Erica: Well, Hello! Welcome to the Johnson Space Center this is the last and final part of our series celebrating National Engineers' Week and we're so excited to have you with us today. You know, not only are we celebrating National Engineers' Week, but we are also celebrating the beginning of National Women's History month. So today, we have a special broadcast for you. We're going to talk a look at one of our women of NASA to celebrate National Women's History Month and bring in an engineer to talk to you about what it's like being an engineer and working for NASA all at the same time.

Before we get started though, I want to show you just how wonderful it is here at the Johnson Space Center.

We are located on the Gulf of Mexico, it's an absolutely beautiful facility. We're a large campus that employs about 22,000 individuals out here in Houston, TX, and it's just one of ten NASA centers located around the country. But our center, we consider to be a little bit special because here is where we train the astronauts to get ready to live and work in space.

As a matter of fact, one of our special guests today is Elizabeth Bloomer, and Elizabeth just happens to be an engineer that helps train the astronauts and other individuals to be able to work in particular areas, for example, Mission Control, and to help the astronauts get ready to live and work in space and work in particular areas, for example, the robotic arm area and things like that. So Elizabeth, welcome to our program.

Elizabeth: Thank you!

Erica: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I guess to get the program started, we have a question for you. We're wondering students, if you know exactly what does an engineer do? I don't know, Elizabeth has an answer for you, but our students at Jack Gates Communications Magnet School here in Houston went to the streets to find out what you had to say about that.

Student: I can't really in general what they do, but, you know the specific to what they want to work on, but it's a good question, I've never thought of it as what does an engineer do?

Student: It all depends on what kind of engineer. They survey, they design the buildings, blue prints, I don't know.

Student: Whatever it is that needs to be designed whether it be a bridge or a roadway or a house or a building or whatever structure; they need to be involved in that process.

Erica: Well that was some interesting answers. Welcome to today’s program. My name is Erika Gillary, and for all of you getting ready to start working with us today, we want to remind you that we are accepting all of your questions throughout the webcast today at questteam@hotmail.com. So be sure to start sending your questions, and Elizabeth Bloomer, who's our special guest today, will be answering your questions shortly. Well, Elizabeth what did you think about those answers?

Elizabeth: We certainly had a wide variety of answers.

Erica: Absolutely. So, what does an engineer do, as a matter of fact? I think you probably have a better answer than some of the people out there.

Elizabeth: Well let's actually talk about that for just a couple minutes because as so many people say, they hear: What is an engineer? And they don't really know. Even if someone says, "I'm an engineer," it doesn't tell them what they do. So let's take a few minutes to talk about that.

So what exactly is an engineer?

And the other question that we both actually first answered. Who are engineers?

Most engineers, to be honest, like math and science. And they can be from anywhere. You can be an engineer in a big city, a small town, and you can be, you can do it in any country around the world. Anybody can be an engineer; it doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl or a what your nationality is.

The next question is as many of you have asked already is what do engineers do?

So we know who engineers are, but what do they do? They do a phenomenal amount of different things. They can design our roads and the buildings we live in. They can test airplanes and cars. They can research new materials and build better computer and engineers and even teach other engineers. Those are just a few things that engineers do.

And the next question that many of you may have is: How do you become an engineer?

Well to be an engineer you actually need to go to college for about four years, and while you're at college you can study a specific kind of engineering, whether you like planes and ships, spaceships, or if you like working, if you like designing roads and the buildings we live in. There's also mechanical engineers who do a wide variety of things. Chemical engineers work in plants, work in plants and they can work with oil and gas. So they can work for many, many different companies. Bio-medical, if you like medical field, also petroleum engineers.

Those are just a few kinds of the engineers that you can be. It's a wide variety of interests, whatever you like, you can do as an engineer.

Erica: That's actually interesting too that you said that because I bet that a lot of the students that are watching, they think about engineers. Ok, what does an engineer do? So they went out to the streets and found out. But now they've found out that there's all sorts of types of engineers and different types of jobs that they do. And I guess, what I was wondering is, tell us a little bit more about how you got to NASA and how you got into training the astronauts. That's a very interesting job.

Elizabeth: Well actually I started working for NASA when I was still in college. And I worked for NASA for a little while and then I would go to school for a little while, and so I was training astronauts even before I graduated from college.

