I'm in Spain!

I have arrived safely and finally am situated in my room. The building I am staying at is similar to an off-campus college housing residence. I am about to go out and venture to take the Metro into the city before we all have to meet for dinner. We've already received our first week of lecture study notes. Not everyone has arrived to register, but I have met some very awesome people from Canada, Israel, and France so far!

Leaving to Barcelona

I am sitting here in the terminal waiting for my flight to board. My first stop is in London Gatwick, and then I am headed to Barcelona, Spain.

I have been very busy for the past two weeks trying to wrap up things at work as well as finalize school. By the way, I have officially completed my Master's requirements and I can now say I have a Masters in Aeronautical Science!

--Gotta GO!!! They're calling my boarding section!!! :) Here I go!!! (Sorry such a short post)

International Space University

Next week I will be in Barcelona, Spain!!! I was selected to represent the Boeing Space Exploration Division in attending the International Space University's 2-month Space Studies Summer Program.

There will be a wide variety of lectures, activities, team projects, and workshops related to space. The program will give me an interdisciplinary and international perspective of the space sector and the global professional network.

Altogether, this will be a major experience for me on many levels. First all, I have never even traveled out of the country, so I am definitely excited for that! I am looking forward to meeting new friends and collaborating with the international scientific community. This weekend is going to be devoted to packing and getting all my last minute travel stuff taken care of.

Some additional microgravity photos....

The photographer onboard our flight posted his professional photos. Here are some additional shots from Sunday. It was hard to get that smile off my face. :)

Today....I felt like an Astronaut!!!

Today was absolutely amazing. I experienced 1 Martian G (1/3 my body weight), 2 Lunar G's (1/6 my body weight), and 12 zero gravity parabolas. Workforce Florida, Brevard Workforce Development Board, Inc. (BWDB), Brevard Community College (BCC), SpaceTEC, and the Zero Gravity Corp (Zero-G) all made this possible for us to experience. THANK YOU!!! I know everyone had a blast on their flight. I seriously felt like an astronaut today!!! On Tuesday we will reunite as a group to take one big group photo and receive certificates.

Discovery Lands and Microgravity Tomorrow

We had a successful landing today of Discovery. I was not at KSC at the time of landing as I was attending a training class for my microgravity flight tomorrow. I am to report at noon and we will receive our flight suits and be briefed before the flight. On my way home from the training, I saw locals and tourists awaiting Discovery's landing along the road and at nearby parks. I pulled over to hear the sonic boom and watch Discovery land.



Here are some other pictures from landing and Discovery's track into the Orbiter Processing Facility.

SpaceTec's Florida Aerospace Microgravity Training Program

This week has been absolutely fantastic! On Tuesday, I started the Microgravity Training Program with SpaceTec. A group of 75 Florida aerospace technicians, engineers and scientists have been split up into 3 flight groups. I am assigned to flight group 2 that will be flying next Sunday morning. We have been given presentations from a great group of program coordinators related to the microgravity environment. In our presentation today, we were shown the following video related to how fluids react in microgravity. Watch the whole the thing...you don't want to miss the Alka-Seltzer reaction!!!



I am really looking forward to the flight on Sunday. We have some more training to complete next week to go over some activities we'll be performing during the flight to get a first-hand experience of how the lack of gravity effects certain tasks we are able to perform in the gravity environment. With Zero G's G-Force-One Boeing 727-200 aircraft, parabolic maneuvers will be performed in order to create the microgravity environment. The controlled ascent and descent of the plane will allow us experience Martian gravity (1/3-gravity), Lunar gravity (1/6-gravity), and microgravity.

From Atlantis's left wing

Atlantis's payload bay doors were closed and I figured it was the perfect time to take a photo of my standing on the left wing. Sometimes we'll have to "walk on the wing" to access certain tiles or parts from the upper surface. We're not allowed to wear shoes, so I have fabric "booties" on to protect the flight hardware.

What a lift off!

Well here's something we don't normally see after a launch. Numerous concrete blocks and bricks from the flame trench were blown away during the STS-124 launch and ended up damaging some of the surrounding fence and were scattered throughout the launch site. We're not sure yet what caused this to happen, but it will be fixed in time for the next launch of Atlantis on October 8th. The pictures below are amazing. Be glad you were not on the launch pad when this happened!

You can read a little more on Spaceflight now: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts124/080601pad/

A successful launch of Discovery

Yesterday I watched the launch from the beach with some friends. It was nice because we watch the launch as we were swimming in the ocean. It was a great launch and beach day!