I am Camilla Corona, the Space Chicken. My passion is to educate about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Now that I am retired from NASA and SDO, I am not representing either the Agency, nor the mission.
Staying fit and healthy benefits us all. In my case it is a necessity. Not only because I will be running the Solar Eclipse Marathon in Port Douglas, Australia on November 14, 2012, but I also have to stay strong for my upcoming space flight mission.
ESA's Astronaut and Exp 40/41 crew member Alex Gerst cheering me on!
In partnership with the White House "Let's Move!" initiative, NASA's "Train Like an Astronaut" program aims to increase opportunities in both in and out of school for kids to become more physically and mentally active. This program uses the "Have you ever wondered what it takes to be an astronaut?" excitement of space exploration and astronaut training to challenge, inspire, and educate kids to set physical fitness goals and to practice physical fitness and proper nutrition.
In this program kids will explore mission challenges, learn the science behind nutrition, and learn to train like a real astronaut! It's a ton of fun.
The Train Like an Astronaut physical activities are modeled after the real-life training that astronauts do to prepare for exploration of space. Kids (and adults) will experience hands-on science that relates the needs of our bodies on Earth to the needs of an astronaut in space (and hopefully will also experience some sore muscles!)
These activities were developed in cooperation with NASA scientists and fitness professionals who work directly with astronauts like me and my Expedition 40/41 crew members Reid Wiseman (NASA) and Alexander Gerst (ESA). Although the program is designed for 8-12 year olds, it is for anyone and everyone who is curious about exploration and what it takes to be an astronaut. Plus, keeping your body healthy and in shape is a fun bonus!
There are three aspects of spaceflight that always interest med and I always try to learn more about them; history, traditions, and cultural differences.
The further we go, the more history we have. I believe it to be essential to never forget the beginnings and so looking back 30, 40 or even 50 years is so important to me. Many of us did not witness Vostok-1, Mercury, Gemini or even the Apollo program. Learning about those missions, the women and men working on them, the problems they had to overcome and the solutions they found, is an important part of understanding the present and improving upon the future.
Traditions somewhat tie into the history. Some event triggered the need for a certain tradition. And there are many traditions found in US and Russian Space Flight history.
Cultural differences is another fascinating aspect and I truly believe that over the years these differences have become less and less of a factor. We are adapting, adjusting, learning, and respecting. Will these differences go away someday? I do not think so - I do not hope so. Culture defines who we are and the differences between our cultures, provide wonderful opportunity to reach out and learn.
I would like to tell you about a couple of differences between our US culture and the Russian culture in regards to our training here at Star City.
Exams
Exams in Russia are quite a bit different than I am used to. Nothing is written. A panel of 5-10 people gather with your instructor and over the course of an hour ask questions. I am typically sitting in the front of the room with an interpreter. It feels very formal. They always begin with "tell us about the purpose of this system and it's components" but they often get very detailed quickly. If they find an area where your knowledge is weak, they typically ask many additional questions, which can be somewhat embarrassing. Your instructor takes your performance very personally. If you do well, it reflects well on them. They will quickly jump to your defense if someone asks a question which you haven't been taught. It is really interesting.
Often there will be an expert from the design team (Energia) in the audience which means tougher questions, but you also get direct access to someone building the hardware. The Russians have flown the Soyuz since 1967, but the design is constantly evolving so having them show up is great access to
the most current information.
Hand-shake
At the first greeting of the day with someone, you must shake their hand. But, never shake hands through a doorway...this is bad luck. Always walk into the room first and then shake their hand. And if you are wearing gloves, you must take them off first. And if you pass that person later in the day it is impolite to shake their hand again.
Whistling Inside
It is also bad luck to whistle inside, which I had a hard time getting used to.
Good Luck Wish
People are very superstitious here. Before an exam, they don’t wish each other “luck” because that would bring bad luck - instead they say “no tar, no feathers” (Ни пуха ни пера) – and the response is “go to hell” or more nicely, “go to see the devil.” (К чёрту). The picture here on this entry is what you will find if you googled the first comment. Fitting, don't you think?
In early March I visited several class rooms, libraries and science museums in the greater San Francisco Bay Area as part of "Destination Station", the traveling exhibit about the International Space Station (coming to North Caroline and then Boston next). There was not one day without somebody asking "How do Astronauts go to the bathroom in Space?". That question was not only asked by kids (mostly though), but by adults as well. With my very unique experiences in that field, I consider myself a good subject to talk a little more about this. But I did get help from people like Astronaut Chris Hadfield and Mike Massimino (see their videos on the bottom).