Erica: Well I tell you what, Elizabeth, as a matter of fact, we've got some really cool things before we come back and take your questions live with Elizabeth Bloomer. We would like to take a look at one of the other cool jobs they have here at NASA and that's to be a flight controller. Now believe it or not, we actually have another Elizabeth, who you probably know, Elizabeth, and her name is Elizabeth King. Lori Keith who is our space correspondent with Quest has this package for you.

Lori: Hi, I'm Lori Keith with NASA Quest. I work at the Johnson Space Center here in Houston, TX. Today I want to share with you an area of careers for engineering you might not know about, NASA Flight Controllers. Now we all know the scientists and astronauts are important in their jobs, but the flight controllers are the backbone of every mission. It's their job to monitor and maintain what they call health of the vehicles. Whether that vehicle is the ISS or one of the shuttles and if a problem arises, it is their job to figure out how to fix it or how to work around it. Their jobs are crucial to the success of every NASA space flight mission. And on that note, I would like to introduce you to...

Video of Elizabeth King speaking on screen

Elizabeth King: Hi. My name is Elizabeth King and I’m a nuclear engineer. I work here at NASA's Johnson Space Center as a flight controller for the International Space Station. I am a member of the electrical power assistance team and our call sign is "PHALCO". PHALCO stands for Power Heating Articulation and Lighting Control Officer. We are responsible for all power provided to the International Space Station. It is necessary for all the equipment on the station. Without power, there would be no lights or heaters. Behind me is a mock-up of a flight control console. We use this console to train our flight controllers. We enter in malfunctions so that our flight controllers can recognize things when they break and learn how to fix them. The simulators help prepare us for missions. We practice to be perfect, so when a mission occurs, we are ready. This is only a small part of the many things we do to train as electrical power systems flight controllers for the International Space Station.

Erica: All right. Well, we're here with Elizabeth Bloomer and we're celebrating National Engineer's Week but also the beginning of National Women's History Month. So to all the students out there watching, please be sure to send us your questions in at Questteam@hotmail.com and Elizabeth Bloomer is here and has a lot of time to be sure to get to all of your questions.

Well I know Elizabeth that we talking about how big a task it is to construct the International Space Station, and I know that you have a very important job and that's to train the astronauts in working the robotic arms. So maybe you could share a little bit with the students about how that is or how that works.

Elizabeth: Oh yeah, Absolutely. Actually, I'd love to tell you a little bit about some of the different things I've done as an engineer at NASA. So if we go ahead to the next PowerPoint slide.

Some of the things, I've been as an engineer, not only have I worked at NASA, but I've also worked at Texas Instruments for a while, and while I was there I tested some motors, so that's more of the traditional engineering. At NASA, I've taught astronauts about the space shuttle and the Space Station. I've worked on some of the software on some of the NASA airplanes, and I've also, just like Elizabeth King, I've been a flight controller in the Mission Control center. Right now, though, I'm teaching astronauts how to use the robotic arm that's on the Space Station, and I have a short video to actually show you the robotic arm in action.

What you're seeing right now is, this is during flight 7A. This happened about a year ago, the space shuttle had come to the Space Station and moving approximately 18,000 miles an hour through space at approximately 250 miles above the Earth, and they're moving this giant 60 foot arm, which is attached to the Space Station, and their going into the payload bay on the space shuttle to grab some oxygen and nitrogen tanks that they're going to need to help with some of the space walks that the astronauts are doing.

So you can see here that the arm is moving very slowly. They have to be very careful. We're always worried about accidentally having the arm hit either the space shuttle or the Space Station. You can see there it's actually dark; we're at night. So when the astronauts are in orbit, about half of their time is in what we call day and the other half is in night where it is truly very dark like you see. All the lights that you do see are either from the shuttle or from the Space Station. You can see the Space Station arm coming down. As you can see the camera tilt down a little bit, you can see more of the space shuttle. You can see the space shuttle is there attached to the Space Station. You can see a second robotic there as well. The smaller arm is actually the space shuttle robotic arm, and we had several times where both of those arms were moving at the same time.

Erica: That's really interesting. I was wondering about that.

