[ Linda/NASAQuest - 12 - 21:58:45 ]
Welcome to our interim chat page. We apologize if you joined specifically to chat with Christine Wells and/or Helen Klein. The Chat with Christine Wells has had to be modified. Due to Hurricane Georges, Christine will be trying to join us later this week. In the meantime, our Life Sciences crew who have re-located to Orlando since being evacuated will join you to chat about our Challenge Project themes and the challenge it has been to change plans mid-stream.

[ Linda/NASAQuest - 13 - 07:33:50 ]
Good morning, little did we know when we chose the title "The Challenge Project" what challenges loomed ahead. Currently your NASA Life Sciences team is in Orlando, packing up for return to Key Largo where we hope to resume business by Monday a.m. - all conditions being good. Today, you have the opportunity to get to know some of the crew members who formed this project and put it together. They are anxious to answer your questions about the project, the themes, the status and what's been happening. I'm going to have them introduce themselves and address some of these issues.

[ KarenandKrisstina - 15 - 07:34:13 ]
Hello, Any questions out there for our hurricane dodging group? We're coming at you from rainy Orlando, FL where we are waiting to return to our underwater habitat.

[ KarenandKrisstina - 16 - 07:34:24 ]
Krisstina and I are trying to post a message, can anyone see it?

[ Linda/NASAQuest - 18 - 07:37:09 ]
RE: [Melanie] I'm from Sydney, Australia, has the chat with Kate Mulgrew scheduled for tomorrow your time Sat 26 been canceled due to Georges ?
Hi, Melanie. Tomorrow will be travel day for the crew. The schedule should resume on Monday. I will ask the scheduling personnel to tell you about Kate Mulgrew's status.

[ Bonnie - 19 - 07:37:21 ]
HI! I am here. Ready to answer questions and chat about the amazing occurrences during the past few days. It HAS been different than the expected.

[ KarenandKrisstina - 20 - 07:37:21 ]
Unfortunately, because of the hurricane, Kate Mulgrew will not be able to join us due to her filming schedule. She may be able to join us for a chat at a later time.

[ Linda/NASAQuest - 21 - 07:38:35 ]
RE: [Bonnie] Challenge - word with many meanings, and certainly new dimensions of challenge have been experienced by all of us involved with this project this week.
Bonnie, maybe you could enlarge of the type of challenge we had anticipated in planning this project.

[ Bonnie - 22 - 07:39:24 ]
While the news of the hurricane has been constant to all of you watching TV or tuned in to a radio station, probably "waiting" and trying to find the most accurate status reports has been one of the most difficult aspects for us.

[ KarenandKrisstina - 23 - 07:40:22 ]
The Orlando Sentinel headline reads: Keys take a direct hit, More than 20,000 homes in Key West flooded or suffered wind damage. The road into the Keys is damaged and residents will not be able to return until tomorrow (Sunday).

[ Bonnie - 24 - 07:43:13 ]
Challenge - to "spacey" folks (the NASA world) related to the challenge of spacecraft design, of how the body adapts to the microgravity environment of space flight, and determining countermeasures for barriers that would prevent us from exploring space. It is our Challenge to seek answers and unlock mysteries of life. Then, of course, each of us -you and I have our own personal challenge. IN both worlds, meeting those challenges head-on with a positive, can-do attitude takes us on heights to the stars....and this Challenge program salutes individuals who have chosen to view life from the perspective. Absolute proof of that is the number of participants who have changed their schedules so they may still join us in Key Largo next week to continue this Challenge journey.

[ Bonnie - 25 - 07:44:46 ]
The word this morning about Key Largo, the area to which we will be returning, is that there is minimum damage. Winds did reach 65 mph, floods had not yet occurred and are not anticipated. Lucky for us.

[ KarenandKrisstina - 27 - 07:46:10 ]
This has been a learning experience in planning and contingency planning. NASA has to contend with these sorts of issues in all types of missions. A one day weather related scrub for a shuttle mission impacts hundreds of workers, experiment timelines, data collection, etc. All of these factors have to be accounted for and contingency plans have to be in place for any delays.

[ Bonnie - 28 - 07:46:29 ]
Hey, Karen, we did manage to have a couple of days of diving before we had to evacuate. The experiences with the water activities looked fun and interesting. What is a challenge associated with one of those?

[ Linda/NASAQuest - 29 - 07:47:32 ]
RE: [Rose] I just came into the room, and haven't read all the messages above yet, but will begin now. I'm here, any questions?
Hi Rose, It's good to have you on board. For those outside who may be tuning in, Rose is our NASA Life Sciences Outreach leader (see her bio in the team section), and is getting ready to fly down and join us - just returning from other obligations in Europe. Welcome back Rose!

[ Bonnie - 30 - 07:47:40 ]
Welcome, Rose. It is good to hear from you.

