Transcript for National Engineers' Week

February 18, 2003

>> Good morning, everyone out there in worldwide web land.

I'm Sherri at the Johnson Space Center.

We're coming to you live from Houston, Texas and we want to welcome you to National Engineers Week at NASA.

We're glad all of you are joining us today.

We hope that you'll take the opportunity to log into the chat room and submit all kinds of questions today so we can get as many of those questions answered for you as possible.

We do want to tell you we are presenting today's program in honor and memory of our STS107 crew.

We have a great program lined up for you today.

We're going to talk about engineers.

Who are they?

What do they do?

Where do they work?

What kind of engineering jobs do we have here at NASA?

And everything else you can think of relating to engineers and engineers here at NASA.

Well, to get our program started today, I would like to introduce you to NASA engineer Tracy Minish.

Welcome, Tracy.

>> Thank you.

>> Will you take a moment and tell us a little bit about your career and how you came to work here at NASA?

>> All right.

My name is Tracy Minish and I I have worked here for 19 years.

When I was in grammar school I saw the landing of the Apollo on the moon.

It was a real big event.

They had it on TV and it was amazing.

Then I went off in another direction and thought I was going to be a professional football players.

But I didn't have those skills.

The great news for everybody is you don't have to be in the NBA.

You might have to be seven foot tall, weigh 300 pounds and you can be like Shaq but if you're a person just, you know, work at your math, work at your science, then you can actually come and work at NASA or be an engineer.

After I found out I wasn't going to be a professional football player I said okay, let's  see what I want to do.

I went into accounting.

Working with people's money.

When I got in there I took a computer science course and I was hooked.

I found I had a real skill for working with computers.

This is a long time ago so we had punch cards and things like that at the beginning.

When I started doing that I just really liked it and it energized me.

I knew the shuttle, the computers are how they control it.

On space station our whole lives on the Internet are changed by computers.

That's how I got into NASA is working with computers.

I have a Bachelor of Science in computer science from the University of Georgia, go dogs.

Always wanted to move back to Georgia but I just love my job and the opportunities I have here to work in the space program to keep me here.

So I have my family come and visit and I visit them.

That's how I got started working in the space program.

>> Great.

You're a branch chief.

What is your exact title and what are some job duties that you do on a typical day?

>> Okay.

The way I -- my title is -- this sounds neat.

Branch chief.

I always kid a little kidding about that.

It's the way NASA names some of their jobs.

I'm a supervisor over the command and telemetry over the command control center.

We take software used on the space station.

It comes to our department.

We deliver it to the Mission Control Center and they then uplink it to the space station where it's used on board.

Now, a typical day I can give you some examples probably from my instructing.

Because they would do that and then go into the job I have now.

>> We'll talk about that in a few minutes then.

Sounds like your career path has been very interesting and encompassed a lot over the past how many years now?

>> 19 years.

>> The past 19 years here at NASA and working in the NASA family.

And there are a lot of other engineers and scientists just like you working here at Johnson Space Center.

As a matter of fact, Tracy, did you know that 69% of our workforce here at NASA are scientists and engineers?

Pretty amazing and pretty significant.

There is a lot of opportunity for all of you engineers out there.

Well, Tracy, what other kinds of jobs do engineers do?

Do we see them in Mission Control or what areas do we see them working in here at NASA?

>> Sometimes it's easy to relate engineers being here at NASA but you see them when you turn on the electricity.

You have electrical engineers.

When you're lacing up some of your new shoes, those fabrics are produced by engineers.

Chemical engineers are making your toothbrushes.

The moon shoe is the basis we use for most of the running shoes.

I used to wear the old converse high tops and they took a beating on your feet.

I'm grateful to NASA for the shoes I can wear when I'm running.

>> Do we have engineers that work in Mission Control?

>> Yes, we hire tons of mechanical engineers.

We have a robotic arm.

If you look at your own arm and it works just like that.

It has a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist joint.

All that is done by mechanical engineers, structural engineers.

We just have -- there is just -- it's one of the main things.

In the directory I'm in you need an engineering degree for almost all the jobs.

>> These are some visual examples of the robotic arm you were talking about and all the different kinds of engineers folks we have here working at NASA and specifically Johnson Space Center.

Well, you mentioned robotics.

Let's go a little further.

Is it just people who design arms or is it the whole field of robotics?

>> One of the areas that I was able to use my degree in.

I can tell kids.

My kids always want to spend as much time as they can on Nintedo.

The robotic arm can't lift its own weight on earth but in space it with move a school bus probably with you kids in it.

Here we use simulators or joy sticks that reach over and reaches out.

So I actually get to play with video games to train crews.

You have to have math and science, computer science, software engineering degree.

A lot of times when you're in school you're saying how can I use this?

My calculus?

All that is used in those computer-generated screens to train the astronauts.

>> One of the great programs that we have here at Johnson Space Center is we're home of the astronaut core.

