ISU Space Studies Program - Week 6

The last week of the Department Phase and only 3 more weeks to go?! I am not quite sure where the last 6 weeks have gone but it simultaneously feels as though I have just arrived in Brazil and have been here for 6 months!

Human Performance in Space

The last week in our HPS department was exhilarating! To be honest, I am quite sad to move away from this portion of the Space Studies Program and really want to continue learning about HPS...I think this means it is time to figure out how to integrate my research back at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center into something related to human performance...??

Anyways, this week started off on a very "high" note where we were able to simulate EVA training (aka Extravehicular Activity) that the astronauts do in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab at NASA's Johnson Space Center . In this activity, we were partnered up with the Engineering Department. We first learned all about buoyancy and the effects on the human body and how the astronauts would experience this in space. Then we took it to the pools of Descontinuado for learning SCUBA and testing out our skills at performing small tasks...such as retrieving a mango that is zip-tied to an ironing board at the bottom of the pool...all while wearing a soaking wet oven mitt. After dominating the EVA tasks, we were able to continue soaking up the sun on a random Monday afternoon and bonding with our classmates.

Before we entered the last part of our week, where we had to work on and deliver our department projects, we had one last social of the Department Phase. This time, it was beach volleyball with the Engineering and Humanities Departments. We got to see an absolutely beautiful sunset and be asked questions by the Humanities folks such as "What is one piece of advice you would give your younger self?" and "What about you today would inspire your past self?"

Think about those two questions a bit...it's more challenging to answer than you might think!

The rest of the week was comprised of a variety of lectures related to HPS while we worked on our final projects. We were able to hear and learn about analog missions in extreme environments from Michaela Musilova, PhD. and learn about the factors that go into deciding who becomes an astronaut and assessing whether they are fit for a mission from Suzanne Bell .

Thanks to Michaela Musilova, PhD. and my colleague at MSFC, Jeremy Meyers, we were able to interact in real-time with UAE astronaut, Sultan Al Neyadi who is currently aboard the International Space Station National Laboratory ! So we were able to actually have a back and forth conversation with Sultan and get many of our questions answered about his life currently in space. On top of that, the International Space University brought in some local school kids who were also able to ask questions of Sultan. I truly cannot imagine their excitement knowing they got to speak to someone in space! (I could hardly contain my own excitement!)

To top this off, we also had the opportunity for an intimate conversation with Jessica Meir about her journey to becoming an astronaut. While I have met many astronauts over the years, this is the first long conversation I was able to be involved in. Astronauts have always inspired me, my daily work ethics, and are really why I do what I do - I want to do my best to keep our astronauts safe on their way to and in space. So having this conversation with Jessica was incredibly humbling. While it was encouraging to see that her path to her current role was not all that different from how I've achieved my career goals, there was one key difference - her insane ability to stay calm and withstand extreme environments....which I definitely do not think I could have conquered quite like she had. So until then, I'll keep working to keep our astronauts safe on their journeys to space.

Our academic week ended with our department presentations. Personally, I looked at the current status of self-powered wearable electronics, which is truly a fascinating field and one I will definitely be looking at getting some research funding for when I return to my research lab back at NASA. But one of the coolest pieces of feedback I received from Suzanne Bell on my research was to look up this watch called Sequent. It is this self-powered smart watch that stores energy from your movement and can keep charge for up to a year once fully charged from your body movement. It seems to be this weird combo of automatic and battery that creates such a unique watch...one day I'll splurge and get my hands on ones of these to play with an inspect!

Moving from ITA to INPE

So up until this point, we have had all of our lectures and most academic activities at Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica - ITA . In Week 7, we move over to INPE to finish out the remaining 3 weeks of this program. To honor our time at ITA, the ITA staff and the local organizing committee hosted a farewell for us and even developed a mascot for our program! Isn't this jacked capybara so cute!

I am surely going to miss the ITA campus. The amazing ladies at the cafe who were patient with us who couldn't speak Portuguese and even tried to learn a little English for us were amazing. They kept us caffeinated and loaded with vitamin C from free squeezed OJ. Being able to watch the military activities happen around us was inspiring to me because keeping human's safe is really at the epicenter of my "why" of why I do what I do. I am quite sure INPE will be amazing but I would be lying if I said I didn't start to feel at home at ITA and am quite sad to be saying good-bye to it already.

A Weekend in SJC

Most of the free weekends we have had during this program have been spent in other parts of Brazil. This weekend, a few of us decided to spend the weekend relaxing in S?o José dos Campos. From exploring the beautiful parks (fully equipped with random aircraft!) to finding some good a?aí bowls to relaxing on a lazy river in a water park while reading a Kindle. I think this was a perfect transition between one major deadline (department projects) and the start of another (team projects) as well as a personal break for me before I do what will likely result in minimal sleep and try to attend a conference during Week 8 of the TP phase. More on that to come! Until then, enjoy some sights around S?o José dos Campos!