After learning about the Russian electrical food warmer on the International Space Station, Canadian Astronaut David Saint-Jacques took me to the Russian toilet trainer. Just glancing at this toilet you realize it has no whistles and thrills. Come to realize, neither would really help me anyway! I already have a hard time going to the bathroom as it is without any thrills and since whistling is considered rude here in Russia, I can see why there is none of that going on in the bathroom!
There are Liquid and solid wastes (#1 and #2, as they generally get interpreted) and they are trapped separately and processed separately. Air pressure (suction) is used to encourage/directed/wished for (you name it) waste to move in the right direction. Poo really can fly in space.
The primary rule of operation is always to prepare the loo after use, so that it's ready for the next guy. It's a simple rule to remember: After Pee or Poo, quickly prepare the Loo, so the crew doesn't have to wait in queue to let go the dew.
Assuming all systems are functioning, it should be possible to "fire" the toilet up in just a couple of minutes. I think it is an awkward process in the mockup, where gravity keeps everything in place. I don't know if it would be easier or more difficult in zero-G. There is a little seat in a wood finish here on the trainer. A nice touch indeed from the Russians! Below the seat is a disposable tank for solid waste. The hole in the seat should be pre-lined with a single-use packet. Assume the position. Then there is a receptacle with a funnel and hose that will grab liquid waste. It's very important to aim at the funnel from a distance away, rather than trying to get too intimate with it once the suction is under way. This point was stressed repeatedly and I think to remember why. I had an experience on the Space Shuttle potty trainer with Astro Clay...
The first thing that spins up is the urine/air separator motor. This is because we don't want any urine to get sucked into the fan, which would be a mess. So first we have to be sure we can separate urine from the air stream that pulls it along. This is done in a centrifuge. If you spin a mixture of heavy and light fluids together, the heavier stuff goes to the outside. In weightlessness, this is how they separate urine from air.
Once that device is spinning fast enough, a dose of urine preservative (mostly sulphuric acid and chrome trioxide) is flushed into the separator. This is to prevent crystals of urea or other contaminants forming in the plumbing, or in the tanks. This is another complication - we don't want nasty stuff like sulphuric acid to leak into the ISS. Horrible things could happen (far worse than if urine leaked into the compartment). So the tank that stores the preservative has to be triply redundant and extremely robust, and all the pipes have to have double layers and be resistant to acid corrosion.
What's really amazing is how accessible all of these components are. Simply lift up the floor panels around the loo, or open up the wall panel, and you can replace any pump, fan, device or tank. It has to be that way... this is a mission critical system!
And just this week the crew on the ISS had to do some toilet repairs.
Here are some additional pictures from the Russian space toilet inside the Zvezda module
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, Expedition 19/20 flight engineer, performs the daily ambient flush of the potable water dispenser in the waste and hygiene compartment.
ISS toilet and the KTO container in the Russian Zvezda module
The urine collection system panel
A female urine collection cup
A male urine collection cup
The solid waste collection bag. It locks on to a ring under the toilet/commode seat and dangles inside the silver KTO container. When you are finished you just tug on the red tab. That action unseats the bag from the seat lip and airflow pulls the bag inside the KTO container. The red tab is connected to a drawstring encircling the bag’s opening. As the bag is sucked into the KTO you hang on to the red tab and the bag pulls itself shut, when it shuts you let go and it disappears inside the KTO.
Canadian Astronaut and soon to be
1st Canadian Commander of the ISS Chris Hadfield:
NASA Astronaut Mike Massimino
** some information I got from Mark Shuttleworth who trained in Star City and spent almost 10 days in Space in 2002.
Today was a fairly easy day. Canadian Astronaut David Saint-Jacques (he is @Astro_DavidS on Twitter) and I were learning about some of the ISS components inside the Russian segments. First, let me tell you a little about David.
(on a site note, when we first met, he reminded me of The Wiz in Seinfeld - I wish I had a crown with me for him to put on! Ok, off topic, sorry David)
Born in Quebec, raised outside of Montreal, Canada, David speaks French and English fluently. But not just that. He has a pretty good handle on Spanish, Russian and Japanese! What's even more amazing, David has a medical background and an astrophysics one! Plus he has a commercial pilot license! His postdoctoral research included the development and application of the Mitaka Infrared Interferometer in Japan and the Subaru Telescope Adaptive Optics System in Hawaii.
After that he joined the Astrophysics group at Université de Montréal. His international experience also includes engineering study and work in France and Hungary and medical training in Lebanon and Guatemala.
In October of 2011 David was part of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations project, known as NEEMO.
