NASA Social ISS - Post 2 - MISSION CONTROL

Post # 2 NASA Social ISS event at Johnson Space Center in Houston!

My previous ISS post reviewed the day's events with a few details on the visit to the ISS Training Facility mockup. This one will cover our visit to Building 30 (M & S)

~ ~ MISSION CONTROL ~ ~

After the tour with Astro Rick Masstracchio, our group moved to Building 30 which houses the historic Apollo Mission Control Room and the current MISSION CONTROL. I must add here that I have always wanted to visit this building! Why do I keep all-capping MISSION CONTROL?  BECAUSE EXTREME COOLNESS - that's why :-)

As our shuttle pulled up to the building, excitement was evident because we all got off of our phones, our attention now drawn to getting off the bus and to the building as fast as possible!
Once inside, we saw the lobby elevators leading up to the main room.

Our guides talked to us about the building itself and how Christopher C. Kraft, for whom the place is named, was a NASA engineer who helped establish the location dedicated to monitoring America's space flight. Its callsign is HOUSTON.

The Mission Control Center Houston was first used in 1965 for the Gemini IV mission, the 10th manned American spaceflight.

Soon, we walked around a hallway to an area where there were steps leading up into the viewer's room overlooking Mission Control! Here we met Royce Renfrew, flight director.
"A flight director leads and orchestrates planning and integration activities with flight controllers, payload customers, station partners and others. All of the recently selected flight directors have previously served as flight controllers in Mission Control and will begin training as International Space Station flight directors."

Here is a NASA Factsheet on Mission Control:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/160406main_mission_control_fact_sheet.pdf 

My panorama of this most awesome of rooms!

Mr. Renfrew directed us to our seats in the viewing area overlooking the action and introduced an engineering class from Indiana University that was also visiting. He talked to us about the functions of Mission Control as well as what & who we were seeing through the window in front of us.

On the left two screens, there are live feeds from different sections of the ISS showing astronauts working on the station. It's a bit hard to see in this picture, but there is someone currently working center / rear. It's amazing that so much work gets done without accidents - you can see how crowded the "hallways" are!

This next image shows the current position of the ISS above the Earth in real time. Directors can see how much comm time they have and can predict exact flyovers. I get ISS updates via Twitter that tell me if the station will fly over my area that night and exactly when and where to look up. There area tons of ways to looks this info up, but here is one you can try: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/

The next image shows unix/linux feed (not sure which, sorry!) of comm data and cmd prompts of what is happening around the ISS in real time.

Mr. Renfrew explained to us that sometimes, it will be in red for something urgent - such as a failed fire testing event that had happened the night before! You can see where it says smoke detector failure. Scary!

The little "GO" in green is for comm (communications) time left and that it is clear. Mr. Renfrew mentioned that they try to preserve five hours of sleep time for the astronauts and that it should be uninterrupted if at all possible.

The screen on the farthest right is another live feed of astronauts working. Here, you can see someone in his sock feet working and as we were listening, he must have turned upside down two or three times, concentrating on something he had in his hands, but not paying much attention to his rotation - funny!

It was so interesting to see people working at their computer stations, ready to communicate with the astronauts if needed. The current flight director is below. Each desk area was somewhat personalized and some had flags showing the country of the technician. Each of the 15 to 20 flight controllers who sits at a console has the help of other engineers and flight controllers monitoring and analyzing data in nearby staff support rooms.

I cannot imagine being here, or in any control room for that matter, or viewing seats when an event such as the MSL Curiosity landing last August. I know that my own excitement and hope, yet stress and uncertainty at the "Seven Minutes of Terror" was enough - I cannot fathom what I would experience if I had spent more than ten years of my life on the project - the apprehension would have been insane!

The only question we asked at the end of the presentation was "Do we have to leave now?" :-)

Our next room to visit was the historic Apollo Mission Control Room!

This famous room was the flight control room for Apollo 11, the first manned Moon mission.

IT WAS AWESOME JUST TO BE IN HERE!

The first step on the Moon was July 20, 9:56:15 p.m. (EST), 1969.

"HOUSTON, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed" 

These were the first words transmitted to Earth from the surface of the Moon! 

Now, this room is a U.S. National Historic Landmark and in the U.S. Register of National Historic Places. The room was used until 1992 and then converted back to its Apollo style configuration for history.

Mr.Renfrew was a great guide - here he is talking to the #spacetweeps:

Here is the plaque commemorating the Moon landing:

Here is a good article by Lee Hutchinson on the Apollo Mission Control and what it was like to "Go Boldly":

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/going-boldly-what-it-was-like-to-be-an-apollo-flight-controller/

Decked with flags and plaques commemorating missions and people, the room also still has the red phone that had a direct line to the President! Here I am explaining that NASA needs MORE funding, NOT LESS and next to that - now I am the flight director, HAHA! 

Here is a great explanation of every console in the room: http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/apollo-flight-controller-101-every-console-explained/

It is interesting to ponder both sides of the spaceflight coin - those that are in flight and those on the ground who are additionally responsible for the lives of those in mission. There is such a delicate balance of factors that ensure safety of person and mission and such a spirit of selflessness from those undertaking spaceflight for the benefit of humanity.

Here is a plaque in honor of Apollo I command pilot 'Gus' Grissom, pilot Roger Chaffee, and senior pilot Edward White who perished in a fire that swept through their command module during a pre-flight test.

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program.

