Transcript for National Engineers' Week

February 20, 2003

>> Good morning, everyone out there in worldwide web land.
Welcome to the John -- Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
We have a special guest with us today.
We'll be talking with him in just a moment.
We want to let you know that we're bringing you today's program in honor and memory of the 107 crew.
Today we'll be talking about the field of engineering and how exciting it is and what kinds of neat engineering jobs we have here at NASA.
We have a wide variety.
What do engineers do?
What kind of work do they do?
Who are they?
How do I become an engineer?
We'll talk about all of those sorts of things.
We're celebrating black history month.
The engineer we have with us today is one of our celebrated African-American engineers and a terrific role model and so glad to have him with us today.
Fred, welcome.
>> Thank you, Sherri.
>> Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got here to NASA.
>> I'm Fred Smith and I'm a project manager for air revitalization.
I got a degree and went to school for advanced degree -- I went to school for a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering where space was always an interest of mine.
I was able to perform a cooperative education role here at JFC, which allowed me to come on as an engineering when I finished school.
One of the things I participated in my career in is as a chamber test subject for advanced life support studies that we do here.
One of the things that we do is look at different technologies for life support systems.
You can see now a video clip of that test that we participated in.
This study was a 60-day chamber test where we stayed in an enclosed environment for 60 days recycling our air and water and we learned more how to live and work in a spacecraft simulation, if you will, to see how well life support systems would perform over a long period of time.
Now, other things that I've done deal with crew quarters and producing environmental control life support for the spacecraft, for spacecraft like the International Space Station.
When I say advanced life support that means looking at technology that will take us from low earth orbit and beyond.
Particularly to Mars, places such as Mars and other places.
So that is kind of a snapshot of what I do here at JSC.
>> I know you're in the advanced life support systems branch.
Will you go ahead and go into detail of the types of things that you do on a daily basis in your department?
>> Okay.
I will.
I have a small presentation here that kind of describes that, Sherri.
Again I mentioned advanced life support.
One of the things, as you see going from low earth orbit out to further away from the earth, advanced life support becomes more and more important.
So as we get further away from earth, the technology that you need to keep the crew alive becomes more critical.
The next slide shows you some of the things of what advanced life support is involved with.
For advanced -- for life support in general you need to have air to breathe, you need to have food to eat, and you need to have water to drink.
Those are critical things to keep a crew alive.
Life support is critical -- it's a function that keeps the crew alive on long-duration missions and on missions in space in general.
Now, what we try to do in advance life support, one of the things is to duplicate the functions of earth in terms of human life support.
Spacecraft do not have the benefit of the earth's large buffers or systems which is the oceans and landmasss like that.
But we need to try to duplicate the functions so a crew can sustain life in space and be productive in space and do science in space.
Now, one of the things that you see on this chart here is the critical aspect of life support, as you get further away, some of the things of life support require mass.
You have water.
It makes up a large portion of your life support systems.
If you don't resupply or have what we call regenerative technologies to keep your -- to bring you life support, you would have to carry a lot of the mass up in your orbit to sustain the crew.
So in terms of keeping the crew alive and keeping your requirements for life support manageable we have to have regenerative technologies.
One is looking at air revitalization.
It's what I'm the lead for in advanced life support.
Here you can see you have things such as atmosphere which is nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and you have water and trace contaminants that are part of that atmosphere.
Well, air revitalization looks at filters that can take out the microorganisms that could be harmful to a human and trace contaminant removal.
We look at removing those things that are particular to those things in the air that could be harmful to a human.
Then as you probably know, that humans breathe out carbon dioxide.
In an enclosed environment such as a spacecraft there is nowhere for that carbon dioxide to go so we have to remove that from the air so that the crew can stay alive.
If you don't remove the carbon dioxide it can be harmful to the crew.
Another aspect of providing a breatheable atmosphere is providing oxygen.
Oxygen generation is a critical function, too.
And here you see on this chart you have water and that water is split into hydrogen and oxygen.
Well, another function that can help close your advanced life support air revitalization loop to provide a carbon dioxide reduction system.
You can create water and methane or you can help close the loop in that air revitalization system so you won't have to keep supplying things from the outside called expendibles.
Here is an example of two types of system.
One deals with Lyle canisters.
They use these on the shuttle and some on the station.
But these are expendables.
They remove the carbon dioxide from the air but they do not regenerate.
This other technology is a regenerative technology.
