Check Out Day

Today was a GREAT day. It was our last day at Ellington Field. We did not have to report to the field until 1:00 today. It was kind of sad. We have made a lot of friends here and we will miss not seeing them on a daily basis. We all gave presentations on our experiment, our experience here, and our plans when we return home. We then had to check out. We then met Col Johnson for awhile. We had a great time and I posted a picture from our visit tonight. We are going to just hang around the hotel tonight and plan what we are going to do with the students when we return on Monday. It was a gorgeous day here today. Tomorrow is our last day in Houston. We will finish our blog tonight. We have really enjoyed sending stuff back to everyone each night and we hope you have enjoyed it as well. We look forward tom sharing our experience when we return. We would like to thank everyone who made this trip possible including the people at the reduced gravity office, Doug, and especially our mentor Fernando. See Ya Monday. Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Cantu, Mrs. Damm, and Mrs. Myers

Tour Day

We are trying something new tonight. We have three videos for you to watch. You are going to have to be creative though and turn your head sides. Hey we are just learning this stuff. Mrs. Myers is doing most of the talking. The video of the Saturn V is a combination of the Apollos 18, 19 and 20 missions that were never flown. The hardware was complete when they abandoned the Apollo Missions. So it was assembled here to preserve it for future generations to see. It is unbelievable how big it is. Today we went on tours. We went to Building 9 which is where they have full size mock ups of space station, the shuttle, the Soyuz, the new Orion capsule, and we saw our mentor's robots there as well. The lunar rover is a project of his. We also have a picture of Spider. I bet you can guess where it got that name. Pretty impressive!! We then went to Mission Control. The picture taken at mission control that is really dark has a special person in it. Yes, we were fortunate enough to see our own Col. Johnson at work. He will be working CapCom during the next mission so he was busy at work preparing while we were there. We went to another building to learn about space suits and how they are going to make the next generation space suit. Mrs. Myers can be seen giving her imaginary friend a high five. This evening we went to Khima. There is a boardwalk there where there are carnival type attractions, restaurants, and shopping. We went there last year. This was the place that I showed my students that was covered in about 8 feet of water from the storm surge after Hurricane Ike. I was afraid of what we would see. To our amazement they have reconstructed a lot of it already. The damage is sad. Just across the water from where we were standing was a restaurant that was completely destroyed. The area is coming back. We talked to a local woman who said that the area will be in full swing again by this summer. That is good news for the people who live in the area.

Flight Day Two

Well we all survived. No on got sick on the plane. Mrs. Allen was a little bit disoriented but she did OK. I am not sure she would want to do it again though. Mrs. Cantu said that was a phenomenal experience and she can not wait to share it with others. She can only wish that she has the opportunity to do it again and take students. She said that she is in dreamland with that one though. As for me it was a once in a life time experience that I was able to experience not once but twice. Things were different this time. I was not as cautious and was more of a risk taker. Once we collected the data it was all play. I wanted to do things that I did not due the first time. I was not able to look out the window this time because this plane did not have the windows that the plane did last year. I tried to do more filming this time so that our students could get more out of the experience. As far as your questions are concerned our hair did float, it made us look funny in some of the pictures. We think that the density experiment that one of the teams did had water in it but we are not sure. We could not toss anything like food up into the air. This is called FOD or Foreign Object Damage. If a little piece were to get loose it could cause severe damage to the plane due to the environment that we are in. We all want to say hello to our students and that we look forward to seeing you next week. Tomorrow we are going on tours and should have some great things to share right now we are a little bit tired from the exciting day and the medications they had to give us prior to flight. Mrs. D

Flight Day One

WOW.....That is what I have to say. Today was a great experience. It was sooooo exciting to be able to float. At first it was really weird. They told us that we were going into 2G's and there was a lot of pressure on my body and it was really hard to move. When they told us that we were coming out and going into microgravity I just floated right up to the ceiling. The first couple parabolas I just got used to floating around and feeling what it was like to be an astronaut. It was cool!!! Once we got to the third parabola, Fernando (our mentor) and I started to do the experiment. I found that at first the washers and the paperclip would float toward the top too but them on some of them they would stick to the coil. Almost toward the end of us collecting data I started to float away in microgravity and tried to push down our experiment and held onto it instead and pulled the experiment box along with me. That was pretty funny because I was just floating and I couldn't get control of where I was going. I just said "Oh boy, here I go....uhhh help I'm floating with my experiment". Once we got done collecting our data it was time for us to play around and have some fun. I took out a slinky and a paddle ball and wanted to see what it would do in microgravity. Guess what.....it floated. Don't worry we got some of it on video. Once we hit the lunar parabola it was very different and i could jump and then come back down a little easier. I also did push ups with our mentor on my back (they were really easy to do push-ups). Martian I could jump and bounce. Overall I had a great time and would do it again anyday.....and no I didn't get sick one bit. Mrs. Myers