I wonder how do you, tell the students a little bit, how do train the astronauts to actually work something like that? Do they have facilities here at the Johnson Space Center?

Elizabeth: Oh yeah, absolutely. We have a variety of different training facilities here at the Johnson Space Center. Some are a little more complex than others, some are a little more basic. Ok, so. If we could go to the next power point slide:

As I mentioned, some are very simple, they're almost like the desktop computers you may have at home, however, some of the simulators are a bit more complicated. Here you can see a picture of one of our astronauts and one of our instructors, they're sitting there thinking about moving the robotic arm. You see on the left-hand side, the gentleman in the dark shirt, his name is [Mikhail Turin], the is a Russian Cosmonaut and he just came home in November after living on board the Space Station for five months. And during that five months he actually did move the robotic arm while he was living there. This is another one of our training facilities here at the Johnson Space Center called the Robotic Development Facility, and this arm here is almost full size and almost 60 feet long and we actually have the astronauts practice using pieces of hardware around so they can think about, oh what happens if I actually hit another piece of the Space Station or the space shuttle with this robotic arm.

Erica: There is a live picture it looks like.

Elizabeth: Absolutely. Yeah.

Erica: Like here at the Johnson Space Center, that exact same arm where you train the astronauts to work.

Elizabeth: We also have some other simulators that can be linked together, so the astronauts can pretend that they're on the Space Station and the flight controllers, like Elizabeth King and myself, when I was a flight controller, we can watch what the astronauts are doing and make sure that things are not breaking.

So we have a lot of training facilities here. It's really fantastic.

Erica: That's really interesting. You know, I hear that they're actually doing some training today in our neutral buoyancy laboratory, and I'm sure that's another way they train, too.

Elizabeth: Oh yeah, absolutely. If we can show them that:

Here you can see, see the robotic arm moving, it's kind of hard to see, we have a lot of SCUBA divers there. We want to make sure that every thing is very safe. We don't want our astronauts to get hurt at all while they’re under 40 feet of water, practicing for their space walks.

Erica: Absolutely. That is a huge goal. We're just really lucky here at the Johnson Space Center to have that pool. We're talking 6.2 million gallons of water to be able to fit those life-size mock-ups with the Space Station modules. Really cool.

Elizabeth: For each space walk, did you know, the astronauts practice at least seven times in the swimming pool?

Erica: For the one time they have to do it in space and get it right.

Elizabeth: Absolutely. Then they also train in many of the other facilities at the Space Center too, but seven times in the pool at least.

Erica: Well, for all the students, we are actually getting ready to take your questions. Elizabeth Bloomer is here today with National Engineers' Week and for National Women's History month, so we're going to go ahead. We've been getting lots of questions in, so we're going to get started. The very first question comes from Jade, and, Elizabeth, Jade wants to know, do you know any of the women astronauts, I already know the answer to this, so let me get that, do you know any of the women astronauts, and for example, like Eileen Collins?

Elizabeth: Actually, I've been very fortunate, and when I was a flight controller, the last shuttle mission I worked was actually the first shuttle mission that Eileen Collins was a commander. And so, I did get to work with Eileen, and she's a wonderful person and a wonderful leader for her team and really inspiring to be able to work with her.

Erica: Jim writes in and wants to know: Who was your biggest role model?

Elizabeth: Actually I think my mother was my biggest role model. She told me I could do whatever I wanted, and I believed her, and I believe that's part of the reason I'm here now.

Back to Erica

Erica: We want to welcome the students from Shannon Estates Elementary. Fourth grader there, Barry, has a question for you, Elizabeth, and it is: What does an engineer actually do? So we wanted to make sure that we said hello to Barry, even though we already answered that question. We wanted to thank Barry for sending the question in.

So I'm going to go on to the next student. Jerry wants to know what made you choose engineering for your job, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: That's actually kind of a tough question. However, I knew from when I was eight-years-old that I wanted to work at NASA, and it wasn't until I saved a lot of babysitting money and I went to Space Camp. When I was at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, I decided, I learned about engineering and I decided that's what I wanted to do.

Erica: Well, you know Elizabeth before we move on with the questions, I have kind of a question off the one that you just answered, and I want you to talk to students about what exactly is Space Camp. What do you do there? I bet you kids are like, "Oh, what's that? Kind of cool."