That system allows you to regenerate your beds that remove the carbon dioxide so that you can then utilize that same system as opposed to adding more and more Lyle canisters.
The graph shows you the breakout of how much more mass you would need for a system that is not regenerative as opposed to one that is.
Some of the major things that I work with in advanced life support area revitalization currently is -- one system is a carbon dioxide reduction system.
Another system is an advanced trace contaminant control system.
Another system is -- we're looking at providing a facility that we can test and integrate different systems for advanced life support air revitalization.
This facility is basically a lab.
It allows us to integrate technologies and develop those technologies further so we can take them to a flight program so they can go up on station or a vehicle to Mars.
Here is an example of a rat that would go into the International Space Station.
We have an area that is open for something that is a carbon dioxide reduction system.
That rack space is very small and very intricate.
This gives you an example of what types of volume you have to work with.
In the upper left corner is the space we have to work with to fit an entire subsystem like this.
>> What a challenge, Fred.
>> It is a challenge.
Another aspect of advanced life support is food and crop production.
As I mentioned before, as you go further and further away from earth, your missions become longer, you need to find ways to produce food or to store food.
Right now we store food and for short duration missions.
As we get further away it may become more necessary to find ways to produce your food.
Here we have food production for vehicles that can take you from earth to Mars.
The duration is so much longer there.
If you have any type of ground base on a planetary surface you would probably want to have some type of crop production.
Those are some of the areas we look at there.
Some of the challenges in food production in what we call zero gravity are in looking at the zone where you have the plants growing.
Light intensity is something we have to learn more about.
How much light do you need, temperature, humidity, you need a separate environment for plants also as well as -- different from what the humans live from.
Another area that is interesting is the root zone.
How your roots will grow and providing air -- getting adequate oxygen and air into the root zone so plants can grow healthy.
>> Do the plants know which way to grow in zero gravity?
>> It's one of areas we look at it.
Is not as simple on earth.
They don't necessarily tend to grow like they do on earth.
Water is also another area we want to look at and how we provide water in a zero gravity environment to plants.
This next picture is an example of a system that could go on the International Space Station.
It could provide fresh food to a crew.
I would not underestimate the importance of having something fresh in your space environment or in a closed environment such as a space station or a long duration mission.
One of the things in my chamber test we stay 60 days inside of a chamber.
If we had fresh food it is such a boost to have green and fresh vegetables along with you to eat as you stay for long periods of time.
This other slide is looking at different ways that you can -- a different way you can supply water to your root zone area into the soil.
This system is a porous tube that allows more even distribution of water throughout your system in a microgravity environment.
Here is the next slide looks at the different challenges of the light that we have.
Light is -- provides a -- lighting for plants is very critical.
One of the challenges of looking at lighting systems is that they sometimes can be energy intensive and produce a lot of heat.
These different types of lighting systems will hopefully reduce the amount of heat and energy required to provide lighting for your plant system.
We have LED's as one example.
Also something called fiberoptics types of lighting which acts like a light pipe.
It pipes in the lighting to your system.
We have sodium lamps that provide a close simulation of the sun for the plants.
Another very important aspect of life support is water recovery.
You have condensation, evaporation from the planet surface, precipitation coming down from your clouds.
Now, those are some of the aspects of water that you have also inside of your spacecraft.
As you work and live in a closed environment humans breathe out moisture and they also if you're working out or exercising on your bicycle humans also perspire.
That moisture gets into your environment and it's just there.
So we condense that out of the atmosphere and collect that and that makes up your water system.
One particular system that treats the water is a biological system.
It's a system that uses bacteria and feeds off -- it feeds off pretty much the waste in the water.
And makes it more pure.
Another aspect -- that is just one portion of the complete water system.
Then we have a physical chemical system that use filters or different types of systems to remove other inorganics.
I'm thinking more of salts, those types of things.
Physical chemical systems like that.
Machinery are filters that can remove your impurities in your water.
Now, this slide here shows you basically the steps of how the water is purified.
We have what we call feed water which is your basic waste water from showering and from brushing your teeth and doing all different functions of water.
It is pretty dirty.
After you treat it with a biological system you have your BWP, you can see how it becomes more and more clear.
And we have a reverse osmosis permeate which is your product from a reverse osmosis system which removes other inorganics and impurities like I mentioned before.
You have even more pure system.
The real brown colored water that you see on your far left is a product of your reverse osmosis system.
