Timeline
August 17th
Wow! What a ride!! So much fun!! It was such a blast and definitely the weirdest sensation that I have ever felt while riding on an airplane. Definitely recommended for all ages :-)
Check out both Courtney and Alisa's flight experience by following the links below:
August 16th
Flight day one start with a 7:30 briefing for the flyers. Robbie and Daniel were given flight suits and briefed about motion sickness, safety and flight procodures. Both took the low dose of medicine. Alisa and Courtney played ground crew and prep the experiment for the flyers. At 9:00 the plane was boarded, experiments glance over and doors closed. The plane start to taxi down the runway and the test directors went around pick the number of kills out of the possible 13. John Yanic went high with 7. While others picked lower. When the flight surgeon picked zero, the fliers all clapped. After a short trip the plane fired its engines and the plane took off. Then flyers preped the experiments. Robbie and Daniel set up the power cords, camcorders, voltmeter and balloons. As the plane went though the first 2G part Robbie and Daniel waited for the first free float. For more on their experience check out their person pages. (you might need to wait a few days for this)
The experiment was difficult to do in microgravity. The experience of free float was amazing. The flight was a success. The balloons were hard to pop then anticipated. There is some limited data on the tapes. We learned a lot about popping techniques to use tomorrow. The biggest thrill was starting to pack up and realize we had ZERO kills. Everyone was alive an well. We sat in the back and hope no one would get sick on the return trip. After a rough landing the Doc won the bet and we become the third no kill flight in the program history. Tomorrow we will sign the photo to hang in the office.
The afternoon was spent tour NASA's JCS. We walk through the Appollo mission control center, looked through the view rooms of the MCC for the Shuttle and Space Station. We looked at mock ups in the high bay. There were ISS parts, Shuttles, remote arms, a Soyuz and many other pieces of training equipment. Our next stop thanks to Alisa's hook up was the X-38. We went and looked at the experimental crew return vehicle. It was cool to see the spaceship being made in the high bay by NASA. Finally we visit Ron, and saw how they were making the guidance system for the X-38. The computer stimulator still had some bugs and would go right though the ground instead of landing.
In the evening we preped for Alisa and Courtneys big day, and Robbie went to Kemah to hang with Emily (shocking I know).
August 15th
Alisa and Courtney went to the morning meeting and weighted the box (81 lbs). Everyone went to Ellington Field to see the KC land and then load up. In the afternoon we bolted down the box and ran through our procedures a number of times. It was lots of fun to be in the plane. Robbie and I were given a tour of the cockpit by John.
After 4 we returned and Alisa updated the page. Robbie, Daniel and Courtney rolled up the balloons for tomorrow's flight. Four sizes and color coded.
August 14th
This morning Robbie and Daniel went to the morning meeting and saw the Guppie open and load up. Today will be a lazy day since we don't have a lot to do. Just waiting till tomorrow to prep for the Thursday flight.
This morning the photos were picked up. See them: Houston Photo
In the evening we went to Kemah to a going away party for a Co-op. Courtney and Daniel came back early with Sarah. Robbie spent the evening with his new friend Emily. They had lots of fun playing in the fountain and getting wet. They stayed out till 2.
Alisa had fun with Dan since it was their six month anniversary. We don't know the details though. Too busy picking on Robbie.
August 13th
We past our Test Readiness Review Today!!! All
the big tops came around and checked out everyone's projects and made sure they
were flight worthy. They asked us a couple questions and told us to change a
couple minor things. We went ahead and did those things this afternoon and now
we are all set and safe to fly!
We also got to do some arts and crafts today. We went out and got some paint and
stencils to decorate our box. It looks nice now with yellow jackets courtesy of
Courtney and stickers by Robbie.
Hopefully we'll have some pictures to show everyone soon. Daniel has to pick up
pictures tonight and it doesn't seem like they've updated the NASA pics yet.
We'll keep everyone posted and get pictures up as soon as we get them so
everyone can see what's going on.
August 11th
We went in this morning to work on our box a bit at Ellington. We had to add RTV to the some areas of the box cause it was leaking a bit, but we hope we got it all fixed up. We finished up by 2 and headed to Mamacita's for lunch for some yummy Mexican food.
August 10th
The morning was spent in a classroom learning
about the atmosphere and why cabins are pressurized. We also learned what was
going to happen to us in the altitude chamber. In one of the breaks we all ran
upstairs to say high to Sarah since she work right above us. Our last class
dealt with disorientation. Alisa volunteered to be spun.
After lunch we went to look at the astronauts training in the the Neutral
Buoyancy Lab. At 2 we went to get our oxygen equipment and a little more
training before going to chamber. We breathed pure oxygen for 30 minutes and
even tried pressure breathing. Then we were sealed in and the pressure was
dropped as the altitude was raised to 25,000ft. At 25,000 ft we took off our
masks for 5 minutes and breathed the air at a lower pressure. The deficient of
oxygen leads to a whole list of problems. However, it was fun and entertaining.