Elizabeth: Actually I really enjoyed Space Camp. It was about one week where you live in Huntsville and they teach you about being a Mission Controller, you get to practice being an astronaut. You can fly the space shuttle, you can SCUBA dive and practice, just like you saw the astronauts in the swimming pool here practicing for their space walks. You get to do all of that there. It's a wonderful fun time. You learn a lot about the Space Station and the space shuttle and about being engineers or doctors, you know, all the different people who are important in space.

Erica: Well thank you, Elizabeth. Richard Lighton wants to know, what was your favorite subject in school.

Elizabeth: I do have to admit that I liked, I liked math, which is good because my mother was a math teacher, but I also had a lot of fun dancing and things like that. Probably not the answer you want to hear, but that's the truth.

Erica: You know it's really interesting, isn't it. When you talk to people about careers at the Johnson Space Center, even the NASA centers, they talk about the people that come to work in the space industry are very well rounded. They probably have a big emphasis in their career, but they also able to adapt to all types of situation and able to work with other people. They’re good communicators, they do extra-curricular activities when they were in school. They got involved in organizations and other things like that, so that's kind of an interesting thing for Elizabeth to say, is to make sure that you get involved in other things in addition to school stuff.

We're going to go on with our questions. Well this comes in from Adam and Adam wants to know, what is it like being a female in a career filled with almost all men.

Elizabeth: Actually I've been a tom boy for a long time. I love working with a lot of guys, but here at the Johnson Space Center we're very fortunate and particularly in my job we have, we do have a lot of girls here as well. Also, I have worked in other places where I was the only girl. In some of my classes when I was at school, I was the only girl. But it works out okay; you just end up having a lot of guy friends.

Erica: On that note, we have someone that writes in and probably has read your bio a little bit, kind of finding out about what you studied. Jim wants to know: What sort of initiatives - or for our younger students - what kind of steps should be taken to increase the number of women looking for a career in physics.

Elizabeth: I really think the best thing you can do is simply tell people they can do whatever they want. And if you think a girl might be interested in physics, take her to the museum, show her a little bit about what physics is all about, and have fun with it though, that's the most important thing.

Erica: Well we have a sixth grader, that writes in, Thomas, hello to you today. And, Thomas, I can tell you've been reading Elizabeth's bio because we haven't even talked about this part of her career yet. And Thomas wants to know what is the International Space University.

Elizabeth: The International Space University is a small university that is in Strasbourg, France; you actually get to live in France for about one year. And they bring people from all over the world, and we work together on different projects. I'm an engineer, but there are people who are doctors and lawyers and business men and journalists, and we learned how to work together and you get a master’s degree. So after you go to your four years of college, you can go on and get this other degree there at the International Space University.

Erica: Oh Elizabeth, you were talking a little bit earlier, how you're mother inspired you, and she was the biggest role model in your life. Jana writes in and wants to know as far as education, you said you liked math, but when did you first become interested in science?

Elizabeth: I actually had a very good teacher in my freshman year at high school. And his name is Mr. Ruckley, and we always had animals in the room. Well I was playing with the animals while he was talking about the animals, and that's what kind of got me thinking about science a little bit more.

Erica: All right. Well, Sarah, from Idaho, writes in and wants to know, or actually, this is her statement. So Sarah welcome to our program. Elizabeth, there aren't as many females in science fields such as engineering and engineering sciences now] . When you decided to enter in the field did you feel any pressure that you should enter into something more stereotypical of a field for a female, like a nurse, teacher, or secretary?

Why don't you think that there are more females in the engineering field? So this is a female that thinks, I think that the stereotypical part of it kind of moving, we're moving ahead. Women can do [inaudible]. What was your...How did you feel about that?

Elizabeth: I actually never, I never thought too much about being one of the only girls in the field of engineering. I had no problem with it. Like I said, my mother was always a big push, or was always very important to me, and she actually felt when she was a girl in high school and even in college that all she could do is be a nurse or a teacher and so she always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do. So I've never had any problems with that.

Erica: Jennifer writes in and she's a fourth grader at Shannon Estates Elementary and she wants to know, do you still want to be an astronaut?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. I can't wait.