In order to collect more of your water and not to waste any of it we treat that also in an air evaporation system and it brings out the purity of your water from that real brownish solution.
We recover even more of your water that way.
You have the final product water after all these steps that you have that you can then drink that water again or use it for plants or any system that needs water.
Now, we finally put it all together.
We have air, water and plants and you see here you have the crew or -- that brings out the carbon dioxide in the cabin air.
Waste management, temperature and humidity control.
Hydrogen and oxygen control.
Trace contaminant control and water.
We put it all together and it becomes more of a closed system that way so you don't have to supply as many things on long duration missions.
>> Well, Fred, that is a great overall description of what you do.
It sounds very complicated and very interesting.
So many different aspects that you are working with.
Well, we want to remind everyone out there watching today that there is a chat room that is happening concurrently with our program.
We want you to submit any and all questions that you have regarding engineering or specifically to Fred's area of expertise in advanced life support regenerative systems into that chat room.
We have a laptop computer here and we're reading your questions and we'll try to answer as many as we can in our program today.
So start submitting those questions.
Now, Fred, we've already received several questions in the chat room.
The first one is a student who wants the know if you get to actually work with any astronauts as you're working in your day-to-day activities in engineering.
>> Okay.
I do have opportunities every once in a while to work with astronauts.
In some of the projects that I've worked, particularly what we call a temporary sleep station, it's a crew quarters for the International Space Station we had close interaction with the astronauts to get their input on how it is to live and work in space in a microgravity environment.
Critical to helping to design your systems so that we can make them -- they're the customers.
We want them to work as well as possible for them.
I've had the opportunity to work with several astronauts in that aspect.
>> Mrs. G. is a teacher from Colorado.
She writes in wanting to know if the final water product that you describe to us in that process tastes like regular water like we get out of the tap or does it taste more like distilled water.
What is the final product like?
You were talking about the astronauts being the end customers and they have to decide if it's tasty or not.
Could you give us a description?
>> Good question.
I have had an opportunity, as I mentioned, to participate in a test where we recycled all our waste water.
And that, believe it or not, the water tasted better to me than the water that you might get out of your tap water.
We treat the water a little bit differently.
In your typical tap water that you have chlorine that acts as what we call a bioscience that keeps your water cleaned.
We have used in the past iodine to keep the water clean and purified when it's stored after you treat it.
So it has a little bit different taste but it tastes just as well if not better than your tap water.
It is usually more clean.
It's cleaner than your tap water.
We take it through our -- NASA requirements are more stringent for your water purification for your water for astronauts to drink.
>> Okay.
Well, I hope that a lot of you are interested and inspired to pursue careers in science and engineering and your career path certainly is very interesting, having psychology background as well as an engineering background but yet you're working in engineering on a day-to-day basis.
Did you guys know that a majority of our workforce here at Johnson Space Center are scientists and engineers?
As a matter of fact.
69%, that's quite a few folks here at NASA, are in the scientist and engineering field.
So there is a lot of opportunity for you guys if you are interested in this line of work.
Now, Fred, what other kinds of engineers besides the engineering folks in your department work out here at Johnson Space Center?
Do we have folks like in Mission Control that are engineers?
>> We do have Mission Control engineers.
They work -- they work with astronauts and the crew even more so than we would in my area.
We have engineers in food production.
We have engineers in all aspects of life, pretty much.
Here at Johnson Space Center we have scientists, as I mentioned, with plant growth.
They deal with the water regeneration.
>> Robotics engineers.
>> Robotics engineers.
We have engineers everywhere.
Engineering is a very wide field that you can go into.
We have chemical engineers.
We have civil engineers.
We have a variety.
Industrial engineers, environmental engineers.
We have a variety of engineers that work in the space industry.
>> Gregory is a student who writes in and wants to know what the face plate of space suits are made out of.
He's thinking we have some sort of special materials to protect them from the space environment.
Obviously a lot of engineering design has to go into space suits.
Do you know about that?
>> I'm not exactly sure.
I think it's a type of Plexiglas material.
But I'm not totally sure about that.
I can find that information out for you, though.
>> Great question, though, Gregory, thanks for asking.
We'll see if we can look that up for you.
Remind everybody to submit the questions.
How much do engineers make?
I think a lot of people know that engineering is typically a fairly lucrative field.
As a matter of fact here at NASA Johnson Space Center and all our centers engineers have to follow the GS code, is that correct?