NEEMMO sends groups of astronauts, engineers, doctors and professional divers to live in an underwater habitat for up to three weeks at a time. These crew members, called aquanauts, live in Aquarius, the world's only undersea laboratory, located about 19 metres below the surface, 5.6 km off Key Largo in the Florida Keys.
David was a crew member of NEEMO 15, the first undersea mission to simulate a visit to an asteroid. For part of the mission, he was supported by his colleague CSA Astronaut Jeremy Hansen who, as CAPCOM, provided information and directions from the Key Largo surface to the NEEMO 15 team.
The undersea environment is the closest analogue on Earth to a gravity-weak asteroid, making it the best place to test relevant exploration concepts. During NEEMO 15 the crew evaluated different strategies for anchoring themselves to its surface, traveling along its terrain and collecting data. They also coordinated their efforts with DeepWorker submersibles, one-seater submarines built and developed by Nuytco in British Columbia, Canada.
Told you, David is another one of those interesting people to get to meet and know.
Anyway, today I learned about the Russian ЭПП Food Warmer. David told me to get "intimately" familiar with the device. Since I always follow instructions...
The electric food warmer is designed to heat foods in cans, and plastic pouches.
The ЭПП consists of a heater, an automated unit, and a control panel. The warmer contains a number of cells for heating food. The heating elements inside the cells conform to the shape of the various packages.
The Service Module has two food warmers, “Подогреватель пищи 1”, “Подогреватель пищи 2” (Food warming 1, Food warming 2), connected to onboard outlets. The foods are warmed to 65°C (149°F) within 30 minutes. The food warmer operates automatically. The foods are inserted into the warmer to the maximum depth of the cells. Any combination of foods may be warmed – from one meal ration to four.
I am glad that David realized that giving me instructions like "get yourself intimately familiar with..." just don't work all that well with me. Glad we first learned about the food warmer and not the Russian space toilette...
I've been asked to share some inside information about life in Star City and also about my Astro buddy Reid Wiseman. So, tonight we had a group dinner and I thought this would be the perfect time to share some personal stuff. See, when you come from a different culture and you get to a new place, with different alphabet, a different language and a different culture, it really just feels nice and homey getting together with your friends and having a relaxed group dinner.
Tonight we all sat down together; Flight Surgeon Blake Camberlain, Astronaut Chris Cassidy and Astronaut Reid Wiseman (and me, of course) and enjoyed a delicious group dinner. They do them 1-2 times a week with whoever happens to be around.
Last night, after Reid turned off the lights and we were just resting in our beds, I asked Reid how he felt to be here again.
Reid explained to me that this is his third of 12 trips to Star City for training. Most trips are four weeks long.
Now since he has two little kids at home these trips are somewhat tough when he has to say goodbye every other month. They don’t understand why Dad is leaving so they are usually more than willing to tell him how sad it makes them when he leaves.
Aside from that, life in Star City is very comfortable. Reid really enjoys seeing and learning the cultural differences here. Almost everyone lives in very small two bedroom apartments which results in a much more active outdoor social life.
Despite freezing cold and deep snow the playgrounds and parks are always packed with children playing and parents talking.
The funny thing, we both also expected the grocery stores to be fairly sparse compared to the US but we have found quite the opposite. Even the smallest corner store is loaded with fresh bread, fruits, vegetables…everything you need for a healthy lifestyle.
All of the US Astronauts live in townhouses right on the edge of the training facility. It is an easy walk to class. (may I add for Reid - not for me!). The visitors here we now have many great conveniences like VOIP phones and Skype to keep in touch with our families.
Just down the road we have Reid's favorite destination, a Russian sauna. For a small fee, you and your friends can rent a private sauna for two hours and enjoy superb relaxation. They keep the sauna around 210-220 degrees F (no kidding) so you alternate between 10 minutes in the sauna, a quick run outside to roll in the snow, followed by 15 minutes relaxing on a bench. Sounds crazy, but Reid says it is the most relaxing experience he has ever had. And the Russians take it extremely seriously.
Does anyone know at what temperature rubber melts?
Well, at dinner tonight I managed to gross out the entire table. Reid asked me to say a few words before we ate. Having been very hungry, a little tired and totally hyper, I offended everyone with my story about Clayton C. Anderson and that space toilet he got me stuck in. I just couldn't stop talking about it so Reid had to lecture me about manners..
Ever wonder why we have Eastern (or Mountain, or Pacific) Standard Time? You can thank the railroads. On November 18, 1889 railroads in the United States began using the set of "Standard" timezones that we more or less use today.
