Diary of a Space Cadet: the Epilogue

By: Ray Carroll

Take sunshine, beaches, swimming pools, amusement parks, fan boats, skydiving, jet-skis, beach bars, shops and add alligators, snakes, poisonous spiders, lizards, sharks, tropical storms and tornados and you get a very interesting cocktail. But this is only half the story.

Last Summer Ray Carroll, a post-graduate (MSc) student at the TSSG research group at Waterford Institute of Technology discovered more, much more in NASA, Florida. He was awarded a place on the Discover Science program and spent six weeks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters in Florida. In the following article he describes his experiences there.

Five days after arriving we made our first trip to Kennedy Space Center where we spent the bulk of the next 7 weeks studying. Our course was designed and run by the Florida Space Institute (FSI). The FSI is formed from a consortium of Florida colleges, such as University College Florida and Florida IT, and uses the expertise and facilities of its members. Our studies essentially consisted of laboratory time and class-based lectures. The normal daily routine entailed a 3-hour lecture in the morning followed by laboratory work in the evening or vice versa. We also participated in many field trips, which for me were the highlight of the entire experience.

The lectures consisted of the theory behind some of the core aspects of space science. Subjects like propulsion, telemetry, guidance navigation and control, flight dynamics, space science and technology, payload design, life-science and space environment were all covered. As you can imagine the range of topics covered was huge and everything from growing plants in space to orbital trajectories were discussed. Unfortunately, with the 6-week time limitation we could only scratch the surface of each subject, typically having one or two 3-hour lectures in each. Every lecture was excellent and the lecturers themselves were brimming with enthusiasm, which made the subjects all the more interesting.

The field trips were the highlight of our journey and although they were all very interesting I think everyone would agree that one in particular stands out. That would be our tour of the space shuttle Endeavour at the Orbiter Processing Facility. This visit is normally reserved for VIPs (some names mentioned to us were Bruce Willis, Margaret Thatcher, Prince Edward and the President of Uganda) and even the US president himself would not be allowed enter if he showed up unannounced. I could not begin to imagine the strings that had to be pulled and forms that had to be filled to gain access for 12 Irish students. And not just to see it but also to examine it both inside and out. Donning our clean suits we went inside to sit in the pilot and the commander's seat, view the open payload bay from the cockpit viewing window, push buttons, flick switches and turn levers (all with added sound effects of course). This was truly a once in a lifetime experience and something I'll really never forget. This was not our only field trip and some memorable others were the Boeing launch site (with rocket in-situ) and the Life Sciences Hanger laboratory.

Our lab. work was mostly focused around designing, building and launching a weather balloon and its payload. In space jargon a payload is whatever you put in a rocket or balloon that you want to launch (e.g. a satellite in a large rocket). For us, the balloon payload contained electronic components that we built to track the balloon and take environmental readings as it rose. We spent many weeks designing and putting together the electronic circuits to do this. The main components were a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, which communicated with a satellite to determine its position (latitude and longitude), speed and altitude, a small camera and a sensor for recording temperature and humidity. The data gathered would then be sent by a radio transmitter to a ground station that we also built. When launched the balloon it rose to roughly 100,000ft (or 30km) and the ground station, which was connected to a computer, tracked it and recorded the data taken from the payload. In total, the balloon travelled more than 50 miles and was airborne for around 3 hours.

Something you may have heard about was that we were also involved in the launch of a rocket. The rocket was roughly 11ft high and is what is known as a 2-stage rocket. This means it has two parts. The main body of the rocket (the first 7ft) is called the Solid Rocket Motor (SRM). In simplest terms this is a large amount of explosives in a tube with one end left open, so that when fired it pushes the rocket upwards. It was for this reason that our contact with the rocket was limited. The upper part of the rocket is called the dart and this is where the payload is kept. When launched the solid fuel only burns for 2 seconds and the SRM detaches from the dart. However it is so powerful that the dart continues to travel upwards until it reaches around 100 miles. At that point (it takes only 2 minutes to go 100 miles up) a small explosive charge causes the payload to be ejected from the dart. A parachute then opens and the payload floats back to earth. Our rocket payload contained just a simple camera, which transmitted its pictures back to a receiver. The launch itself was an amazing experience even though it only took around 2 seconds for the rocket to disappear from view, and the footage we got back was incredible.

There is absolutely no way I could tell you everything I have seen and done on this adventure. The experiences I have had and the people I have shared them with will undoubtedly live with me forever.

On a final note I would like to thank a few people. First on the list is FAS for funding and organising the programme and also the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) for their help (and for my continual funding), the Florida Science Institute (FSI) and all the people at Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) who made the experience so memorable; Tony Gannon, NASA Education Manager and his wife Maureen who both looked after us like we were their own; the TSSG for all their support (and for the time off) and of course the other students who made it all so much more interesting.