I believe the scale is 7 to 15, GS7 to 15 for engineers.
>> The GS scale is for civil service government workers.
Those who work for the government.
I like to mention something about the salaries, also.
When I graduated from college, I had an opportunity to go work in a different industry different from the Johnson Space Center or from NASA itself.
And I would have made probably on the order of $10,000 more starting out for my salary, but that was not important for me.
What was most important for me was to be in a job I enjoyed and that I wanted to work in.
So I would not put that much -- while salary is a good thing, it's not the most thing.
You should do something that you enjoy doing and right now I can say I'm living comfortably and I make a good amount of money to live comfortably and enjoy life.
>> We have another question coming in.
Another student wants to know how much math and science do you use in your job on a daily basis?
>> Good question.
It varies from different jobs.
As I -- my job description, as I move forward further in terms of project management, I interact more so with different centers, different centers of NASA such as the space flight center, Ames Research Center and other centers.
I don't utilize so much the math and science in that aspect.
As I deal with my systems here at JSC and developing my systems I work a lot more with the math and science.
It is very important to get an understanding of your math and sciences for your job.
Each job has a more -- more requirement on math and science than others.
So depending on what you want to work in in engineering you may have to rely on those even more.
It's very important to learn those skills for your job.
>> Well, speaking of learning about all of those skills, the way we'll do that is in college.
And we have another question from a student who wants to know, what kind of degree do I need and how long do I have to go to school if I want to become an engineer?
>> Okay.
For -- if you want to become an engineer, a degree that you would most likely receive is an engineering degree.
There is a number of engineering fields out there.
You have mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, you even have civil engineering and also something called more of a biological engineering where you deal with with human factors and human factors engineering.
There is a wide variety of engineering.
Again, the math and sciences are very important in that in learning your math.
Your math is really critical.
You deal with those aspects.
You deal with the aspects of physics, too.
Those courses that you take, if you have an opportunity in high school to take any types of courses such as calculus or physics you should do that.
It gives you kind of a head start when you get to college.
Even your chemistry is very important.
Biology is important also.
Those are important courses to have as you prepare to take an engineering degree or if you want to work in a field of engineering.
>> For those of you just joining us, we are broadcasting live from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and we have NASA engineer Fred Smith with us here today to answer any and all of your questions that you might have about engineering here at NASA.
So submit those questions into our chat room and we'll try to answer them for you.
We've got another question, Fred, from a student who writes in and wants to know if engineering is a good option for women.
>> Definitely.
Definitely that is a very good option for women.
There is no restrictions there.
Engineers is a good option for everyone.
It has a wide variety, again, as I mentioned, of area you can go into.
Whatever you like doing, I think you can find it in the field of engineering.
I wanted to mention also something about working at Johnson Space Center.
There are so many areas, too, if you want to work in the space industry, there are so many different areas that we're involved with that we interact with that you can even find that in your -- you can find something that can be tied in with the space industry.
>> Great.
Well, we don't want to put you on the spot but we have a student who wants to know what has been your biggest challenge that you've had to deal with and overcome as an engineering here at NASA?
>> Good question.
The biggest challenge?
You know, the working environment at NASA is such a wonderful working environment.
You have a lot of team members.
You have a lot of people would work with you to help you develop and to learn more.
You have a lot of people that you can call upon to give you -- help you understand and help you to develop systems.
The team environment is so great that the challenges become less difficult for you.
The main thing that I have to -- you have to remember as an engineer and as you work is to be able to work in a team environment.
You need to be able to interact with people.
Because you need to work with others to help you become a better engineer.
You need to be able to work with others to build your systems because it is not just one person.
It's a team effort, if you will.
At NASA, I worked with Marshall Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center.
NASA is one group that we work together with and we work with contractors as one also.
It's very important to be able to work together.
>> Okay.
Can you describe a little bit more about the teamwork in the systems that you're building?
I know you have another example of a project that your team worked on.
Could you maybe talk to us a little bit about how all those components came together to make that project successful?
>> The project is the Lunar Mars -Mars Life Support Test Project.
That project was a very large team effort and some of the video you saw earlier of myself and the crew members I worked with going to the chamber you could get an idea of the people that were involved there, the amount of people around.
We have contractors that work on building up the systems in the chamber environment for that particular project.
We have different individuals who work with the plants and have to integrate those plants into a system for a person to live in.