[ Rose - 31 - 07:48:43 ]
Ah, I was just beginning to get confused over the time signatures, but I guess the time stamp is PDT. I was thinking that you'd been chatting at 7:30 and I'd missed you.

[ Bonnie - 33 - 07:49:57 ]
Our top questions right now are: 1. Are the roads open for our travel to Key Largo? (We think it will be so by noon today), 2. What is the on-site report from the Marine Resources Development Foundation, site of the Scott Carpenter Station? 3. How quickly can we begin again?

[ KarenandKrisstina - 34 - 07:50:27 ]
Rose, What are the Challenges of coming into the middle of a delayed mission and refocusing to achieve project goals?

[ Rose - 35 - 07:51:06 ]
I got the message this morning from Krisstina that she, at least, was heading down to Miami today. I'm guessing the Celeste is on her way, hence the suggestion that if I'm at the airport by 6 p.m. we could travel together. I'll be talking to my husband in about 10-15 minutes about our plans and Alyssa's, and haven't had a chance to talk with the airlines yet. But I suspect my arrival today is unlikely.

[ Bonnie - 37 - 07:52:54 ]
[ Linda/NASAQuest - 32 - 07:49:36 ] Perhaps you could address some of the links between this mission and our building excitement over the return to space of John Glenn on STS-95 next month...
Good question about STS-95. And, to our audience, tune in on Monday at 2:30 for a webchat with Sebastian O'Kelly, aide to Senator Glenn; David Liskowsky, Life Sciences Mission Scientist for STS-95; and David Tomko, Life Sciences at NASA Headquarters.

[ KarenandKrisstina - 38 - 07:54:05 ]
The one thing I keep remembering as we have to plan, adapt, and then plan again, is Tom Whittaker, on the Public Eye broadcast, having to leave Mt. Everest just hundreds of feet from the top because of health problems. But his return, just a few days later, not only proved his commitment to his goal but to himself. I think if he can do that, we should be able to meet this one with a lot less effort!

[ Rose - 40 - 07:56:47 ]
[ Linda/NASAQuest - 32 - 07:49:36 ] Rose, perhaps you could address some of the links between this mission and our building excitement over the return to space of John Glenn on STS-95 next month...
As for the link between Challenge and the flight that will return Senator Glenn to the space frontier; well, Senator Glenn is a genuine American hero, his return to spaceflight reminds us of a remarkable event in human exploration space. He also, at 77, represents a goal of mental and physical fitness that we can all aspire to. Those two elements form the themes of our Challenge mission, maximizing human potential (at all ages), and presenting achievements in exploration--exploration in space, in the ocean, in the mountains, in life, and in the life of the mind.

[ Bonnie - 41 - 07:57:15 ]
Good point, Krisstina. Another reality for astronauts is that it is not uncommon to have flight delays even up to the three seconds left to lift-off of the shuttle. Astronauts must be mentally prepared to adapt at a seconds notice, not become discouraged nor give-up, reassess and move forward.

[ Linda/NASAQuest - 42 - 07:57:27 ]
RE: [Rose] The chat software I'm using doesn't have little buttons by the questions so that I can direct answers to specific questions so you'll have to reason it out. Are we on-line with non-staff chatters? Is our main goal mutual communication or are we creating an archive for later viewing?
You've got it pegged. Because of difficulties in last minute readapting of the room, we are using a non/expert ready room just to communicate with folks (as we chat amongst ourselves about where we are, and the plans coming up).

[ KarenandKrisstina - 43 - 07:58:59 ]
Bonnie, to answer your earlier questions about activity challenges, even after planning and practicing the underwater activities, you find that everything in a foreign environment takes longer and is more difficult than expected. Underwater, as in space, your visibility is impaired due to equipment and other factors, movement is difficult and objects do not act as you expect them to. People don't either for that matter. It is very difficult to communicate underwater unless you are fluent in sign language.

[ Bonnie - 44 - 07:59:10 ]
Flexibility - one of my favorite words....quite appropriate to meeting any type of Challenge in a positive fashion.

[ Rose - 48 - 08:05:06 ]
Reflecting on everything taking longer in a unfamiliar environment- One of the aspects of planning a space mission in life sciences research that amazed me was putting together the overlapping timelines of activities for Neurolab (check out http://www.neurolab.nasa.gov). Scientists who were accustomed to ground-based (Earth-based) research intellectually understood that in the microgravity environment, items would float away if not anchored, and it would take time to position subjects, and the in general procedures would take longer to set up and do. But, still, the mission staff included Experiment Support Specialists (ESS's), and their job was to work with the scientists on the overall scheduling of the experiment--what flight day it would happen on, how long it would take, how to stow the equipment so that it could be most efficiently retrieved. And they had a 'rule of thumb' that doubled any reasonable estimate, because experience has empirically shown that estimates based on 'groundling' sensibilities have to be doubled to reflect the time that procedure will actually take in flight.