Home of the space  shuttle program and the International Space Station.

Can you talk a little bit about the International Space Station and how we build and design the space station a little bit?

What it looks like?

>> The space station is -- we had the Russians build their part in Russia.

The United States built our part.

When you call it the International Space Station you start to get a feel for that when you look at all these countries working together for a common goal.

We built our module there.

We both launched them on different vehicles and put them together and they worked.

That is true engineering at work.

You have all kinds of things like that.

That is quite a challenge.

It's almost like throwing a big Lego up in space 200 miles above the earth.

>> I know we've got some different visuals of what the inside of the space station looks like and we'll look at those in just a minute.

And talk about all the different components and things you have to think about.

You have to be creative when you're an engineer?

>> Yes, I think it really helps you.

It's something we can do.

Right now they're showing you one of the modules of the space station.

What is so cool about space, when the engineers design this they make it so you can actually use all four surfaces.

Because there is no up and down in zero gravity or microgravity as we call it you can actually use all the different areas for living.

So the engineers actually are challenged to think outside the box and think about how you would use it there where there is no up and down.

>> Now, when you're using all four walls, how do you have to organize everything?

I mean, can you -- is it like a gigantic puzzle that you're trying to fit all these pieces of equipment inside of?

>> They have engineers that think of the place where it makes sense and we use labeling that makes it if you look at a procedure and it says P for port and you're looking to the port, you'll see some for star board.

A space station is a ship.

It's just the ship is traveling at 17,000 miles-per-hour above the earth.

We actually have places where they have to strap in because they need the stability to interface with the computers and experiments.

You have things that engineers are thinking about.

How to set up a workstation in zero G environment.

>> The visual we were just looking at was what we call the racks inside of the space station.

Is that where they have to place all the components that you're talking about?

>> Yes.

We have those.

A lot of these if anybody is in the Alabama area or the southeast.

We do a lot of the payload control center is done in Alabama.

The space program is actually spread across our country, the parts.

What we do is fly those up on the shuttle and they put them on these racks, we call them.

They have the power we need.

Some of the environmental things we need.

It's where the astronauts work from their workstation.

>> Speaking of the shuttle, a tremendous engineering fete first of all was the design of our space shuttle and a greater engineering fete to me is launching it.

Can you talk about the launch process with the space shuttle?

>> I would be glad to.

This a 1/100 scale model I'm pulling up right here.

You have the shuttle.

I'm sure you've seen this on TV.

We have our two rock earth boosters.

This is external tank is actually a gas tank, if you call it, for these three engines here.

They actually fire up these three engines, I've talked about computers.

We have software engineers that designed these five computers.

They're actually checking each other math.

The computers are here.

They say everything is good.

We light the rocket boosters.

Once we light these we are going up into space.

Then we launch.

The shuttle is going up.

After about two minutes these will come off and you can see a little bit of the video from there.

>> Those are the rockets you were showing us on the model.

>> Those are the three engines and the side rocket boosters igniting.

That was actually in sequence that the engines lit first when the computers check everything, then they light the solid rocket boosters.

We have chemical engineers that design what fuels to put in the tanks.

The external tank, the ET, is what you have on here.

You see a little vibration on the shuttle.

It's like a rough train ride.

You do have some vibration when you're going up.

>> What happens to those tanks?

>> These two solid rocket boosters come off and they parachute in the nose and come down in the ocean and we pull them back and reuse them.

These external tanks.

After 8 1/2 minutes this external tank is actually released and comes back into the atmosphere.

You can see the two solid rocket boosters in your monitor now.

They're coming back down.

The shuttle keeps going.

They help us break from the gravity.

>> When they come down to earth these are the parachutes you were talking about.

Do they always land in water?

>> They always land in water and we have people that go out and gather those.

It would be like working on the water.

It is your job on the ships to bring those back in and restore them.

The external tank we have a Jetson and then we have just the shuttle by itself flying 17,500 miles-per-hour.

>> That seems awfully fast.

>> I'm glad there's no policemen up there.

>> That 17,500 miles-per-hour.

I don't know about you guys that is hard to imagine how fast it is.

When you break it down it's five miles per second.

That's just absolutely amazing to me what that must feel like to the astronauts traveling that quickly.

>> They're actually seeing a sunrise and a sunset every 90 minutes.

>> How far up in the sky above the earth are they flying  altitude?

>> Usually we have the space station around 200 nautical mile.

200 miles just to keep it simple.

>> Great.

We are having all kinds of questions come in to our chat room, Tracy.

And I want to go ahead and take the first one.

Looks like Louise who is a math teacher in algebra and geometry class in Virginia.

The class has a question.

First of all they are snowed in.

We feel sorry for you guys today.

It's nice, going to be up to 70 today in Houston.

They want to know how do astronauts and other engineers use their upper level math skills in space and training.

>> I'll give you a little example how I use my math skills.