This video here we see one individual, Dr. PACOM he was one crew member by himself in the first test we completed but the teamwork that went in to develop this test and get it prepared is tremendous.
We have plant scientists, soil scientists that work together.
We have groups from the scientific area here at Johnson Space Center as well as the engineering area as Johnson Space Center that help ensure the safety of the people doing the tests, as well as the safety of the systems that we work with.
We have a tremendous group effort and team effort that work in Johnson Space Center.
>> Well, Fred, we have another question from a student who wants to know, if you weren't working for NASA how would you be applying your engineering knowledge in the commercial industry?
>> That's a good question.
That's a hard one because I can't really imagine myself not working for NASA.
Working for NASA has been a dream of mine for a long time since I was very young and just thinking of working somewhere else is just hard for me to imagine.
I guess if I was working somewhere else outside of NASA in the industry I would probably be working on systems that would probably be directly applicable to the space program.
I would try to, at least.
I would probably be working in the environmental control systems looking at technologies that will help purify your water systems or purify your air systems.
I think that would be a area I would go into now.
>> We have got some students out there who are interested because we have a question wanting to know if there is an engineering society for students.
Now, I know that there is the junior engineering technical society.
And they have a website if you guys are interested.
It's WWW.jets.org.
If any of you students out there are interested in finding out more about opportunities that students can participate in looking at a long-term career in engineering.
Now, what about -- you mentioned Co-oping.
Talk about the student opportunities that we have here at NASA, not just at Johnson Space Center but NASA-wide about the engineering and student-related programs, Fred.
>> Okay.
Sherri.
Co-oping is -- cooperative education is one method that is a very good method to allow college students to get experience working on a job and learning more about what that job entails, such as -- also learning more about engineering.
I worked as a Co-op early on in about 1990 is when I started here as a Co-op.
It allowed me to come to work for NASA for one semester and then go back to school and take my course study for the next semester and come back to NASA the next semester.
Kind of an alternating thing as you work as a Co-op.
There are also other areas you can internship also at different centers than at NASA Johnson Space Center where you come in during the summer and participate and do real work.
I don't want to underestimate the valuable experience and the valuable contribution that Co-ops, that you can have as a student in giving to the space program.
As a Co-op you have an opportunity to work on real programs, real projects that have some impact, usually, on the space industry.
It is a very good opportunity to learn more and also to give something to the space industry.
>> Thanks.
So again, students, that website that we mentioned earlier is www.jets.org.
If you're interested in the Co-op program or other students programs here at Johnson Space Center or any of the NASA sites, you can log on to NASA's website.
Our education website which is education.jsc.NASA.gov.
You guys submit the questions.
We're plowing through them and trying to get through as many as we can so we keep going back and looking at all of the questions that are coming in.
Another question, Fred, that we have received, what are some of the challenges of building and designing equipment to be used in a microgravity environment?
You and I are in one of the largest training facilities out here at Johnson Space Center.
Down on the floor of the building we're in, we have some of the models and mock-ups that the astronauts train in.
One of them is the space shuttle.
Can you talk about some of the engineering design challenges we had to consider in designing our space shuttle?
We can just to note, everyone.
These are live video footage.
You can see people walking around down there.
Of the space shuttle mock-up of the building that Fred and I are in.
>> Well, there are a number of interesting challenges in the space industry in general and with the space shuttle in particular.
You probably heard a lot of information about the space shuttle recently from the news media.
When you're going from earth to orbit what we call microgravity or 0 gravity environment where you're free falling or fleeting around the earth.
There are challenges in that also.
When you interact in microgravity environment things don't operate the same as they do here on earth.
One thing, for instance, is when you take for granted drinking water, for instance, and having water in a system, we have -- you have air and water, for instance.
In a microgravity system area, you have to worry about separating air from water when you think about pumping water from one system to another, or utilizing air in a system.
You don't want to have water and air mixed together in your pumping system.
You have to separate those things on.
On earth you have gravity to assist you.
In a microgravity environment you don't have that.
You have to design equipment that can separate the water from the gas stream.
So that is one challenge.
Also coming back the earth you have temperature challenges.
A thermal environment challenges that you have to deal with.
When you're in an enclosed vehicle, you have equipment that is operating and that equipment generates heat.
So you have to remove -- if you don't do anything with that heat it will keep building up and make your environment not tolerable for your crew.
You need to find ways to remove that heat from your environment.
So there are different things.
