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PART 1: Next WebChat: April 16 with Steve
Soko NEXT WEBCHAT: APRIL 16 WITH STEVE SOKOL
Weatherman Steve Sokol will be the next guest in the online chat series. Space missions are very dependent on weather conditions. Top shuttle managers rely on people like Steve to provide them accurate information about current and future weather conditions. Often Steve's insights feed heavily into go/no-go decisions for launch or landings. Steve's chat is scheduled for April 16 from 10-11 am Pacific (1-2 pm Eastern) . Before attending the chat, we strongly suggest that your students read Steve's biography and Field Journal. If you plan to chat, you must register for the event. Sign up now by sending a brief email note to rsvp-sto@quest.arc.nasa.gov This RSVP is very important, since it will allow us to ensure that the chatroom does not become too crowded. For more details, and for the complete schedule, please visit: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/events/interact.html WEEKLY WEBCHATS WITH STO DEVELOPERS
A new opportunity is now available to connect live with other
teachers and the Shuttle Team Online (STO) development team.
Every Thursday, we will meet virtually online to discuss issues and
learn from one another. This is really a forum for teachers and others
who are attempting to use the project with students. Hopefully your
questions about the STO project will get answered. I know the STO
team will come with our listening-ears on, ready to adapt the project
to meet real teacher requirements.
We will hold the discussion on the Web using a technology called
WebChat. To use it, you only need a Web browser like Netscape or
Microsoft's Internet Explorer. These teacher chats will be similar to
the student/NASA-expert forums (described above in PART 1) which
are being held weekly. So these Thursday chats will allow you to get
comfortable with the technology before you bring a whole class into
the chat room..
On Thursdays, we will alternate the starting time of the one hour
discussion. We hope this will allow for participation from teachers
on the east coast, west coast, and everywhere in between and
beyond.
The schedule for the next few weeks is:
Pacific Eastern
April 17 3:00pm 6:00pm
April 24 noon 3:00pm
May 1 3:00pm 6:00pm
To join the fun, point your web browser to:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/events/interact.html
[Editor's note: Jeff is an inspector on the Space Shuttle. His main job is to verify that work performed on the Orbiter and Ground Support Equipment meets or exceeds the strict criteria for safe and successful flights. On a typical day he may look at the outer skin of the vehicle for corrosion, cracks, stress, and damage from the heat of re-entry into the Earth's, or he may look for leaks in the hydraulic system.] INVESTIGATING A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS SITUATION March 11, l997 Not all jobs are strictly the inspection type. I often get to be involved with special teams as a representative of the Quality Assurance organization. Sometimes the focus of the team is to improve a process we are involved in or utilizing new technology to make a difficult job easier. One of the more difficult tasks I have been assigned to is Incident Investigation. Recently, we had an incident in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF). Some of the fuel we use in the Reaction Control System on the Orbiter was trapped in what was thought to be a dry system. It was not much in volume, but this is very dangerous stuff! To make a long story short, when the technician and inspector opened the cap on the end of this system, out came some fuel. After everything was cleaned up and the system and people were safe, the task of finding out how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again began. I was assigned as the Quality peer on the team to investigate the incident. The team I was on consisted of representatives from Engineering, Shop (technicians), Human Factors, Safety, the Orbiter Test Conductor group (OTC), and myself for Quality. First, we had the difficult task of piecing together what caused the incident. This consisted of interviewing the people involved, listening to recording of the NET (the Net is the communications system for Shuttle operations), viewing the area, and researching the information that we had available to us. Then we had to combine the information we had gathered and use it to form a plan that would prevent it from happening again. The team had many items to discuss and we did not always agree on what we should recommend to management. However, with only a few minor setbacks we were able to come up with a set of recommendations. This was a very fulfilling thing to accomplish. The team worked together well, and was able to use the expertise of each member to find and recommend corrections that would help prevent this from happening again. One thing that did come out of the meetings for me personally, was how important it is that you follow emergency