Breakfast: We had to get the bus by 7:30 on the second day and headed over to breakfast. Breakfast ended up being pretty predictable: scrambled eggs, some time of meat (bacon or sausage), some type of potato, biscuits, and some type of starch (like pancakes or French toast sticks). There was always juice, cereal, coffee, and yogurt available as well.
Tour to Hudson Alpha: After we finished our breakfast, we boarded the USSRC buses for Hudson Alpha, a non-profit research facility. On our way there, we drove through Research Park passing many of the big name aerospace engineering firms: USA, Northrup Grumman, and Pratt and Whitney just to name a few. When we arrived at Hudson Alpha, the first thing that caught our eye was a statute. This of course led me to believe that someone forgot to where clothes under his flight suit.
DNA of fruit experiment: While we were at Hudson Alpha, we learned about what they do there and had a chance to do an inquiry experiment on DNA extraction from fruit. We got to choose our type of fruit (cantaloupe, strawberry, or kiwi fruit), type of detergent, and additional solvents. We then completed the process to see our results. Unfortunately, I chose cantaloupe, and that seemed to be one of the most difficult for DNA extraction as all of us who chose this one had poor results.
Lunch: We then headed back to the USSRC for lunch. I believe it was German fare that day.
Expedition Living: We then had a workshop that shared with us what it is like to work in space. A couple of years ago a representative from the USSRC came to my school and did a very similar presentation. It was about what astronauts eat, how they use the bathroom, why drinking soda in space doesn’t work, etc.
Ed Buckbee: Next up was listening to Ed Buckbee tell us about the early days of NASA and founding Space Camp. He had some great stories about the original Mercury 7 astronauts that he shared with us. We also received a copy of this book The Real Space Cowboys, and he signed them for us.
Atlantis Mission: Next up was our Atlantis mission. I was in the orbiter as Mission Specialist 1. Once we got into orbit, the Mission Specialists’ job was to open the payload bay doors and activate the radiator system. We then got ready to suit up for our EVA. This involved changing out of our blue flight suits into a white space suit (which was just cotton). We also wore a ice pack vest and a shoulder padded helmet to complete the look. The ice pack helped us from getting too hot. Once we left the orbiter, we sat on chairs hooked up to a large tank of water. I’m not exactly sure how this all worked, but they filled up our part of the tank, and that was like being in neutral buoyancy to give us the idea of weightlessness in space. The goal of our EVA mission was to continue construction of a structure. We had to fix an anomaly from the previous EVA crew, and then kept building. I think Mark and I did a pretty good job!
Personal Constellations, Messenger, and $40 star lab: Our next session was led by one of our team leaders, Amy Bartlett. She is a Messenger Fellow, and we talked about Messenger’s visit to Mercury and also did some great activities. We did a really fun moon phase lab with a gum ball that I think I might try as I’m sure my kids would love it, and it showed the way the phases work a little clearer than what I’ve done before. We then created our own personal constellations from our names. We then poked them in the sky of the Starlab that was made of painters covering. It was really cool, especially since I was trying to figure out how to make one of these inexpensively at the end of last year.
Dinner: Next up was dinner. Thankfully we had dinner a little earlier than planned giving us a longer period of time to recover for our next activities – the Multi-Axis Trainer and the 1/6 gravity chair. I think it was spaghetti for dinner that night.
Astronaut Sims – MAT and 1/6 gravity chair: I decided to do the Multi-Axis Trainer first because I was afraid that if I didn’t do it right away I would lose my nerve. After watching Michelle and Nathan go before me, I was ready to try my hand at it. They told us that you actually don’t get motion sick because you are moving in so many different directions it confuses your inner ear. Thankfully, they were right! However, I think 30 seconds on the MAT was enough for me! Then I went over to do the 1/6 gravity chair. This simulates the gravity environment on the moon. It was so much fun! They had us do three different steps and then our last pass was our choice. We did bunny hop, side step, and then slow motion run. I used to joke with my friend that I wished I could run my half marathons as if I was on the moon. However, after doing the slow motion run on the 1/6 gravity chair, I’ve decided it’s easier to run on Earth!
We then headed back to the dorms and relaxed a little bit before bed. It was another long but amazing day!
You can see all of my Day 2 photos here.