That's another challenge that you have to worry with.
We have the challenge of just providing food and eating.
The basic things that you do -- may take for granted on earth you have to take into consideration those things in orbit.
And here we have examples.
Eating, for instance.
It's one challenge.
Here we have an example of how you would package your food system for orbit.
You can't have it sitting out freely like you do at home.
You have to take into consideration how you would design how you would interact in a microgravity environment to eat and prepare your food.
>> Fred, I know it can be quite challenging for our astronauts to eat in space and a whole lot of engineering goes into the design of these food packages, storage, preparation for actual dining and how do we handle the trash that is left over of the packaging once we do eat the food.
We know it can be quite challenging and fun for our astronauts to eat in space.
We have a little video of our astronauts kind of playing with their food in space.
We want to share it with you guys for a nice mid-morning chuckle.
Let's watch.
>> All right.
We've got another great question.
A student wants to know what is the career outlook for engineers.
>> Career outlook.
>> Will there be a lot of jobs, something that is going to be going away or?
>> Good questions.
Career outlook for engineering is good.
There will always be a need for engineering in everyday life.
Engineering is involved in everything you do from packaging your candy bars to designing large roads and also buildings and bridges.
Engineering is a very -- is a large field and it is involved in every aspect, almost, of your life.
When you sit down to eat, the chair you sit in has to have some engineering design going into it.
>From the table that you sit at also.
For your house that you -- your apartment or your buildings that you are sitting in, your school that you're in, engineering is involved in that also.
So the field is so wide that there is always going to be a need for engineers and probably more engineers as we become more and more technologically advanced, as we grow and learn more, engineers will become even more critical.
I would encourage you highly to go into the field of engineering if you have some interest in it.
>> Well, here is an interesting fact about the profession.
There are 1.2 million engineers currently at work in America.
Which makes it the nation's second largest profession.
So I would definitely say that the career outlook for engineering is very strong.
Well, Fred, let's talk a little bit more about the types of engineering things that we do here and training areas, particularly in a microgravity environment.
Now, we don't have a room here that the astronauts can go in and start floating around.
We all think there is a room like that.
We got news for you.
We haven't been able to design a room like that.
We have to come up with some other ways to train our astronauts for this microgravity environment.
One of those ways is in the NBL.
Can you talk about that?
>> The NBL is a unique facility that allows crew members and astronauts and engineers to learn more -- kind of simulate, I should say, the -- your environment in space.
It's not the same exactly but it does give you something close that you can work with and understand better the engineering challenges that you'll have for working in space.
The NBL is a large pool, basically, swimming pool, where if you -- what we call put your astronauts at a neutral buoyant position you basically are kind of floating in the pool.
So it gives you that floating sensation and that simulation of being in space from that aspect.
You can learn more about the tools that you need to work with.
You see astronauts here are somewhat in the space suit working with a system maybe -- probably the International Space Station system learning how to operate a system or to put something together that will need to go on that space station.
This gives them an opportunity to evaluate tools they need to use to work with systems and evaluate the suit itself and how much freedom you have to move around and what you can actually do as opposed to not do in orbit.
>> Well, the video that we were just looking at was live video footage out at the NBL of astronauts training now.
That was really cool.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
I know the swimming pool is not the only way we train our astronauts.
Don't we have some sort of airplane?
>> Yes, we do.
It is a unique airplane also.
Something we call the KC135.
It gives you also a period of microgravity or zero gravity for 20 seconds.
What the plane does, it performs a number of things.
40 to 50 on a daily flight on its flight mission.
And it gives -- as you can see people floating around it gives you the microgravity condition where you can actually learn more about your systems, your equipment.
For an engineer like myself it would give me the opportunity to take technology that I'm working with and put it on the airplane to see how it performs actually in that environment.
I mentioned before separating gases from liquids.
The plane can allow us an opportunity to test out a technology to see how well it is separating the gases from the liquids so it provides an important and unique capability to test out living and working in space and technology that will need to go into space.
>> When our astronauts are in a microgravity environment, movement is a big challenge.
Trying to move from one area of the station to another or even trying to stand still to perform a task or work on an experiment or even eat your afternoon snack.
Our engineers had to address those very simple tasks that we need to just be able to stay still or be able to move from one place to another.
I know they've come up with a number of different tools that our astronauts have used.
Could you talk about these?
>> This is a type of restraint.