Before the U.S. had time zones, how did people traveling across the country know what time it was? Until the invention of the railway, it took such a long time to get from one place to another, that local "sun" time could be used. When traveling to the east or to the west, a person would have to change his or her watch by one minute every 12 miles in order to always have the correct time.
When people began traveling hundreds of miles in a day by train, calculating the time became a problem. Railroad lines needed to create schedules for departures and arrivals, but every city had a different time!
Navy Yard officials set a clock to the official time in Brooklyn, New York
CREDIT: “Taking the time, Brooklyn Navy Yard,” 1890-1901. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number LC-D4-21274 A.
At first the railroad managers tried to address the problem by establishing 100 different railroad time zones. With so many time zones, different railroad lines were sometimes on different time systems, and scheduling remained confusing and uncertain.
Finally, the railway managers agreed to use four time zones for the continental United States: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. Local times would no longer be used by the railroads. The U.S. Naval Observatory, responsible for establishing the official time in the United States, agreed to make the change. At 12 noon on November 18, 1883, the U.S. Naval Observatory began signaling the change.
As Greenwich Mean Time (the official time used by the U. S. Naval Observatory) was transmitted by telegraph, authorities in major cities and managers of the railroads reset their clocks. All over the United States and Canada, people changed their clocks and watches to match the time for the zone they lived in. Quickly, the confusion caused by the many different standards of time was resolved.
This 1892 train map shows the route of the Burlington &. Quincy Railroad and the new time zones
CREDIT: Rand McNally and Company. “Burlington Route,” 1892. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress. Call Number G3701.P3 1892 .R3 RR 357.
The color blobs in this figure on the very top show the timezones used today around the world. Before standard time each community kept track of time. Some important times (such as noon) where announced by ringing bells or another signal. Imagine a train arriving in one town before it left the last one! Not everyone was happy and some towns continued to use local solar time until 1918.
Today we release SDO marked in Coordinated Universal Time (diplomatically called UTC) and International Atomic Time (similarly, TAI). TAI is the number of seconds since midnite January 1, 1958. A series of laboratories keep track of the march of time. UTC maps TAI to almost local solar time at the Greenwich Meridian in England (the line where longitude is 0). This means that UTC has leap seconds to keep up with the slowing down of the Earth's rotation. Right now we have added 34 leap seconds to UTC. We like TAI because it is easy to do differences in time by subtracting the TAI times. This is not true for UTC.
When you look an SDO timestamp it will say Z or UTC if the time is UTC; T or TAI when it is TAI.
Today's Sun in 304 angstrom - is shows the ~50,000 degrees C. Chromosphere
This week we have been seeing the largest sunspot/active region in years. In fact, the entire group is larger than Jupiter. So let's take a look at the history of Sunspots and also see how big this sunspot group labeled AR1339 (for Active Region) really is.
This image is from November 7, 2011 and it shows the large active region 1339. On the lower right corner you have a size comparison between Earth, Jupiter and the AR 1339
This is AR1339 again on November 8, 2011. Look at this amazing image!
What were sunspots? Galileo had guessed they were clouds floating in the Sun's atmosphere, obscuring some of its light. Their true nature only emerged in 1908 when George Elery Hale, leader among US astronomers, showed that they were intensely magnetic. Their magnetic field was as strong as that of a small iron magnet, some 3000 times stronger than the field near the surface of the Earth--yet those fields often extended over areas larger than the entire surface of the Earth. Apparently the magnetic field somehow slowed down the flow of heat from the Sun's interior, causing the sunspots to be slightly darker than the rest of the Sun.
The evidence for sunspot magnetism was their emitted light. Glowing gases emit light in narrowly defined wavelengths (i.e. colors), a different set for each substance. In 1897, however, Pieter Zeeman found that when such light was emitted from the region of a strong magnetic field, the emission split into slightly different wavelengths, with a separation that increased with the strength of the field. The colors of the light emitted from sunspots were "split up" in just this way. The method was later improved by Babcock and others, allowing astronomers to observe not only the magnetic field of sunspots but also the weak fields near the Sun's poles. It turned out that the Sun has a polar field somewhat like the Earth's, but that it reverses its polarity during each 11-year cycle. Sunspots have also led us to a better understanding of the Earth's own magnetic field. The face of the Sun consists of ionized hot gas ("plasma"), hot enough to conduct electricity. Sunspot fields were evidently produced by electric currents, and it was well known that such currents could be generated by a "dynamo process," by the motion of an electric conductor (e.g. the flow of solar plasma) through a magnetic field. In 1919 Sir Joseph Larmor proposed that the fields of sunspots were due to such dynamo currents. He suggested that a closed chain of cause-and-effect existed, in which the field created by these currents was also the field which made them possible, the field in which the plasma's motion generated the required currents. Many features of sunspots remain a mystery, but Larmor's idea opened an era of new understanding of magnetic processes in the Earth's core. Sunspots are caused by the uneven rotation of the Sun, the equator rotating faster than the polar regions. That stretches out magnetic field lines, crowding them together and making their magnetic field stronger. Strong magnetic field (under the surface) pushes away the solar gas, which therefore gets less dense, so that regions of strong field tend to float up to the top, the way oil floats to the surface of water. Where it breaks the surface, sunspots occur.