When I got a degree in computer science but you use a lot of your algebra and calculus and all that type of stuff when we were designing the models to fly the space station.

We have a simulator and each shuttle has a uniqueness in that it has a different cargo.

It's what we're carrying in the back of the shuttle which is the cargo bay.

It has a different center of gravity.

You use your algebra to calculate when you know the mass and how it's distributed the center of gravity.

If you lay a pencil on your finger you can bounce it by placing it in a certain place.

That's the center of gravity of the pencil.

We have to calculate that on the shuttle.

We'll be using math in that way.

>> Great.

Okay.

D.J. is in Mr. brown's 4th grade class in Ohio and he wants to know, have you trained the astronauts and what kind of training did you do with them?

>> I worked for 14 years and did some amazing thing.

I worked on the payloads.

I did -- I was Hubble telescope, got to go out and see the Hubble telescope.

We got to learn how to operate it and what you do is then you design a math model.

I was using math, 1's and 0's.

If you throw this switch you get an indication of on and off.

That was actually some things I learned in high school.

We made a math model.

Then we would go to a simulator.

It would be programmed into a computer language called fortran.

All that falls into software engineering.

We would use the program and the crews would come in and look out the back of the shuttle where the cargo bay is, reach out with the robotic arm.

Lift up the Hubble telescope almost the size of a bus.

Pick it up, move it to the size.

Then they'd use our models and I would train the crew to change from an extension cord to the Hubble to transfer it to batteries and we would deploy the solar rays which are something engineers are working on to get us not dependent on oil.

They would use that then in power.

We would actually use simulators and video games to train the crew.

>> Great.

We've got another question from Ohio, a 4th grade student.

You were talking about some of the training that you did.

This might fall into what Lars is asking.

What is a typical day for you as an engineer?

>> I had a roommate that was from Ohio, a great guy.

I feel like I know the people from Ohio from that one person.

He was a good representation.

The typical day for me, I'll give you an example.

It was different when I was in training because I was working with the astronauts about half the week.

20 hours a week I was in simulators sitting there thinking of problems, presenting those to the crew and then the crew was working through those.

So if anything happened in space they were well prepared and knew how to work through that problem.

Now last week we had an interesting situation come up where the software that was delivered for the robotic arm wasn't going to be compatible.

Up on the station with the software that was up there.

What we had to do is Canadian space agency.

It's an International Space Station.

The engineers there gave us new software to operate the robotic arm.

We had to identify what would be the software that should be deleted so that we wouldn't have that software even on board to be used again.

So we had to work through meetings and decide here is what we're uplinking, what is obsolete and no longer used?

We delivered that product to the Mission Control Center and uplinked that through the station and the station crew is going to be using that on Thursday.

We did meetings working with international partners, coordinating, using those kind of skills and then using your engineer skills to review the software you're getting and see what you should take out of the Mission Control Center and the on-board computers.

>> Sounds fascinating.

I know another topic that we wanted to make sure to address with everyone today was microgravity and the training of our astronauts in a microgravity environment and the different ways we do that.

That ties in with another question that we have received, Terry in Mr. Brown's fourth grade class.

Ohio is having great representation today.

Everyone else needs to join in so we can have some other states from across our nation.

We want to be able to point you guys out.

Terry is wanting to know can you tell us about the  vomit comet and why would anybody want to ride it?

>> I've ridden on it.

It was the great experience.

I actually wanted to do this to see what it felt like to go.

We call it microgravity because -- this is actually the KC-135 plane.

If you've ever eaten a chilly dog before you get on a roller coaster over the top.

This is what this plane does, it goes up steep, and then it comes down.

You can see some things floating around.

I was actually able to go up there and float with the crew up there in space and what was so neat about it.

When you go, your body -- you know, gravity keeps the blood going down to your feet and everything like that.

When I went weightless at first I felt I was getting red in the face.

I started doing spins.

What you do is you go weightless for 25 seconds and they'll give you a 5 second warning and say you're now getting back to gravity and you go to 2Gs.

When gravity came I landed on my back because I was on the ceiling.

The things that we can learn in zero gravity the way engineers use this, chemical engineers or bioengineers they can make medicines there.

When you have no gravity and the vacuum of space you can actually build crystals that are used to make new medicines.

Synthetic medicines that maybe someday will cure cancer.

We have the bioengineers creating crystals.

We can go on the station in maybe 10 days that you can't grow on earth in a year.

The purity and everything like that.

When people get bedridden.

Our population is living older.

You don't have to think about that.

But your parents do.

If they get bedridden it is much like being in zero gravity.

Your heart is a muscle when you're laying on your back it doesn't work as hard.

Up in space we can think of ways to keep your heart and muscles strong so that if you ever get in a situation you can have an active and productive life especially when you recover.

>> The vomit comet as you call it is not the only way we can train our astronauts in a microgravity environment.

What is the other way?