procedures. We have fire drills in all areas of the Kennedy Space Center just like they have in any school in the country. Following the rules helped the incident to be isolated to just the area involved and prevented anyone else from getting hurt. Also, in this particular incident the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) helped save the people involved from very serious injury. Finally, the people involved used the emergency equipment that was available in all facilities because of the hazardous materials we have to deal with on a daily basis. Over all, the proper training and following procedures kept the incident from turning into something really bad. To wrap up, the recommendations for improvements have been submitted to management and they are under review. The team has mostly been dissolved and I plan to take the lessons I have learned about safety back to my work place to utilize them. This will make me a better employee, and also will help me improve my job, helping to keep the Shuttle flying safely and reliably. [Editor's note: Janis is part of a team that determines the nutritional requirements of space flight. In other words, she finds out what foods and nutrients are important for the astronauts as they venture into space.] HARD THINKING ABOUT THE MENU FOR ASTRONAUTS March 17, 1997 I have enjoyed the field of nutrition for several years. What is special about this science is that it combines biology and chemistry in a practical way. Foods and nutrients are made of chemicals which act together to affect all the body's processes - it can be a very exciting field. Today, so many diseases are related to life style choices - and nutrition is one of those that has a major impact on health. I studied nutrition in college and graduate school, and had my first exposure to what nutrition was all about one summer in Guyana when I was involved in a US-sponsored feeding program in rural areas in Guyana. My first job out of graduate school was at a USDA research center at Baylor College of Medicine (at the Texas Medical Center on Houston) dedicated to determining the nutritional requirements of children. After 3 years there, I joined the space program. It has been a rewarding and exciting career path. My job provides a wide breadth of experiences. In one of my early projects we examined how many calories the astronauts would need to eat while they flew on the Shuttle. During this study we measured how much food they ate by scanning each food item with a bar code reader, a little like the one they use in the grocery store. We also measured how many calories they burned and found out that, on the shorter Shuttle flights, the astronauts use the same number of calories as they do here on Earth. We are now involved in a number of ground-based and flight studies which look at the role of nutrition in keeping the astronauts healthy, especially during the long flights. [Editor's note: Bob is a mathematician/computer programmer. The kind of math he knows about is extremely useful for making some shuttle and control center computers be able to do some simple, common sense reasoning that we humans can do without even thinking about it. For example, Bob helped write a computer program that "watches" signals from the electrical power system on the Shuttle, and from "seeing" how much current is being pulled over a period of time, figures out what electrical devices are running.] COMPUTER HELPS TO KEEP SHUTTLE CREW BREATHING March 26, l997 The front-burner job for today was to prepare for a "code review" which is a meeting in which you read, discuss and explain page after page of computer software. The purpose of a code review is to be sure that our computer program does what we want. It also has to make sure that our procedures are explained well enough so that the engineers who will be taking over responsibility for our program will be able to fix problems and make improvements when they need to. This particular computer program monitors a machine on the Space Shuttle that removes excess carbon dioxide from the air that the crew breathes. The flight controllers must watch many critical systems on the shuttle to be sure everything is working correctly, and our program provides an "assistant" to handle this one simple task so that they can concentrate on more important activities. OK, 1 file down, 7 to go. It has been so long since I've looked at this project that it all seems new to me now. That is not such a bad thing since part of the review process is to approach the project leaving behind the assumptions that you make when you're in the middle of the project. Anyway, so far so good. I still understand what we did, and these comments (notes imbedded in the program) that Dave wrote are very helpful. --More later, Robert Shelton. [Greg works at the Kennedy Space Center for the group that is responsible for the shuttle's external tank, solid rocket boosters, main engine and thermal protection system. This journal was written just before the launch of STS-83.] INSPECTING CONNECTIONS AND INSULATION