Flight Suit Day

Today was a day of hurry up and Wait. We had to be at the field early today to prepare for our TRR or Test Readiness Review. This is where NASA's safety OKs us to fly. It was no big deal for us. Then we waited and waited and waited until it was time to get our flight suits and load our experiments on the plane. There were a lot of people on the plane and it was hard to move around especially when they had a huge section of the side of the plane open for the forklift to load the experiments. We then watched an anti motion sickness video and learned how to NOT throw up on the plane. That was it for today. Mrs. Myers flies tomorrow so we are going to try and get her to bed Early, that is not easy by the way. I am sure she will have fantastic stories for you tomorrow. Mrs. D

Houston Museum of Natural Science

Trivia question for today. How many gallons of water does the NBL pool hold? First student with the right answer gets the prize.

Ms. Wagner was wondering about the flight schedule. They will be making two flight on Tuesday and two flights on Wednesday. Mrs. Myers will fly on Tuesday and the rest of us on Wednesday. Our DLN will be held on Wednesday. I think the plan is that the students who worked on the experiment will participate and then it will be recorded and shown to the rest of the students later.

We had an exciting day of touring today. We went to Galveston Island. The hurricane damage was unbelievable. I will post some pictures tomorrow. I cant tonight because they are on Mrs. Myers camera. It was very hard to see the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike.

We then went into downtown Houston where we went to the Houston Museum of Natural History. We saw many dinosaurs and fossils including the ones that I post tonight. We also saw the human body plastintation exhibit. It was fascinating to see how complex the human body was.


We then met our mentor Fernando for cake for my birthday. It was a wonderful birthday today. Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Cantu, and Mrs. Myers bought me some frog things since I am such a fan of frogs.

The plan is that we will get up tomorrow and make the drive to San Antonio where we will see the Alamo. Better get to bed as it is almost midnight. Mrs. D

Chamber Day

Well Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Cantu, and Mrs. Myers survived the Chamber. The three of them had four hours of training where they were scared into all of the possibilities of the things that could happen to them in the Chamber and during flight. They also learned what they need to do to avoid getting sick during the flight. They learned a technique on how to get their ears to pop during flight. This is very important during flight because of the altitude changes. All three teachers had different experiences in the Chamber but all three did very well. While in the Chamber they needed to breathe pure oxygen for thirty minutes through a pilots mask. This allowed their bodies to purge themselves of nitrogen so that they would not develop problems later. The NASA employees then began pumping air out of the Chamber until it thinned out to the equivalent to 25,000 feet. They were then instructed to take off their masks for 5 minutes. The masks could not be off any longer then this due to NASA regulation, because during this time their brains were being deprived of oxygen. They had to take a simple test during this time which as I remember was not that easy. Mrs. Myers said that during that time she felt very happy and giddy. Mrs. Allen said that she was anxious and really hot. She got really dizzy and had to put her mask back on. Mrs. Cantu did not seem to have any problems. They said that a few people from the other teams did not due very well. We think that a few people were not where they were supposed to be again but we are not sure and will have to wait until Monday to find out.

The three were then able to tour the Neutral Buoyancy Lab which is the pool in which astronauts train for space walks. They said there were astronauts training in the pool at one point today.

I think I forgot to tell everyone that I learned yesterday that I am going to be able to fly again this year. I am so excited. Mrs. Myers will be flying on Tuesday with out mentor and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Cantu and I will be flying on Wednesday.

None of the students in the school district tried to answer my question about the vans yesterday so that prize goes back into the bucket for another day. The vanes are from all of the relief workers that are still here from the hurricane that went through.

Well watch be sure to read what we do over the weekend. We are going to take some trips and will have some interesting pictures posted.