>> The other way, I'll go over here for a second.

I have a space glove we have right here.

The other way we can do this.

I think they can show you the pool.

We have a 50-foot deep pool.

It has a mock-up of the station in there.

So if you look right there, so if you like scuba diving and swimming in the water, study your engineering and become a scuba diver and you can work with the astronauts in the pool and train them how to do a space walk.

If you look at the person over that fixing to go into the water, a space suit, when you go out in the vacuum of space is a lot like the suit you have to wear when you go deep sea diving.

You have to get used to working with gloves on and the space suit.

If you ever try to tie your shoes.

It is cold in Ohio so I'm sure you're wearing gloves.

You usually want to pull off your gloves when you tie your shoe.

Well up there in space we can't pull off our gloves when we're building the space station.

We actually are doing construction up there.

What we do is put on the space suit, go in the pool and they would use this glove and use how to use the equipment we have there.

Also this glove is pressurized which makes it harder to use.

>> We've got another question.

T.J. wants to know if being an air nautical engineer is better.

>> You need to see where your math skills lie and what your interest lies in.

Any of those are great.

If you want to be an astronaut I always tell people go out and look at what the astronauts' backwards are.

You're in training right now to be an engineer whether you know it or not.

If you study your math and science, do those type of things then you'll become an engineer.

If you decide I want to go and play Nintendo all the time it's a choice you make.

We have many astronauts with electrical, that study the earth.

One of our goals at NASA is actually to make our earth a better place to live.

So we have those types.

So really it's not so important what degree you get, it's to be at the top of your class and excel in what you do.

>> Great.

We've got propulsion engineering is fascinating as you were talking about all of the rockets and what it takes to launch our space shuttle earlier.

We have another great question.

Looks like this is probably from a young lady student out there.

She wants to know if engineering is a good option for women.

>> Oh, it is a great option.

I think that 20% of our astronaut core is actually female.

So those are great opportunities for female in there.

When you look across -- I have some students that come in during the summer.

There is great Co-oping available at NASA.

There are summer programs, there are aerospace scholars.

There is a chance for you to get a look at the inside of NASA.

I go to meetings often and I'm outnumbered by females.

I think that women are just really exceling in this field.

We've already had a female commander on the space station in the space shuttle.

>> Female pilots.

We're in all areas.

Tracy for a student who asked that question, absolutely engineering is a great option for women.

As a matter of fact today women comprise almost 20% of first-year engineering students.

Hopefully you are thinking about becoming one of that 20%, making up the statistics and maybe bumping it higher so women get a higher representation in engineering.

Okay.

Well, Tracy, you have brought all kinds of cool, neat things today.

Can you tell us a little bit about some of these activities and props that you have brought along?

>> I was going to encourage people, engineers are always thinking outside the box, they take something and want to improve it or they're inventing things.

What we want to do here is maybe show you a couple of rockets you can do at home.

What I have here is a milk jug so you can take a milk jug, cut the top out so you can put the liter bottle in it.

Cut this out and you take a cork and I think this is available through the web.

>> Yes, we have the link.

We'll put it in the chat room in the archive.

We have the link available to you.

>> Take a cork and put a basketball pump needle through it.

You take that, fill this bottle up with water.

As an engineering you want to experiment to see how much you put in.

About one-third full.

Put the cork down in here.

If you do this.

So you want to put this in.

Then you actually put this down in the milk jug like this.

You take a normal bicycle pump.

I'll get you to hold this.

>> Absolutely.

>> All right.

I'll take this, attach it to the bottom of here.

Now when you pump this up, you've got your milk jug, a cork, and pumping it up.

I'll let Sherri do the pumping.

You'll see this shoot out.

If it has water, knowing your math and science and physics water has more mess so it will propel much higher.

It just shot up.

This will shoot over your house.

It shoots water out the back.

I didn't put water in because I didn't want to get Sherri soaked.

>> Thank you.

>> In Ohio it's pretty cold and you might have ice coming out forming on the back.

It's one rocket you can do.

>> Teachers, if you're watching and students as well, this is what, when you go to the space link webpage that we'll provide to you, this is the actual webpage itself.

It's space link.NASA.gov and all kinds of information about these rocket activities that Tracy is showing us.

Here is the teacher information, the bottle rocket launcher that he -- Tracy is showing us right now.

It has the instructions and the objectives and all the good information you'll need to create the bottle rocket to fly over your house about two stories.

>> My house is a two-story house.

It's fun in the summertime when it warms up a little.

You get water going out and it attracts your neighbor's kids.

You make a lot of new friends.

You can modify this.

I have a modification that I can send Sherri to make it simple to build.

It's what engineering is about.

Taking products, making them better to make our lives better.

>> What about another neat activity?

>> What I have here.

I'll hold this up.

Mr. potato head.

You say one, do you have one?

What I want to do is show you up in space how you've probably heard the equation, forces equal mass times acceleration.