April 3, 1997: Since I belong to the Mechanical Systems Division, a group responsible for the physical connections between boosters, tank, and orbiter, as well as the thermal protection systems (insulation on the external tank and tiles on the orbiter), we must perform many inspections right up to launch. These inspections have been happening on a daily basis as we have many things to check. For example, a structural inspection would look for bent parts, cracks in the metal, missing nuts and bolts, etc. Of course, we do not expect to find any of these things as the installation procedures are very meticulous and should preclude mistakes from happening. Nevertheless, we want to inspect everything as thoroughly as we can just in case a flaw in a metal part would become visible as a crack. Since the Shuttle flies faster than a speeding bullet, any defects could potentially have catastrophic consequences. So we try to launch a Shuttle in a condition as perfect as possible. Likewise, we take a careful look at the different types of insulation. Areas that have cracked or degraded in some way can cause two types of problems. Any insulation that might come off in flight might hit and damage the delicate tiles on the lower surface of the orbiter. This could the tile to fail in protecting the orbiter from the awesome heat of re-entry. The other problem in losing insulation off the tank or booster could mean a local hotspot because the protection is now gone. The trick to keeping insulation bonded to metal parts was solved years ago, but we found that damaged insulation will either come off in pieces or erode away during the high-speed flight. So again, we try to launch a Shuttle with virtually perfect insulation. This afternoon, we will do a very thorough and complete inspection of the entire Shuttle and the launch pad - trying to look at every square inch - to make sure everything is ready for launch. If we detect any problems, they will have to be resolved as quickly as possible before fueling (loading the external tank) starts early tomorrow morning. [Editor's note: Kurt works at the Graphical Research and Analysis Facility Laboratory, or GRAF Lab for short. He mainly deals with vision and elbow room. If a NASA person needs to find out if an astronaut can see an experiment, person, dial, or whatever from a certain place, then Kurt is the man! Also he helps determine which astronauts can be working in the Space Lab without getting in each other's way. More of Kurt's weekly journals are available at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/journals/bush] LOTS OF JOBS FOR A GRAPHICS GUY March 7, 1997 OK, what have I been up to at the GRAF lab this week? Well, for one, it's been real busy this week. Monday - Today I finished up the pictures for the IMAX group. They wanted to know what the International Space Station looks like out of their fisheye lens for the entire mission of STS-88. So I worked on making pictures of the space station as they approach, grab, connect, attach, release, and watch it go. It took a lot of work to make these pictures. You've got to know how the shuttle is pointing, which direction the camera is pointing, and how much that monster lens can see. (Trust me, that lens can see a lot.) When you put all these things together, whammo, a cool picture of a space station attached to the shuttle is made, with the Earth in the background for added reality. They really liked the pictures. They will be using these pictures to help train the crew on when to hit the On button for the IMAX camera and to help them figure out what they want to do with the film. Tuesday - Now that the IMAX pictures are out of the way I began working on a reach analysis on the advanced orbiter. The advanced orbiter is kinda like the old orbiter but it has all new displays for the cockpit. Basically they're giving the orbiter the type of displays that other modern jets have, and taking out the displays that older planes once had. We were asked to figure out if the commander and pilot can reach these panels under the worst-case conditions. Worst-case condition is defined as being launched into space (three times the gravity pulling on you), and strapped securely to the seat. So looking at the average-sized male and female computer model, you extend their arms out and see if they can hit those display buttons. Then you do the same thing for the 5%-sized people (small males and females). You've got to check out all the different sizes of people because there are astronauts that are small in stature and those that look like they can beat Conan into pulp. I once saw an astronaut specialist that was only about 5 foot 2 inches, and then once I saw another astronaut (ex-Navy seal) that was over 6 feet tall. So all the equipment must be able to be used by all sets of sizes of people. Our lab has all the measurements of all the astronauts; the funny thing is that there are very few average-sized astronauts. They are usually very small or very tall. (Weird.) I also got some other work done. Our NASA boss came in