The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."
-Gus Grissom

My next NASA Social ISS post will be about the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility.

Houston...We've Got a Pr.... NASA Social - POST #1

N A S A   R O C K S  ! ! !

I decided, a day or so before the deadline, to apply for the ISS (International Space Station) NASA Social that was held in Houston at the NASA Johnson Space Center. I found out that I was accepted for the event on my way to Dallas, Texas for the national ACDA (American Choral Directors Convention)!!! WOOHOO!!! So, my rejoicing and nerding out began a week before the event :-) We returned to New Orleans from Dallas on Sunday afternoon. Monday after classes, I hopped back in the car and drove straight to Houston, fortunately avoiding traffic during the entire trip. I will split this fabulous experience into a few different blog posts!

The NASA Social description is here: "Go Behind the Scenes of the ISS"

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/social/social_ISS_JSC_mar2013.html

Needless to say, I was SUPER EXCITED! Back in October, I was lucky to attend the NASA Social event at the Goldstone Deep Space Network (DSN) (previous blog post here) which was an amazing adventure and a chance to learn much more about how radio astronomy works. Considering my favorite spacecraft is Voyager 1, it was the experience of a lifetime!

This event in Houston was MARVELOUSLY done! Every step well-planned and full of awesome.

Some of the highlights of our NASA Social tour included:

Speaking with science researchers whose work is enabled by the ISS

Asking questions of NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg, European Space Agency Astronaut Luca Parmitano and Russian Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin during a March 19 press conference about their upcoming Expedition 36 to the International Space Station

Touring unique facilities, including:

     - the Robonaut Laboratory
     - the Mission Control Center - I had always wanted to see this in person!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     - the Exercise Equipment Training Facility

We got to Learn about:

Current scientific experiments underway aboard the space station and new experiments planned to launch in the future

Commercial and educational research opportunities enabled by the station's microgravity environment

How researchers study the effects of a weightless environment on the human body to help protect astronauts for long-duration spaceflight missions in the future

How the space station is being used to test groundbreaking, new technologies that will help astronauts safely reach new deep space destinations, including an asteroid and eventually Mars

Our tour opened at the Space Center Houston with a welcome from enthusiastic Joel Montalbano, the Deputy Manager for ISS Utilization. Then, we 

moved into a small auditorium and had a terrific presentation by fabulous Liz Warren, of Barrios Technology, [ @Spasmunkey ] on the science and other activities on the ISS.  and we could ask questions about anything.

I hadn't know it, but at any given time, there are between 100 -125 experiements going on in the ISS! The majority of what the astronauts do is scientific research.

We then moved to our shuttle buses, for which I quickly created a Foursquare "Cool Bus" check-in :-)  #nerdmoment  Susan Henderson was the escort on our bus and she was awesome! Lynette Madison was the other escort and equally awesome! So full of information and enthusiasm for the day!

Our first stop was Bldg 5 - the Space Mission Simulation Facility (including the recently retired Shuttle Mission Simulators, or SMS, the ISS Mission Simulator, and the Orion Mission Simulator). Here, it was so cool to walk through the hall and see various mission programs honored with plaques and pictures.

We made our way through to the ISS astronaut training facility! This is a mockup facility where astronauts train for moving through the ISS and for problems that may arise. It was HUGE! 

To our delight, Rick Mastracchio, astronaut, was our tour guide! What a great guy! He showed us all through the mockup and talked to us about what it is like to be aboard the ISS and the level of athletic training one needs to stay fit up in space. We got to ask him a ton of questions! He graciously took his time out to have a picture with us in small groups - so nice! He also told us "Don't press any buttons" :-)  the facility was laid out exactly as the ISS is and it was VERY cool to be walking through there, seeing what the astronauts see. This is as close as I will ever get to actual space exploration and I'll take it!

Astro Rick showed us some computer areas and issues, how they maneuver around, alcoves, how there is as much technology on the ceiling as there is on the walls, and explained that there is constant science going on. This is one of my favorite pictures because the mockup is life-sized and you gain perspective on how the astronauts live and move within a confined setting. Just remove gravity and we're all set :-)

There are storage facilities, labs, sleeping areas, etc. The permanent crew is six people. Astro Rick mentioned that people must get used to weightlessness and be well before launching.

When asked how they avoid getting sick, he talked to us a little bit about how astronauts were quarantined for two weeks before going to the facility from which they would launch. 

The actual living space on the ISS is about the 
equivalent of one-and-a-half Boeing 747s (roughly).
The main ISS area was put together piece by piece,
by bolting giant modules to one other to form one 74m-long tube. Inside, most everything is built into the walls and the ceiling to provide for space to get around. To the right, you see a computer station with at least five monitors.

Below, you see an ISS hatch diagram schematic with hatch closure directions. This also shows you how the modules are connected. Here is a link to a YouTube video of hatch closure as the crew of Expedition 33 begins their return home. It is from Nov 2012.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICiyc_c2hIo

The ISS moves at 17,500 mph relative to the Earth and It takes 90 min to circle the planet which turns out to be 16 complete laps every day. I asked both Astro Rick and Susan Henderson (whose husband is Astro Clayton Anderson) whether or not they knew that some people wave and say hello outloud to the ISS as it passes overhead  : )

The above is a picture of several #spacetweeps with Astro Rick (I'm on far left) :-)

The next post will cover our visit to Building 9 and the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. My pictures are posted on Facebook  here.