You've also heard a little bit about the shuttle when we're talking about the Columbia tragedy.

We're looking into space debris even small pieces doing damage to the shuttle.

So what I'm going to do is actually turn Mr. potato head.

I don't want him to look at me.

Do you see my blue straw?

>> It is right here.

>> Thank you.

Might have fallen off the table.

What I do is I have a straw.

I'll take this straw.

You know how flimsy that is.

I'll make it go through here.

When the straw is going at a high acceleration it will have a great force and can go through the mass.

I'll try not to hit him in the eyes.

There it goes.

You see the straw going through?

There it goes.

I'm sticking it through.

That's how we invented the French fry.

Actually squeeze this thing out and you have a French fry.

I thought I would throw that in.

But that is showing you the mass -- force equals mass times acceleration.

That is something you learn in school and you wonder how you can apply it to make your own French fries.

>> That's great.

>> We are using those same equations when we're looking at materials.

We have to have materials up there that can actually take getting hit by space debris.

So we're coming up with stronger materials and then a lot of those materials actually used here on earth.

To construct a building to withstand an earthquake.

>> Talk about designing the materials for withstanding space debris or the intense heat like the tiles, when you're talking about designing the space shuttle, we have a question from a student from T.J.

Wants to know if you help at all in the design of any of the space shuttle.

>> No, I did not help in any of the design of the space shuttle.

When I started here the space shuttle was flying.

We started in 1984 and we started flying in 1981.

I did have a part.

We're all teammates.

That's one of the things you probably learn through the media.

We're a big family.

Each person has their own role and responsibility and when you put it all together we can pull off this amazing thing called space travel.

If you like international travel.

You're always trying to see what will get kids energized for space.

I got to go to Italy and study for two weeks in Rome.

But they -- I went to Rome for two weeks to learn how to operate a payload that was flying in the cargo bay and actually came up with some changes that they could use in the way we do the training for that and how we actually operated.

So you do have an impact and that is what engineers are all about.

Changing our world, the way it works today and making it better.

>> We've got an interesting question from a student who wants to know if the stereo type is true that engineers are geeks and nerds.

>> Don't use me as a rule because I'm geeky and proud of it.

No, I don't think that's true at all.

If you look at the astronauts that are out there, for one thing you know they're not geeky.

Those are fighter pilots.

They land on ships.

They're moving in the ocean and set a jet down on deck.

Starting from there they're not.

The people that work in the Mission Control Center.

We have our geeks but it takes all different types of people to work here.

Don't think if you're not a computer geek you can't work here.

I was actually considered a Jock when I was in school because I was playing football, wrestling, track, run.

I think it's 15 marathons now.

I've done two triathlons.

So I don't consider myself the typical geek but sometimes I might be geeky.

>> Allen writes in and wants to know, what kinds of foods do astronauts eat in orbit.

I'm assuming we need to have engineering plans for designing the food, storage of the food, preparation of the food and all that sort of thing.

Can you help us out?

>> I think I might have some video.

The astronauts actually are eating on orbit.

If you watch it, it's cool.

There is no way to spill your drink or your milk or anything like that.

You kind of pass it and it floats to them.

I have a couple of examples.

There you go, eating a banana.

If you really look at it, when we have a progress.

That's the Russian ship that brings food.

They actually said when they open it up they can smell all the fresh vegetables and things.

Also a lot of the food the engineers have made in the things when you throw something in the microwave or water and actually boil it and then eat it and it tastes great.

Most of those foods and the preparation was developed by NASA.

The way you can help foods last a long time by being vacuum packed.

That was all done.

M & M's, bananas, all type of things.

When you're up there it's really cool.

I have in my mind some macaroni and cheese.

I can show that to you in a little while.

What they're showing is much cooler.

This is macaroni and cheese.

You put in hot water, mash it around with your fingers.

It has Velcro.

If I sit it here you think it will stay here.

If you're in the wind current you have a tray.

You can stick it on this tray and strap it to your feet to keep it close by.

It may start floating away from you.

>> A very simple design that we had to think about and Velcro worked perfectly.

>> It works great.

>> Now, this tray has little Velcro strips all over it and it's where we would attach our various courses of our dinner or lunch.

>> Then you do in boy scouts or girl scouts you're probably eating food mimicking what we do on the station.

When you go camping it's like going into space.

The most awesome camping trip you can take.

You're going a little farther than y'all probably go.

>> We have more questions coming in.

Another student wants the know what education -- what kind of education do you need to have to become an engineer and is there a specific school that you need to go to to get it?

>> We have people from all kinds ever universities but the first thing you have to do is get accepted by a college.

What I'll say to do is make sure you're taking your college prep courses.

Don't avoid those.

Take them, study and practice.

For mathematics you have to practice.

I used to be able to take a history exam and actually cram and memorize it, read it quick and do it.

Math is a skill you learn over practice.

So study your math and science.