[ Bonnie - 49 - 08:05:48 ]
Karen, I like your answer. It reminds us that although we may anticipate how we might respond in different environments and situations, experiencing it may be quite different than we had expected or thought.

[ Bonnie - 50 - 08:10:08 ]
Another theme of our mission is the importance of staying physically and mentally active.....there is no doubt that we have been both these past few days. WE all have experienced few sleeping hours and much activity as we attempt to communicate to all Challenge participants, our friends and family at home, and to develop alternate plans. Whew! We are "living" our themes.

[ KarenandKrisstina - 51 - 08:10:41 ]
RE: [ Rose - 45 - 08:00:26 ] There is a great wealth of research information and a background of technological advance that has resulted from the study of living systems in space. The STS-95 mission will highlight those studies that reveal similarities between the physiology of aging and the physiology of human space adaptation. In fact, it is the first in a series of collaborations with the National Institute on Aging. Several years ago a similar collaboration was begun with NIA's parent organization, the National Institutes of Health, and resulted in a series of flight investigations on cell biology and rodent development.
Another NASA collaboration in studying living systems includes research performed at MRDF (where the Scott Carpenter Station resides) concerning human isolation studies and living in close quarters for extended periods of time, comparable to living and working in space. Of course the Russians have logged the most time in a truly remote environment aboard space station MIR.

[ Rose - 52 - 08:12:34 ]
RE: [ Bonnie - 47 - 08:02:28 ] Adapting to changes the hurricane has brought have required us to take a hard look at our goals and objectives for this mission and to prioritize them anew. In the new time frame, what is most important to accomplish and how do we reach out to audiences and let them know what will be our next step. Suggestions??
I believe that our first goal is now captured by the remark from K&K comparing our Challenge with Whittaker's experience on Everest. First and foremost our goal is to keep together as a team, get back to our location, our activities, our commitments, ....our dreams, just as fast a nature will let us. We knew that putting this project together would be a 'challenge', but we never imagined how we would all be baptized by fire (rather, hurricane) into the ranks of Challenge-takers.

Next is to re-initiate safe operations of the Space Analog Station. If we had any reason to believe that couldn't be done, we could certainly continue our Challenge exchange without that platform--nothing would stop us! But fortunately, it appears that we WILL be able to go back to the platform, and continue to host the NASA and non-NASA crew.

Next will be to arrange for the communication of the message, via the Internet. Chats, yes, and webcasts as soon as practicable. I hope that we will be able to get good on-site interactions, both from media and from those crew who are still able to come to us. So, putting together our informational materials and interacting with those individuals is on a level with the mass communication via the Internet. Supporting both those communication levels, Internet and person-to-person or person-to-media on-site are the activities that we had planned in training the crew, their underwater activities, their Space Analog Station activities, their logs, and their introduction to Space Life Sciences.

[ Bonnie - 53 - 08:16:59 ]
Linda has been super busy with keeping info on this website. Karen and Krisstina have kept the phone lines pulsing with messages to individuals awaiting word about when they can join us. I have worked with Krisstina on the alternate plan. Kathy has been key in inspiring us to keep "on-track" when our conversations take off on tangents. Christopher suggested an outline of organization that was helpful. Rose's leadership and continuous encouragement has been essential to morale and confidence. Dennis and his staff have maintained monitoring of the Scott Carpenter, and Chris O. from MRDF has kept us informed of conditions in Key Largo. This represents a TEAM - a great example of how space exploration efforts and personal accomplishments are quite dependent upon TEAMWORK - respect for the talents and skills each contribute and realization that we cannot do it all alone - besides it is much more enjoyable.

[ KarenandKrisstina - 54 - 08:19:23 ]
In being underwater for 24 hours, you begin to get a slight appreciation for how much we take for granted. We have to prepare for every simple thing we normally don't think about such as breathing, exhaling, waste management, food, temperature, etc. It's really a lesson in the complexities of life and how much it takes to support a living system.

[ Rose - 55 - 08:23:29 ]
It's my perception that there is less traffic in conversation now. At what point will we close the chat room and exchange logistics info? Wanna do that by phone or by chat?

[ KarenandKrisstina - 56 - 08:23:53 ]
Well, we're off to see for ourselves what the next challenge is in getting back to the Scott Carpenter Station. We'll see you all soon (whether in person or on the 'net.) Go forth and meet your challenge (Karen calls it "Carpe Diem")- Signing off- Karen and Krisstina

[ Linda/NASAQuest - 58 - 08:26:05 ]
Just a heads-up Bonnie, Stephanie from COSI let me know that they are planning to join us for their "Senior Day." She wishes all well.

[ Linda/NASAQuest - 59 - 08:27:16 ]
My clock shows 2 minutes to the scheduled end of this chat, so if we're all in accord, I'll sign off and archive the material presented here. Bye all!