Again in microgravity because you have no friction, basically, what you saw in the neutral buoyancy lab.
In the microgravity of space you don't have the friction to move around or get yourself oriented differently.
If you push off of something, you've seen pictures of astronauts in space where they throw food, for instance.
When they throw it it will keep going because there is not much friction in space.
Pretty much no friction unless something stops it.
It's the type of force action.
Good old Newton's law.
You need an opposite force to stop that reaction or change direction of that body.
When an astronaut is in space if they need to move or to perform some act, if they push off or if they push off of something, they'll keep going unless they're restrained or have something to hold them or act -- oppose an opposite force on them.
Restraints are designed to help -- to keep that crew member stationary.
To keep that crew stationary.
You could put in here, for instance, so while you're doing some work or reaching to do something, you can stay stationary.
If you're pushing off a wall, for instance, this restraint here will keep the crew member from floating away.
It is important to have a restraint to do that.
In utilizing these systems in orbit you would pretty much try to use them as much as possible.
You probably can't use them everywhere.
You have types of restraints or outside the spacecraft also that the crew members would need to be able to hold onto or to latch onto to keep them stationary.
Wherever you want to do work in space you need restraints to keep the crew members stationary.
Even if you're in orbit and the crew member is working with a tool.
If they don't have anything to help keep them secure.
If they have something that ratchets or has a torque to it or turns itself, if you don't have a crew member something to hold on to, that torque of the tool could make you turn also with that equipment.
>> If you use a power drill and you don't have something to stabilize yourself, maybe like a hand hold that you're holding onto you'll spin around and around with the power drill?
>> Exactly.
>> That sounds like a lot of fun to me.
It won't get the job done, though.
>> Exactly.
>> Is this hand hold the same type of concept you can use it anywhere inside the station?
>> Pretty much.
It's pretty similar to this.
This would be something that you can lock into what we call feet track, for instance.
And you can place that in different positions.
They have them stationed throughout the station, throughout the space station to hold on as they do work.
Working on an experiment or at a console.
You can hold onto these to keep you secure.
>> We have about 10 minutes left so we want to encourage you, if you have any last-minute questions to submit them in the chat room and we'll try to get those answered before the end of our program today.
We have more questions in, Fred.
Let's take a stab at them.
One of the students wants to know, when did you decide that you wanted to go into the field of engineering and what was it that made you decide that?
>> That's a good question.
I pretty much decided that I wanted to do something with the space industry when I was about in the sixth grade.
The closest thing that I could think of or knew about back then was that aerospace sounded pretty much like the right way to go.
Aerospace engineering.
That is a good field to go into also as an engineer.
So that kind of got me going, helped me decide to go into engineering.
Just the aspect of dealing with airplanes and space vehicles is what helped me decide.
That was probably back when I was in the sixth grade or so.
>> Someone else wants to know if you still want to be an astronaut.
>> Yes, I would like to be an astronaut.
I still have that goal and dream to become an astronaut.
Definitely.
I will keep pursuing that from even now.
I plan on pursuing that even further.
Yes, I definitely want to be an astronaut.
>> Okay.
We have someone -- another student who wants the know if you're an engineer do you have to spend a lot of time away from your family?
>> Not necessarily.
Not necessarily, no.
Again, depends on what type of job you're doing.
In any field of working that you're dealing with in industry itself, not only engineering.
It depends on what specific job that you do.
In my particular job I'm not working what we call a flight project, which have usually a little more strict and intense schedule.
So I have a little bit more flexibility on my time.
Still, I have -- I do have some -- a pretty strenuous at times schedule to follow.
It allows me more flexibility so I don't have to spend time away from home.
I don't have a family, children or anything like that or a wife or spouse, so I don't -- that issue isn't as much as others may have.
Depending on what field you go into and what projects more so that you may be working, that will direct how much time you have to spend away from home, if you have to spend any.
>> Ms. G.'s class in Colorado has another question for us.
They said in 2001, a space Odyssey, they show the astronauts living in a round gravity room so it creates artificial gravity.
Are we working on anything like that here at NASA to create gravity for our astronauts?
>> That's a very good question.
More recently some of the direction that we're going or looking into is to see if we can create vehicles for longer-duration missions such as going to Mars.
To create an artificial gravity environment by spinning and creating the centrifugal force that will give you that environment.
We're looking into that more as an option for helping the crew to deal with that microgravity aspect.
When you think about it again one of the other challenges of microgravity on the human body yourself.