The solar surface and interior rotation rate, where red regions represent areas of slightly faster than average rotation while areas in blue show slower rotational rates. Credit: NSO
But we still do not understand a lot--why exactly the Sun rotates unevenly, why the north-south magnetic polarity reverses every 11-year cycle, how sunspots slow down the flow of solar heat (which makes them dark).
Today is Saturday, September 17, 2011 and I am in the fourth largest city of Germany; Cologne. It is such a picturesque city with so much history. Just talking through the streets of Cologne is captivating. You see the cute houses, the stores and almost around every corner you see the big Dom, the Cathedral. What a huge building.
It is even more impressive to think that the Dom was pretty much the only building left standing during World War II. The rest of the city was flattened. Don't get me wrong - the Dom did sustain some damage but it continued to stand proud.
The construction of the Dom began in 1248 and took, with interruptions, until 1880 to complete. It is 144.5 meters (474 feet) long, 86.5m (284 ft) wide and its towers are approx. 157 m (515 ft) tall. Amazing! From 1880 to 1884 it was the tallest structure in the world - until the completion of the Washington Monument. It has the second-tallest church spires, only surprised by the single spire of Ulm Minster (also in Germany) completed 10 years later in 1890. Because of its enormous twin spires, it also presents the largest facade of any church in the world.
The city of Cologne dates back to the Roman Empire. Considerable Roman remains can be found in present-day Cologne, especially near the wharf area, where a notable discovery of a 1900 year old Roman boat was made.
From 260 to 271 Cologne was the capital of the Gallic Empire under Postumus, Marius and Victornius. In 310 under Constantine a bridge was built over the Rhine at Cologne. The imperial governors of Rome resided in the city and it became one of the most important trade and production centers in Roman Empire north of the Alps. Maternus, who was elected as bishop in 313 was the first known bishop of Cologne. The city was the capital of a Roman province until occupied by the Franks in 459.
The river Rhine passes by Cologne. At almost 800 miles it is one of the longest and certainly most important rivers in Europe. Last year I visited where the Rhine begins. There it really is just a small little thing, barely big enough to put my feet in. Here in Cologne it is big and wide with long bridges over it and large boats going up and down. In Reichenau (in the state of Grison in Switzerland) come the two rivers together; Vorderrhein (Anterior Rhine) and Hinterrhein (Posterior Rhine) - from there on it is der Rhein or the Rhine. This river has been a vital and navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. It has also served as a defensive feature and has been the basis for regional and international borders. The many castles and prehistoric fortifications along the Rhine testify to its importance as a waterway. River traffic could be stopped at these locations, usually for the purpose of collecting tolls, by the state that controlled that portion of the river.
To be here with many of my friends form America is truly an honor. And to make new friends over here is very exciting. I mentioned it yesterday inspiration, education and working together does not know boundaries. We must meet each other, shake hands, work together, share ideas, learn from each other and at the end of the day, hug each other. This is the only way we can solve current and future problems. Sure we will have differences and they can all be overcome by mutual respect and understanding.
That being said, I am proud to be here. I am proud to be representing Team SDO, sharing my knowledge of the Sun and the Sun-Earth connection with my new friends. I am proud to learn from them, see how they go about their lives and enjoy some of the wonderful customs Cologne and Germany has to offer. Oh, it is dinner time now! I must be going...
Ok, before going to bed, wanted to share a couple more pictures from today (and from dinner). I had the pleasure of going to dinner with a new friend. Her name is Ariel and she brought a little Koala bear with her so I wouldn't feel all left out.
One more thing... in case you did not see it yesterday. Discovery News wrote an article about Atmospheric Drag and they quoted Yours Truly! It's about this satellite which will be re-entring Earth's orbit next week. Sooner than expected due to increased solar activity.
One last thing. Watch SOFIA's landing today in Cologne. It is SOFIA's first time here in Cologne and I am so excited to be seeing her tomorrow again. I am already wearing both my SOFIA pins on my flight suit. You can follow tomorrow's activities live.
