Projects from the Astronaut Office

In my last journal, I wrote about Flight STS-95 and all the work we did to investigate any repercussions that might have resulted from the chute door coming of the Orbiter a few seconds after launch. Following the STS-95 landing, further investigation revealed that the cause of the door coming off was that the pins holding the chute door on were not made of strong enough material. (These pins look kind of like hitch pins.) A decision was made to change the material to Inconel®, which is much stronger and less likely to break due to the stress of launch. Also, to be on the safe side, when STS-95 landed, NASA had elected not to use the drogue chute for landing. Although, we did many hours of testing and felt sure we could use the chute, there was still a bit of concern.

Currently, I am doing some very different things (for me) which are more on the management end of things. Sometimes it is not as exciting as some of the activities I used to perform but gives me a different perspective on the Shuttle program and the Space Station program. I do not attend as many meetings as I did when I was more technically involved which is a good thing because the meetings can get rather long. Now, I spend more time dealing with personnel issues, like salaries and personalities, dealing with my upper management and attending staff meetings. I also work with NASA management to ensure that we are providing the proper kind and amount of engineering support they desire. I am a people person, and I enjoy working with people at all levels. Currently, I have about 19 engineers working for me in the Astronaut Office. These engineers support various astronauts in the office and perform a wide variety of functions working on many different types of projects.

I have several engineers who work in Payloads and Habitability Support for the International Space Station (ISS). This involves the types of payloads that will be flown aboard the Space Station as well as the crews' living conditions while they are aboard the ISS. In simplistic terms, this can be anything from what color the walls should be to where things are located and what types of equipment will be available to the crew.

I recently was requested by the astronaut office to find an engineer to be known as an Expedition Corps Engineer. The lady we hired for this position will support the expedition astronauts; that is, those astronauts identified to fly on the ISS for long periods of time. Expeditions are also referred to as increments. US astronaut Bill Shepherd is the first expedition's commander and he is going up with two Russian astronauts to be the first inhabitants of the Space Station.

We have realized for a long time that there is a real need for training, of U.S. astronauts in particular, for long duration space flight. The US has not had the long duration flight experience that the Russians have had because they had their own space station (MIR). Our Expedition Corps Engineer's job is to work closely with astronaut Andy Thomas, who is the branch chief for the Expedition Corps of Astronauts. She is coordinating the field training, classroom training, including seminars, and any other training needed. She has just returned from a seven-day hike in the wilderness with three other astronauts and some other people who are bidding with NASA to conduct some of these courses. Shannon Lucid was one of those astronauts included on this trip to the desert in Utah. The goal of this training was to accomplish working together as a team adapting to strange or different conditions. When expedition crews do field-training exercises in Russia, the Expedition Corps Engineer will be right there participating along with the crewmembers. Some people get to do some of the neatest things in the course of their job. That is why it is important to try to figure out what you would be happiest doing for a career and go after it.

The engineers in my division work on many different things. Most work supporting Space Station (hardware and flight), and a few support Shuttle - hardware systems, flight software, main engines/solid rocket boosters/external tank. Others support robotics hardware and software.

Another really neat thing is that all my employees get to travel all over the world. One lady is currently in Japan, and the others have traveled to places such as the Netherlands, Canada, Russia, Italy, Brazil, California, and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Although I travel some, I mostly get to travel vicariously through them when I hear all about their experiences. I have never been on a trip to Russia, but I would like to go sometime in the future. I would also like to visit Germany.

I am still working the Landing and Roll-Out Support within the astronaut office, which allowed me to go to Ames several times in 1999 for testing. While I was out there on one of my trips, I did a live webcast for Space Team Online, which was a lot of fun. When I go to Ames, we work building training matrices (or plans) for the pilots to fly in the VMS (Vertical Motion Simulator) to stay proficient. Interestingly enough, the matrices are designed on a spreadsheet program. Each pilot goes through a matrix of about 20 runs with different conditions - landing sites, times of day, cross winds, tire conditions, or landing weights. Landing weights are important especially if we have to do a RTLS or Return to Launch Site. This would cause the shuttle to be heavier than normal, so the pilots must practice this.

Remember, the landing to roll-out phase includes everything from touchdown to wheel stop. The shuttle touches down in a two-point stance (the rear two wheels are on the ground). Then they de-rotate and bring the nose gear down. Then they are in a three-point stance (all three wheels are on the ground). Then the pilot rolls out to a stop. Some of the things we are concerned about during this phase of flight are strong crosswinds and other weather conditions and if the shuttle is too high or low on energy (meaning the shuttle is going too slow or too fast). All of these things will affect landing.

An interesting fact to know is that an astronaut pilot (flies right seat) must have 500 approaches flying the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) and a commander (flies left seat) must have at least a 1000 of these approaches before actually flying the shuttle in that capacity.