Blueshift - April 2010

On the Edge of Space

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Maggie: Welcome to the May 2010 episode of Blueshift, the podcast from
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. I'm Maggie Masetti.

How many of us have wanted to be astronauts since we were kids? I know I
did.  And I know I'm not the only one. 

Right now, manned spaceflight's future may be somewhat uncertain, but it
appears that there might be new opportunities opening up for those wishing
to experience a trip to space.   One of these is the idea of doing science
aboard sub-orbital flights. Joe Hill, a scientist here at the ASD, shares
the dream of becoming an astronaut.  Recently, she was given the chance to
participate in something called sub-orbital scientist astronaut training.
The idea is that commercial sub-orbital spaceflight may be a viable option
for the scientists wishing to test their projects and do their experiments
in space.

Much of what Joe does here at NASA could lend itself to this sort of
testing environment, and what she does is build X-ray and gamma ray
instruments.

Joe: My main effort is towards building the instruments. I'm an instrument
builder, so we build X-ray instruments for different applications, one of
which is GEMS to look at black holes. We're building a gamma ray detector
to look at terrestrial gamma rays that go off with the lighting.  And
then, gamma ray bursts as well. So we design the instrument, and build the
instrument and then help the engineers with what the science requirements
are.

Maggie: How well do the instruments she builds mesh with the idea of
testing them in sub-orbital space? And has NASA ever tested things
sub-orbitally before?

Joe: Up until recently, the sub-orbital science program has been involved
with sub-orbital balloons and sub-orbital rockets, sounding rockets that
go up and basically have five minutes of time in space. With the new
commercial push to doing these, sort-of, space planes, they're looking
now, they're getting very close to carrying passengers on the space
planes, so now they're looking at what research could be done. If a
scientist could fly on one of these space planes and get into spaceÉinto
the sub-orbital region of space for five minutes, what kind of experiments
could they do? And NASA's looking to see what experiments could be done,
how interesting it would be for science, and if it's a new way of making
different measurements, also in the atmosphere.

Maggie: Because this training was not sponsored by NASA, rather it was an
outside commercial company, we wondered if there were any problems with
her participation in it.

Joe: So, I'm a contractor at NASA, I work for Universities Space Research
Association. They're very interested in these sub-orbital vehicles and how
they could be used for science. So actually USRA in collaboration with
Southwest Research Institute put together a program with NASTAR, which is
the training center, to train up some scientists in what it would be like
to travel in one of these space planes and for us to get a feel for what
kind of experiments we'd be able to do. So yes, I had to take time away
from my NASA program, but it was funded through my Institute. The
president of our company actually knows I want to be an astronaut, and so
he was keen to help me with that. And also we have a concept study for
putting a gamma ray detector on one of these sub-orbital vehicles, that's
funded through NASA, so with that in place, it made sense for me to be
able to go, but I still feel very lucky that I had the opportunity.

Maggie: Joe told us what about her training was like, and how realistic it
was to a real sub-orbital flight.

Joe: It was absolutely amazing. I mean, I've never been to space, it's one
of my dreams, but as far as I could tell, going on the centrifuge and the
way that they did the simulation was as close to going into space as you
could do without actually doing it. Apart from the weightless part at the
top, the takeoff and coming in towards landing was so realistic. In the
morning they did two training sessions, one was for Gx, which is basically
the force of gravity on your chest and then following that they did Gz,
which is the gravity pushing down on your head, which is very difficult to
cope with because it's pushing all your blood down to your feet, so you
start to pass out.  In fact you lose some vision and to counteract that,
you have to constrict your blood vessels to pump your blood up into your
brain so you stay awake. So we got through those tests in the morning, and
then in the afternoon we get to do the flight profile and they have all
the visuals in the screen. You're in this little cabin and you have
visuals showing the taking off from Earth and seeing the sky, and it's
just very, very realistic, all the sound and everything. It's really great.

Maggie: What comes next, especially when even the prospect of commercial
spaceflight seems far off. 