Take physics, chemistry, biology and then look at the schools out there.

You'll find the ones you can get a lot of magazines that tell you.

The most important thing is get a degree, go to an accredited school that has a decent reputation and after you get the degree go out and start working.

One of the things I tell kids to do a lot of times is go out and interview somebody in the field.

If you want to be a chemical engineer find someone that is working -- in Texas we have oil refineries and you hire lots of chemical engineers.

See if you can get a summer job there.

Then you'll find out maybe it isn't what I want.

I want to work mechanical.

I got a friend that got a degree in mechanical engineering and he's now designing golf carts.

He can give me a special deal on one.

He isn't working in the space program but it's cool if I want to run out to my mail books in a golf cart.

Study, get a good education in high school and apply it when you get into college.

>> Excellent.

Good words of advice.

We want to remind everybody out there watching that we've got about 20 minutes left.

And we want you to take this opportunity to submit your questions into the chat room.

That's what we're here for.

We have this wonderful special guest with us.

Engineer Tracy Minish.

He's here to answer your questions about engineering and engineering jobs here at NASA.

Anything you want to know, send those questions on into the chat room.

Well, Tracy, you were talking earlier about your typical day.

We have another question.

What kind of hours does an engineer work?

>> It depends.

When I was in the training division we used to work from 8:00 to sometimes midnight.

We had different shifts depending on where our crew was in training.

You have your primary crew, the crew launching next.

They get the 8:00 to 5:00 hours.

Then the crews further back in the rotation to fly and they'll be sometimes working at the 5:00 to midnight.

We would actually go in in the  middle of the night, 8:00 and do a four-hour sim.

We have our own language over here.

I'm trying not to use acronyms.

PlayStation is called P2.

A sim is -- we use simulators.

They look like a duplicate of the inside of the orbiter.

If you're doing a launch on the shuttle in the simulator it will actually take you and rotate you to your back.

When you look over all the switches are in place.

Now you're playing on your back.

Imagine when you get in your bed tonight.

Pull up your knees and imagine you're launching in the shuttle.

When you look out the window you see the launch tower go by.

We put in the sounds of the engine roaring.

We give the crew problems.

>> The simulators you're talking about now we're looking at live video feed of the floor of the building that you and I are in right now, Tracy.

One of the largest training facilities out here at Johnson Space Center.

If everyone will look closely on the top right part of your screen we can see just the nose portion of the space shuttle.

We call that our crew compartment trainer.

You were talking about simulating a launch environment.

This particular mock-up or trainer will tilt to the ceiling to simulate a launch position.

>> That's right.

You have to get used to getting in there.

When you lay on your back and reach for something it's different than sitting up and reaching for something.

If you try that at home it's a little bit of the simulator we with do.

We actually work with the crews and we'll actually do an entry say 2000 feet and fly that over and over.

Sometimes we'll give them cross winds.

Sometimes we'll take out some of their heads-up display which they use to fly.

If you've ever used a flight simulator at home.

We'll give them problems to work through.

These are the things we saw, how did you respond to it.

They tell us and then we turn the simulator around and we actually fly another entry.

We get to do that over and over.

It's almost like sometimes working at Disney world but having the best simulators.

If you've ever been on a motion ride.

>> What other kinds of activities do you have for us today?

>> I have the ALKA sell  -- seltzer rocket.

It has oxygen and hydrogen.

It isn't a fuel but an oxidizer.

When you mix them together it becomes very flammable and powerful.

We'll do a little rocket real quick.

I'm holding a film canister with a recessed lid.

I went to Walgreens and say do you have any film canisters that are clear or like a clear plastic that have recessed lids?

They gave me like 20 of them.

So go to your -- you take these and you actually build a rocket from it.

We can take this paper here and tape it to the film canister.

All the instructions are in there.

I won't take a lot of time showing you.

We can tape it and make a cone here.

When you've done this see how it's getting bigger?

Anyway, here is the film, here is the paper on top of it.

When you put this on it, then you put a nose cone.

You can put some fins on the side.

I'll cut to the chase and put in the all ka seltzer, half a tablet.

That's the fuel right there.

We'll add water.

Water is the oxidizer.

We put a little bit in and then we snap the top on.

>> Should I be scared?

>> Don't look over.

Usually I can put on my safety glasses here.

This will be geeky but I'll put on my safety glasses.

>> Should I have some safety glasses?

>> This is the --

>>  kids at home make sure to wear safety glasses when you're doing this activity.

>> We'll keep talking.

At some point during the experiment it should go off.

I think I have another one over here I could start up.

Because I'm not going to touch it while it's waiting.

I don't want to have to disarm it.

You're mixing two fuels together.

It looks like the nozzle for an engine.

The shuttle can gimble.

>> While we're waiting for this to explode we'll take another question out of the chat room.

Allen wants to know what materials are the shuttle tiles made out of?