with the boss of the Life Sciences and wanted some work done. (Eek!) So I made some pictures of a human-driven centrifuge. It is like a combination of an exercise bike attached to a merry-go-round. So I made a quick and easy computer model of this centrifuge and put it in our computer model of the orbiter in under 10 minutes. Eventually I found out where this proposed device could fit and made them a picture showing it can fit there. They were pleased with the pictures and left. (Those higher-up big wigs make me nervous.) Wednesday - Thursday: I am working on the reach of the computer people still and I noted that the smaller computer-modeled people couldn't reach the panels when the pilot's seat is set all the way back. The pilot's seat can be slid forward and back just like a car seat. I thought it was obvious that a small person and a chair put all the way back equals them not reaching the displays, but a lot of people were surprised to see this. Friday - The Earth Science Branch called in and wanted to see if they could have a picture out of the shuttle's camera for STS-84. The crew is using half of the cameras to measure how close they're getting to the Mir Space Station. (Mir is Russian for Peace.) Well, the Earth Science branch wants to borrow the cameras that the crew is using in the hopes that they both can use the view out the camera for separate reasons. But first they want to know what that camera can see before they ask for anything. So I got from them the expected altitude of the shuttle, which way it's pointing and what time in the orbit day the shuttle docks. Knowing this I can figure out (I'm not a math minor for nothing) where the Earth is and which direction the Sun is shining. Hopefully I will be able to finish these pictures today because next week I've got to start working on an animation of the Neurolab that will be flying on STS-90. They want the animation finished by the end of March because it's going to be put on their Web page and it's going on tour as they go to promote NASA. That's this week. See ya next week. 8-) STATUS OF STS-83
By now you probably have heard that the STS-83 microgravity mission flown by space shuttle Columbia was shortened because of a faulty fuel cell. Below and in the future, we'll provide some details about the landing and subsequent processing of Columbia as it gets ready to fly again. These reports will contain jargon and unfamiliar terms; our intent is not to confuse you, but to provide a glimpse at all the steps involved. Detailed daily reports about Columbia's processing can be found at the NASA Shuttle Status web site at http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/status/status.htm Since the last updates-sto message, Shuttle managers decided to cut short the STS-83 mission because of a problem with fuel cell No. 2. Since launch, the fuel cell displayed evidence of internal voltage degradation. Though 2 of the 3 fuel cells on Columbia were in working order, flight rules require that all three be functioning well to continue a mission. The solid rocket boosters were returned to Hangar AF on Sunday evening (April 6) and preliminary inspections showed no evidence of nozzle erosion. Preparations are underway to ship the STS-83 booster nozzles to Utah on Friday. Mission managers gave Columbia's crew a "go" for deorbit burn to occur at about 1:31 p.m. EDT on Tuesday April 8. The landing at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility occurred on the first opportunity at 2:33 p.m. EDT on runway 33. After touchdown, KSC ground crews towed Columbia to Orbiter Processing Facility bay 1. Earlier in the day, the Space Shuttle Endeavour was moved from OPF bay 1 to the VAB to make room for Columbia's arrival. Once in the OPF, post-flight deservicing began. Shuttle managers plan to remove fuel cell No. 2 this weekend for shipment to the vendor and inspection. Fuel cell No. 1, having about 2500 hours upon return, will also be removed and replaced. Preliminary post-landing inspections of Columbia reveal the tires and brakes to be in good condition. Tile damage will be assessed shortly. A review was held Friday April 11 by the Shuttle program which included inputs from all disciplines involved in preparing for Space Shuttle missions. According to Space Shuttle Program Manager, Tommy Holloway, "The Shuttle manifest for the remainder of the year, while tight, appears able to accommodate a reflight of Columbia and its MSL payload in early July with reasonable impact to Shuttle launch dates for the rest of calendar year 1997." Holloway added, "While shortening STS-83 was disappointing, we now are in a position to do everything possible to complete the mission STS-83 Reflight (STS-83R) with little or no impact to downstream flights. Also, it provides us with a unique opportunity to demonstrate our ability to respond to challenges such as this one." Managers intend to make a final decision on flying STS-83R next Friday once all organizations have made further schedule assessments.
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