Joe: Following from the training there was a conference in Boulder, just
recently and the NASA headquarters guy showed up and they said they're
going to put $15 million per year for 5 years, to fund these
opportunities. And so what we're hoping is with that concept study, we're
going to be looking at Éas I said, it's called Firefly on Demand, it's
going to be looking at the gamma rays coming from terrestrial lightening.
I'm hoping from the concept study we can come up with something NASA will
think is viable and maybe use this $15 million to fly something.  One of
the things that's clear is that though industry is making great strides in
getting people up there, they're just not quite there yet. So within a
year, I believe, they're going to start making unmanned flights -
obviously the pilot will be onboard, but not taking scientists. And NASA,
I think, once they get a good feel for how safe it'll be will start
funding scientists to go up there and do real science. 

Maggie: Does pursuing sub-orbital flight mean giving up on the dream of
being a NASA astronaut?

Joe: I'm a foreign national at the moment so I can't  apply to NASA,
hopefully in the next couple of years when I get citizen ship, I'll be
able to apply to NASA. ESA also is a good opportunity, to apply there.  I
mean, any opportunity that would come up, I would definitely apply. But
the idea of taking up your own experiment would be the cake and eat it
kind of thing.  The other thing is, the commercial vehicles,  compared to
goingÉthe people that paid to go up onto the space station paid I think it
was $15 million, on the space plane is $200,000.  Which I can't afford
myself, but maybe, you know, NASA would fund us to go do an experiment for
$200,000. It's a lot less than $15 million!

Maggie: We actually learned about Joe's sub-orbital astronaut training
when we ran across a blog entry she wrote for Nature.  We soon learned she
had a twitter account and had tweeted about it as well. As devotees of
social media ourselves, we were interested in how these things were
incorporated into her experience.

Joe: Up until this opportunity, I'd never tweeted or blogged, actually. We
were encouraged to do some public outreach, to try to gain some
enthusiasm, both within the scientific community, and  also with the
public. Education and outreach on these sub-orbital vehicles is a big
part. So not only is there science, but outreach to students that could be
building their own experiments. So they were encouraging us to get out
there, and sort of make links to the public so the next generation of
scientists and engineers would be able to be involved. And so I set up my
twitter account. But it was a really nice way to be able to go and tell
people what you were feeling and how things were going. People seem to be
really interested in this new way of doing science.  As one of the lucky
ones that got the chance to do the training, I thought it was important to
explain to people what it was like.

Maggie: But will she keep on tweeting?

Joe: Since then I've found other things that I could tweet, that people
would be interested in. Up til then, I thought about, what do I do that
anyone cares about, that I would tweet about. But having had that
experience and feeling that there were several things going on in that
particular day where you just needed one or two lines to explain what was
going on. And so people could feel like they were taking part with you.
Other opportunities have also occurred to me in the meantime, so I've been
able to tweet about those as well. And the same with blogging. It's really
made me look at what I do in a different perspective. And say, okÉlike the
conference for instanceÉthis would be interesting to people who aren't at
the conference, and they can read up and see what's going on.

Maggie: We hope that Joe does keep finding ways to reach out, because her
sharing her experience may inspire someone else. Meanwhile, Joe's
childhood dream remains É

Joe: That's how I've ended up at NASA actually - it's all I've ever wanted
to do since I watched Star Wars when I was like 5, was be an astronaut.
It's been a windy path, but eventually, you know, building instruments and
thingsÉthis actuallyÉ I applied to be an astronaut at ESA a couple of
years ago. I made it through the first round, but I didn't make it too
far. I was really disappointed. So these new space vehicles, where you can
take your experiment into space and do an experiment would be phenomenal.
It's not just going into space and doing someone else's experiment, you
can take your own science and go make the measurements yourself, which
would be superb.

Maggie: We hope all this will become a reality for her.  It's brought her
a long way already - only 50 vertical miles or so to go. If you want to
follow Joe Hill on twitter, she's @spacepurple.  If you want to follow us
on twitter, we're @NASAblueshift.   Check out our website for links to
Joe's blog, and more about the program she went through.  We'll see you
soon with another new podcast.  This is Maggie Masetti bringing the
universe closer to you, with Blueshift.


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