>> The shuttle tiles, I'm not as familiar with that area because we have specialists in every area.

I have handled shuttle tiles before when I've gone out to places.

Sherri, do you have any information on that?

>> No, I don't.

Again, Allen, great question.

I'm going to agree with what Tracy was having to say.

That is not my area of expertise nor is it Tracy's.

So we would have to actually maybe do a little research and you can do that on our website.

If you guys have any questions about our human space flight programs or other things about NASA, visit our website at space flight.NASA.gov.

>> I started another rocket.

Don't put your fingers in there.

The tiles can take up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit in temperature change.

That's one of the things that is amazing.

A lot of the fabrics.

Those were made by engineers to withstand that heat and also the extreme cold of space.

We used a lot of those things in spinoffs here on earth for other practices and uses.

>> Okay.

What is happening to our rocket, Tracy?

>> I probably should have gotten some fresh allka seltzer.

You learn from your mistakes.

>> If you were an engineer and this was a real project, would this be a bad thing or would you learn from it and it would guide you on to something else?

>> You would learn from this.

One thing I'll learn is get a fresh pack when I come.

And check this out before I do it.

I've done this 100 times.

I expected it to go.

What is happening is the water the interacting and it builds up pressure and blows the bottom.

If you've seen Newton's three laws, it will make a force come out.

It uses Newton's other law.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

>> Great review, everyone, of Newton's three laws of motion.

We apply those every day in the field of engineering, do we not?

>> That's correct.

>> Got another question.

A student wants to know if engineers have to travel a lot.

>> Engineers, it really depends on what department you work in.

When I was younger in my -- my -- when I was first married, didn't have kids I was in an area in the training division where I went out and studied the payloads flying in the shuttle.

Again we have a great opportunity to travel.

I got to go to Italy, been to 3M in Minnesota, anybody in Minnesota.

Been to California, Washington, D.C. which is the gamma ray observatory satellite.

>> I've actually shot these off and hit a ceiling about I guess it shoots five feet up in the air.

>> Mr. potato head wasn't wearing his glasses and he lost his eyes.

>> We'll put them back.

>> So that's a note to all of us.

Safety first.

We must keep safety in mind.

>> It depends on what field you work in.

If you want to do travel you need to look at the areas that do a lot of that.

For the International Space Station there is great opportunities to go.

I have friends that have been to Japan, Italy, to all sorts of places like that.

So if you want to do travel and that's what you really like, if you want to work with people from different races, different backgrounds, all those things are available here.

>> We've got more questions coming in our chat room.

Just a reminder.

We have less than 10 minutes left.

If you still have a question that you would like to have answered put it in our chat room.

>> One thing just for the record on the vomit comet, I did not vomit, just for the record.

I thought people were out there probably, I wonder if he threw up, no.

>> What is the percentage of people that typically do get sick as they're adjusting to that type of training?

>> On our flight there was 12 people and seven of them got sick.

I had one girl who was going to float around in space and she was too sick to use the video camera.

You do it about 40 times.

Once you go up it's not like you can get sick and let me out unless you want to use the parachute.

>> That's a high percentage for your particular flight.

In general about 40%, 4 out of 10 folks tend to get that queasy feeling and vomit.

I'm glad you weren't one of them.

Another great question from an unidentified student.

Wants to know if an airplane can break the atmosphere and get into outer space free of earth's gravity?

>> No, the airplanes aren't built to do that.

They would actually run into major problems if they tried to do that.

That's when we have the shuttle.

We are actually looking at something that we can launch.

I guess you would say a little different than a launch.

Something that can take off like a plane, make it up to space and come down like a plane.

The Russians have rockets like the Apollo that we used.

We use the shuttle.

There are no planes.

We are looking at ways to do that and it will help reduce the cost of what it takes to get up in space.

I want to do something real quick for y'all.

A lot of times people say why are you spending so much money on space?

We're trying to always do things but we spend less than one penny out of your dollar.

I brought 100 pennies in here.

So if you look, this is all the money.

I've got more in this pocket over here if I can get to it.

If you look at 100 pennies you'll be amazed.

If you throw 100 of them on somebody's desk they'll freak out.

I still have more.

I have to dig deep.

That's what we have to do.

Here is all the money.

We take less than one penny out of your tax dollar for the space program.

If you look at all the returns we have and what it has done to better your life through the engineers that have done the computers, how they've done things medically.

When we have M.R.I.'s, CAT scans, the research we've done on cancer, the elderly.

It is amazing the return you get on this less than a penny.

You said something about pizza I thought was interesting.

>> That's right.

If you want to break it down that way, the average cost of a large pizza is about $8.

And that's about what it costs your average taxpayer per year for our space program.

Nice extension of your less than one penny demonstration there.

Well, you talked about the shuttle launch earlier.

Can you talk about the engineering behind a landing?

>> I can talk to you about that.

I would be glad to.

What is amazing about the shuttle.

I will take this one.