One of the things you have on earth is gravity to assist to work with.
You're working basically against gravity which then works your muscles and bones and you are doing some work there.
But in space, you don't have the gravity that you have to work with or work against, I should say.
And you tend to lose muscle mass sometimes and you can also lose some bone density.
So as one of the requirements of space, you have to exercise a lot.
That is one of the things you see a video of one of the astronauts doing some exercise.
That is to basically keep the bone density in your muscles up to strength so when you come back to gravity environment you won't have as much difficulty in working or moving, getting around.
That's a critical function, too, as you think about going from earth to Mars, for instance, or earth to some other planetary surface, you want to be able to do some useful work when you get there and not be incapacitated for a period of time.
>> Hi there, Mrs. W.'s class in Michigan.
You guys want to know if we are studying hydroponics for use in space.
>> Yes, we are.
It was that kind of system itself.
We've utilized that in testing throughout lots of advanced life support systems.
We look not only at soil systems, we look at hydroponic systems, too, to help us grow plants.
>> Thanks, Michigan.
So far we've had folks from Colorado and Michigan write in.
Let's hear from all the rest of the 50 states.
We have six minutes left so keep the questions rolling in.
Our next question comes from a student who wants to know, how long did it take for you to train to prepare for your 60-day test before you actually began the project itself?
>> Very good question.
The training is very important and as well as training for astronauts is critical, too.
It took -- for us to prepare for that test, we had months of training.
And that was on a somewhat of a condensed schedule.
If could have had more we would have had more.
Training is very important.
Training for the types of experiments that you would conduct.
In my particular tests that we conducted 12 to 13 medical-type of experiments which looked at sleeping.
Your sleeping habits.
Looked at nutrition, the types of food you're eating and how nutrition is affected.
We looked at exercise and psychology.
A number of different types of areas of dealing with space environment.
My particular test was a simulation of what would go the International Space Station.
We had to train to learn more about the experiments as well as train on the systems that we would be dealing with, life support systems, for instance.
We had to train and know the technologies so that we could work on them.
We were inside the chamber with those technologies so we had to no -- know the ins and outs of those technologies.
It's a critical thing when you think about long duration missions.
As you get further away from earth you can't -- you don't have the reliability or the opportunity to receive things from earth.
Earth is not just a snap away or not close.
It could be months away, for instance.
You can't rely upon the resources from earth as much as you can if you're just in low earth orbit as the station.
So you have to learn and be able to exist in this autonomous environment.
You have to be able to be self-sufficient in that environment.
It is partly what we had to learn to do in our training.
>> We've got some students out there who have obviously read your bio that we have on-line for you.
They notice you have a psychology degree.
They want the know if you're using it in your job today and if so, how.
>> Good question.
Yes, psychology I'm not using it in my everyday job.
The tests I mentioned and also in your astronaut selection and astronaut -- being an astronaut particularly or in space flight, psychology plays a very important role in the aspect of my chamber test that I was in.
In that aspect of it I was able to utilize.
When you're dealing in closed environments for long periods of time you have to think about those aspects.
You can't take those psychological aspects for granted.
You have to be able to understand what is going on from a psychological standpoint as you deal day-to-day in your life situation.
If you feel aggravated, for instance.
If you're feeling a little bit restless, for instance, you need to be able to have that psychological input of what may happen from day after day 40, for instance, that you're in a closed environment.
There are certain things you can learn from a psychological standpoint as you do tests and long-duration missions in the Mir space station or the International Space Station that are cues that can help a future crew prepare for those psychological aspects.
>> Well, unfortunately we're about out of time.
We tried to answer as many questions as we could.
We hope we got yours answered.
We thank you so much for joining us.
If you would like to keep up with what is going on in the space flight program, please go to our website at space flight.NASA.gov to find out the latest goings on in the space program, the human space flight program and find out what is going on in Fred's department.
The advanced life support group.
You have a webpage.
Fred, thank you so much for spending this time with all of us here today and answering so many of our questions.
You have been very helpful.
I think we have a lot of students who are interested in pursuing engineering as a career.
And we want to challenge you to keep studying, keep excelling and you are sending wonderful questions which show some really bright forethought on your part.
We encourage you to keep that up.
So until we see you next time, we would like to say so long from the quest program at Ames Research Center and the Distance Learning Outpost at Johnson Space Center at NASA.
Bye-bye.l