We gave the most entertaining award to Daniel who just kept laughing. We tried
to decide if he was really in delrium because of the lack of oxygen or if he was
just being Daniel. Which ever it was, it was hilarious to watch. To end the day
we visited the Advance Space Propulsion Lab and saw the VASMIR plasma rocket
that they were working on.
Look at our Chamber run on Monday or Tuesday
at NASA photos.
We went to a Pat Green concert tonight! We got a 32 gallon cowboy hat full of
some crazy Texas culture! The concert was at the Houston horse track. We drove
all the way across town and got into a huge Texas traffic jam because people in
Texas don't seem to know how to merge correctly. That's okay though cause the
concert was a lot of fun.
August 9th
Early morning fears that Robbie and Courtney were lost in Intercontinental Airport were alleviated when they appeared and we leak tested our box. It leaked. Not good, but leaking was very limited. We started to devise a plan to fix it. Our 11 am briefing told us not to get hurt. After that we unpacked our box. Ya! We started setting up and making sure that everything worked. We Velcroed down the surge protector, the bed pad, and the accelerometer. The KC was in the hanger when we returned. So our afternoon work was with the plane over our work area. Courtney did a great job calking the inside of the box. Hopefully it will hold the water. Tonight we go to Pe-Te's (a Cajun BBQ). Robbie is looking forward to some Texas BBQ.
We meet some of the other teams. Most were larger, and most had advisors. We four were all by ourselves. However, we can do it cause we are just super like that!
Phobia of Oxygen? I don't think so!
Alisa lost one of her contacts while driving. While at a stop light she was use the mirror to try to adjust it. In the process she hit her heard on the mirror and it was funny.
August 8th
ROAD TRIP!!! Alisa left bright and early this morning from Atlanta with our beautiful rented mini-van, picked up Daniel in Auburn along the way, and then picked up Robbie at Stennis. Courtney is coming into Intercontinental airport tonight at 1am from L.A. and then we'll all crash tonight in Houston at our hotel room.
Robbie told us a wonderful story about how his landlord accidentally unplugged his refrigerator in his new apartment and he came home last night to four day old rotten meat...gross! He had to rent a hotel room last night cause it stunk so bad. Maybe he's just getting prepped for our week and a half stay at the Town Place Suites.
Alisa got an hour and a half of sleep last night so she's pretty tired, she's been taking short little naps the whole way. Hopefully she'll get some more sleep tonight. We don't have to be at Ellington until 10am, so we can sleep in a little tiny bit.
We got to meet Daniel's whole family today...Father, Mother, brother, girlfriend, and even Dusk (the dog). They were very nice and donated rope to help tie down the box in our van cause it was sloshing all over the place. Thanks!!
July 31st
We tested everything and it works!!! We went on a big shopping spree last night to K-Mart and bought all sorts of supplies. We also got all of our funding secured today, which was a huge relief. And, we also got a really nice mini van to drive to Houston in (Thanks GT Student Center!). It's definately coming together...which is good cause we're getting pretty close.
July 26th
We're almost ready to go. We've only got this weekend before everyone starts leaving for break. Our box is in the very final stages of construction. We're going to disassemble it and reassemble it for the final time tomorrow morning and seal everything up. We've got most of our equipment collected...the accelerometer, the cameras, absorbent pads, lights, balloons,...etc. We did a trial run yesterday on everything and it didn't go exactly as planned, but we expected that...some minor tweeking is in order. But we'll get it right...don't worry, it'll work.
July 13th
Our response to the Test Equipment Data Package was due today. It took us a while to get everything in there and update the changes. But it's done now! If you'd like to read it, there's a link to it off our homepage.
May 30th
Today construction on the box began!! Wahoo!!! We've been working really hard lately drawing everything up in Pro-E and making sure everything will fit properly. Over the last couple weeks we've also been buying all the materials for the box. I've never been to Home Depot so many times in my life! (What a great place! We love Home Depot!)
May 27th
The Test Equipment Data Package is due this Friday. We had to send hard copies so we went ahead and sent it a little early.
May 15th
Summer semester has just begun. Changing of hands is now in process. Courtney, Jordan, and Judy are leaving to intern out of town, Daniel is staying, and Alisa is coming into town.
April 20th
We found out we got ACCEPTED!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!
March 13th
We got our proposal in on time. It took alot of researching and brainstorming from everyone. We're off to a good start and we really hope they like our proposal!
February 18th
Our Letter of Intent was due today.
January 15th
We decided on a topic today during our meeting today. We had a vote of the whole group and decided on "Dynamic Behavior of Surface Tension in Microgravity." We think that this will be a really neat subject to study. We hope to somehow measure the frequency at which liquids of varying surface tension vibrate. We also want to examine how they oscilate and how long they oscilate for. We'd like to see if we can calculate some sort of damping frequency, which would tell us if the liquids would eventually stop oscillating or not.
December 2000
Our first official reduced gravity group meeting was held today! We brainstormed all sorts of crazy ideas. It's amazing what sort of off the wall ideas you can come up with when you put 4 undergraduate engineers together. We are all going to think about the ideas that we came up with and try to build on them for next time.