It's a little bit smaller, but it has the ability to separate.

So I can get rid -- of course when we get up in space we're actually going around the earth.

Every 90 minutes this thing is going round and round.

We're going around the earth this fast.

We have to slow down so we can reenter the earth's atmosphere.

We have to do calculations.

This is done by engineers to enter at just the right angle into the atmosphere or you can bounce off.

Think about this as the atmosphere.

If you hit it wrong, you actually bounce and propel yourself out.

Now, when it comes through, of course, there is lots of friction and you have heating all up under here and you can see these tiles.

The black ones take the highest amount of heat.

They have build-up on that.

When it comes in it actually does what we call some S turns.

It does turns like this much like if you were to lose your brake on the bicycle going down a steep hill.

If you were to do that your best way to stop it is actually to move.

I'll bring the shuttle into the picture here.

The shuttle coming in actually turns from side to side to slow down its momentum.

If you do snow skiing in Ohio or Michigan or New York, then you'll find out that to go down to slow down your speed you go side to side and then it's a glider.

It's using the surfaces and the rudder to steer itself and come in and land.

You're seeing a landing I think on the Kennedy Space Center.

We actually launch the shuttle and land the shuttle in Florida.

If you like working in a very warm climate up there in Michigan or the northeast where y'all got a lot of snowstorms.

This is the place to be.

Also Houston has the Mission Control Center which takes over control once you pass the launch tower until the wheels touchdown we have it.

>> Now, was the shuttle using rockets there, rocket power?

>> No it was using the aerosurfaces going through the atmosphere.

I will take just a second to address a little bit about the Columbia tragedy.

Each one of us here you probably read in the news are really like a family.

I've worked with the crews, the astronauts and been over to their houses as a teammate because we're all part of a team.

I've gone to swimming parties with them.

They're extraordinary human beings, our heroes.

But they're humans.

And just like us.

To share a couple of stories.

Rick Husband, the commander.

He recorded 16 Bible verses.

He was doing Bible studies with his kids.

He recorded those to have for his kids so he could follow along while he was up in space.

They actually live a lot like you and me.

Those are a great record and testimony for his kids.

All of us here are hurting very badly.

We -- but we are working hard to find out what went wrong, fix this, and make sure this doesn't happen again.

So we have an investigation team that is actually looking into this.

You can probably read about it in the news.

We're going to find out what happened and we're going to do everything in our power to minimize the risk.

Unfortunately always going up into space is going to be risky.

What we do is work to minimize that risk and make sure we're doing everything to do that.

The other thing is that in life you're going to be hit with some things and when you are, you can choose to quit, you can choose to go and hide or you can choose to pick yourself up and go forward for the people that came before you.

And that's what we're going to do here.

We'll go forward and it would be a tragedy in itself not to go and work and follow through with this.

>> Right.

>> That's what they want us to do and that's what we're going to do.

>> We're honoring their memory by continuing on.

We hope that you are all inspired to come and be a part of our NASA family one day.

If not in engineering, maybe in a science field or in education or any other area that you are very interested in.

You just need to follow your heart in what interests you the most.

I think we have time for one quick question left before we have to go today.

And it's a question we get almost all of the time.

A student wants to know about the engineering behind using the bathroom in space.

>> Now, I was very fortunate working in the training division that we actually trained the astronauts how to use the space potty.

To me that is interesting in itself and a fete of engineering.

What we have in a simulator practicing using a potty because you have no gravity.

When you expel waste it has no reason to just go down like gravity.

So it could actually float up.

When you get off the toilet it could be floating up with you which is a scary thought.

What we use is actually vacuum or pulling air suction to pull the waste down.

The way we train them is we actually have a camera in the bottom of the toilet.

They don't actually use it to expel waste and then they sit on that toilet and they have a video camera the front of them.

They look into the video camera, make sure they're over the target which is the hole at the bottom so the air flow will pull down and we use a vacuum cleaner, almost the same type of thing.

You have to have a good seal.

Your vacuum cleaner actually had rubber around the outside of the vacuum cleaner to make it grip the floor.

So when they sit on the toilet they actually sit down, make sure no light is coming up from around when they're on the toilet and  make sure they're over the hole.

When they flush it the air sucks it down.

>> I hoped it answered your question.

We appreciate you asking.

>> If you want to know the difference how they go number one and number two we use scientific terms here.

I can go into that at a later date.

>> Speaking of a later date there will be another opportunity for a WebCasting experience like we're experiencing today on Thursday.

You can join us.

We have NASA engineer Fred Smith who will be joining us.

He'll be available to answer your questions then as well.

Maybe even further detail about what Tracy was just talking about.

On behalf of the Johnson Space Center Distance Learning Outpost program and the quest program through aims research center.

We want you to keep asking these wonderful questions and study and come back and participate as part of our NASA team and go into engineering and science.

Until next time, so long from Johnson Space Center.