Unpacking Day

All Right All right. Yes we admit we were not the best role models for healthy eating with the cheesecake. As for the flavors two of us had banana cream and the other two had chocolate mousse. Like we covered in C3 though it is all about moderation. I don't think any of us finished our pieces and brought them back to the hotel. Other than the one time we have been eating healthy. We took packed lunches with us today with lots of fruits and veg tables. As far as dinner have long days but go out for dinner when we are finished for the day.

We had a question about our flight. It was nice to have a direct flight and not have to change planes in Atlanta like we usually do. The trip was OK but we were in a small plane. Mrs. Cantu had a rough time. She gets claustrophobic. It was a little bumping on take off and landing. It was worth it when we were able to take our coats off by the afternoon as we were sweating.

None of us are nervous. We are just excited to be here. We were able to get to know the rest of the teams today. There are ten school teams here for a total of 40 participants.

We found out today that the plane we will be flying on is a 727. It is not here yet, but will be flown in on Monday. We should be able to post pictures of it on Monday.

Tomorrow is a big day for everyone except Mrs. Damm. The three others will be doing their physiology training and going into the hypobaric chamber. Mrs. Damm was certified last year. She will be staying back at the hotel and doing homework all day. Yes, adults have homework too!!

Today we unpacked our experiment and set it up. We also sat through many meetings on rules and procedures. You should hear all of the rules and procedures that we have to follow. It is amazing. There were a few teams that learned the hard way about being late today. One of our rules is that you can not be late to anything. If you break rules twice during the time here your team will not be allowed to fly. They need you to demonstrate that you are dependable. Three teams were late to a meeting this afternoon. They only get one more opportunity and if something else happens they will not be able to fly. When we unpacked our experiment two of the wires had broken during shipment. We are going to need to solder them back together. No worries though everything is going to be fine.

One of the pictures tonight is of a few of the MANY white vans that take up our hotel parking lot. The parking lot at night is almost full of them. Can anyone guess what all of the white vans are for? Well, I will close for tonight but I am sure that there will be MANY stories to tell tomorrow night. Mrs. D

Arrival Day

Well we are all here in warm but not to sunny yet Houston. We left Jackson at 5:30 this morning and arrived in Houston at 11:30 am local time. We ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and then went shopping for some warm weather clothes. We had to drive through a very busy downtown Houston before arriving at our hotel. We then checked in and went to do some grocery shopping. All healthy food for all of you seventh graders:) We actually had business this evening. We had to attend an orientation meeting. The main business of the meeting was to set up logistics for meeting in the morning and introducing ourselves. After the meeting we all went to a shoe store to buy shoes with white bottoms. This is a requirement for the plane so that we do not damage the floor.

Mr Hilger's class was asking a question about the cameras that we will be using on the plane I assume. We are taking up a digital Canon Sure Shot and a Sony HandyCam for video. You have to promise that you will not be critical of my pictures:) I am not a very good photographer.

Well it is getting late and we need to meet early in the morning. So this will be a short one tonight. Tomorrow will be a full day and I am sure that I will have some more pictures to share with you then. Good night. Mrs. D

YEAH!!! It is there. Our experiment arrived at the reduced Gravity Office yesterday. We are making last minute details back here in Michigan. The important stuff like what to pack and wear. HA HA. Seriously. We are making plans with students and Mr Marsh who will be handling our DLN, getting our cameras and DVD recorders that kind of stuff. Stay Tuned

Equipment is off

Well the equipment is off. Thanks to the wonderful packing job of a local mail center our equipment is safely on its way and being tracked across the country as it makes its way to Houston. If all goes well it should arrive safely at the Reduced Gravity Office tomorrow.

Another Year of Flying

Well folks here we go again. Yes Parkside was the only school selected nation-wide this year to fly again. We are flying the same experiment this year. We have a new team this year. I will still be going as the principle investigator. Mrs. Cantu, Mrs. Myers, and Mrs. Allen will be flying this year. If I am lucky i will get to fly also. We also have a new mentor this year. His name is Fernando Zumbado. He works in robotics at NASA's Johnson Space Center. We have been busy with the finishing touches on the hardware and will be shipping it to Houston soon. We booked our flights yesterday so we know we are getting close.