M..." produced
My WoT rant on Amazon
Mars Exploration on Inbox Robot - my name shows up in the google description, but I can't find it on the actual page
My Flickr profile
A bunch of false positives that have Gavin, Mike, or Lauren listed

"Jen M..." produced
The Quote Board - flashback
A bunch of Yuri's Night listings
Everybody's blogs, including my favorite post of Becca's ever
A bunch of false positives that have Gavin, Mike, or Lauren listed

"Jennifer S..." produced
My co-op bio - #1, I was suprised that the #1 Jennifer S... listing is actually me
The UW Sigma Gamma Tau alumni list

"Jen S..." produced
A listing of names flown on Stardust - forgot I did that

So, as far as the internet knows, I'm famous for being friends with people, Yuri's Night, liking space, and dissing Robert Jordan. My star is rising.

Wx

I had hoped to get back home this week to an immediate transition into console work for the mission. Unfortunately, the weather gods are not only uncooperative, they are actively throwing obstacles into our path. Between lightning and hurricanes, it looks like launch won't be until next week at the earliest. Meanwhile, everyone in the world has just turned into an amateur meteorologist.

In local weather, although it will be September on Friday, Houston is still well in the grips of summer. Heat index today is expected to rise above 100 deg F. I melt.

Still, being home is nice. The dogs are happy to have both their people back for the first time in almost a month. I did a bunch of laundry Sunday, which, although it is not as sexy as working a Shuttle mission, absolutely had to be done. As Gavin noted, we went to see a good movie.

I think I've traveled enough this month to place me on an isolationist trend for a few weeks at least.

Invincible

Becca, Sarah, Jen and I went to see Invincible yesterday afternoon, the football movie with Mark Wahlberg as the Philadelphia Eagle walk-on. It was pretty good, I liked it. I didn't know any of the background story going in, so, I wasn't sure how it was going to end. I mean, I had an idea (it is a Disney movie, after all), but sometimes Disney surprises me.

In other news, looks like Atlantis will roll back to the safety of the huge assembly building as the storm Ernesto threatens the Cape. First the most powerful lightning strike ever recorded at the Cape, then the first hurricane of the season... I wonder what the next challenge will be to get this mission underway.

Back Home

Colorado time is over, for now.

I had to come right back to get ready to work the Shuttle mission, which as it turns out won't be until at least Monday. Hopefully the grounding system worked. Lightning can make a big mess.

Google Trends

Work was interesting today. Not because of what I was working on, but the fact that in the two weeks I was gone two people left and three people arrived in my group.

Anyways, tonight I've been surfing the internet. It's not always a good thing to do. It might make you jealous when you find out that your wife is jogging through mountain canyons after work. I mean, she doesn't even like running! Life's not always fair, I guess. But I did find something new that I thought was cool.

Google usually comes up with neat stuff. I found out they're trying something called "Google Trends", where you can plot the relative volume of web queries and news stories. It is interesting to see what the news seems to think is important versus what the public is interested in. For kicks, I checked "moon" versus "mars". Moon is twice as popular as Mars, but Mars only receives more press when its an anniversary for the Mars rovers. You can even do three-way comparisons, like with "space shuttle" vs. "space station" vs. "spaceship one". Interesting information for space policy debates.

zzzzzzz

2:51 AM

I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (sorry – fell asleep there) tired. You know, I used to be totally into these multi-day sims, but that was before I got to fly a couple real flights. Now I’m just annoyed that I have to be up all night for one night in the middle of the week.

I’m off at 8:00 AM. I learned from my experience on our Nashville trip that I can’t reasonably fly out of here before I sleep for at least a few hours tomorrow. For one thing, I would likely fall asleep at the wheel on my way to the airport and kill myself. For another, I will be very annoyed, even angry and mean, if the kid next to me on the plane is excited because it’s his first time flying and wakes me up to ask me if I’ll take a picture out the window with his disposable camera.

So, I’m flying out at 6:30 PM. That means I can sleep for about 6 hours (if I can), but I’ll have to drive from Colorado Springs to Denver at 11:00 at night. I’m hoping that my daytime nap and sleeping on the airplane will make me awake enough to make the drive, but sleepy enough to want to go to bed as soon as I get to the hotel in Denver. We’ll see.

This trip is going to be so complicated.

Patches

I realized yesterday that I've had an amazing amount of activities in my life that result in the collection of patches.

In elementary school, there was Girl Scouts. I amassed such a collection of patches with them that I only sewed the top part of the patch onto the sash. That way I could layer them over each other like scales to fit more on the sash. For the record, most of my patches were for things like horseback riding, camping, hiking, and science. There were a few patches scattered in for crafts and cooking that the troop did as a group. I never had a cosmetics badge like someone I know.

In junior high and high school, my patch gathering was done in drum and bugle corps. Every summer I'd spend riding a bus all over the USA to shows. I got so many patches for my jacket that when I bought a new jacket my junior year of high school (my old one was falling apart), I only sewed back on the patches from the really big shows. Regionals and finals. I had patches all the way down both sleves, and I put all the finals patches on the back of the jacket.

In college, things were in the same vein as I collected patches for marching band. These were harder to get as I only got one for every bowl game we went to. Still, in the four years I was in the band, we managed to go to four bowl games. One sleve on that jacket has patches all the way down the side.

Then I went out into the real world. Surely, the patch thing was over. Nope. I now collect patches at work. Mission patches. Every mission I work, I buy a shirt with the crew patch for the mission on the breast. I'm up to three different patches on four different shirts now. Oh, and then I have the Mission Operations patch on a shirt, and I'm hoping to get another one of those soon since they updated the patch. Plus, we get large patches after every mission we work, which I have been framing along with a picture of me working the mission.

So, what do you think it says about me that I seem to gravitate towards these activities that use patches to recognize participation? In every case, those patches are badges of honor to the people that get them. Something that says I took part in something special, at least to myself. Is this not that uncommon? For those of you who work in other places and areas, do people in your workplace order polo shirts with the logo of your latest project emblazoned on the breast?