Well, one of the interesting things, too, about being an astronaut, a lot of people that become astronauts actually work here for NASA. So getting here to work as an engineer or scientist coming in gives you a really good chance at becoming an astronaut, Jennifer, so that's something to think about as you plan your career.

Well Samantha wants to know: Is the robotic arm that you train with a real one or is it just like a real one?

Elizabeth: The one we use is not the real one. As you saw on the video, the real one is already up in space. So I was able to go to Florida before they actually put the real one on the space shuttle to go to the Space Station, and I got to see it and touch it and that was a lot of fun, but right now it's not the real one, unfortunately.

Erica: Evelyn writes in and wants to know, you've talked about training astronauts, but did you enjoy being a flight controller, and what was your specific responsibility?

Elizabeth: It was a lot of fun to be a flight controller, you actually get to work in the Mission Control center, and you sit there, and I remember my first time as a flight controller, sitting, watching all the information coming from the shuttle. I was in charge of the payloads, some of the experiments that were on the space shuttle, so I wanted to make sure that there was no problem with any of them. So I'm watching and making sure that there's no problem with them, and I'm watching the countdown for the space shuttle. And they started down: 10 seconds, 9,8... and on this shuttle flight they actually stopped the shuttle launch two or three times before they actually launched, two or three different days. So you would be very excited, and then they'd say, "Oh stop. Something happened and you have to go home and come back the next day." So those of you who have seen Groundhog Day, that's what I felt like.

Erica: This is Jeremy, who writes in and wants to know, who you're three favorite, famous women?

Elizabeth: Actually I would say Eileen Collins is a very good role model, and also going back in history a little bit more, Eleanor Roosevelt was a fantastic role model, always standing up for women and someone that we can look up to. And my third famous women, that's a little harder. I would probably have to say Margaret Thatcher over in Britain. She's a better role model and the first female prime minister.

Erica: Absolutely. Well for anyone that may just be logging in, we’re here with Elizabeth Bloomer, who is one of our women of NASA. She's an engineer that trains the astronauts on the robotic arm for constructing the International Space Station, and also she's helped train some flight controllers and has worked in a flight controller’s position here. So some really cool experiences and some things to share with you.

Please write in your questions at questteam@hotmail.com. We're answering them live here today. And thanks for all the great questions that we've already gotten in.

Now I have a question for you. Working and training the astronauts, now that we're working with 16 countries total on the International Space Station, I was wondering, how is it working with different cultures and just the different work ethics and the different things that you have to teach? What about language, those types of things?

Elizabeth: Well English is the primary language of the International Space Station, so anyone who goes and learns on the Space Station needs to know English fairly well. And when they train, they train probably about two years to live on the Space Station for the four or five months they live there. All of that training is done in English when they're here in the United States.

Erica: That was an interesting question to be answered. So you have to know that you have to be able to work with other cultures, all the students watching today, and be able to adapt readily. We have 16 countries we're working with so...

Debra writes in, she's a seventh grader and Debra asks Elizabeth, is mechanical engineering hard, what exactly is mechanical engineering?

Elizabeth: Well I certainly thought it was hard when I was in school, but I worked. I worked very, very hard, and I did finish getting my mechanical engineering degree. Mechanical engineering, that's actually a challenging question because mechanical engineers can do anything. We can work, you learn how to design motors, you learn how to do a lot of different things. It's probably one of the more general engineering degrees that you can get.

Erica: I've got a question for you.

I'm pulling this out on Elizabeth, she doesn't know that I reached back here and pulled this out. So I was just wondering, would a mechanical engineer create something like this?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. What you see here, this is actually a place where the astronauts when they're floating on the Space Station or on the space shuttle, they can go here and put their feet in so that way they don't float away. And, yes, it does take a lot of engineering to design this. An engineer would have to sit here and design, well, how big should this knob be? How long should this bolt be that's in here? How big should this overall plate be? What should it made out of? And mechanical engineers have to think about all of these. Then after they design it on paper or on a computer, they have to go and follow it through the process when it's actually built and then test it to make sure that it's not going to break when the astronauts use it.

Erica: That's interesting. Working as an engineer probably for NASA and working with the astronauts, you probably also have to work with a lot of people that deal with human factors and the things that human's need to live and maintain in space. Is that true? Is that, people that you work really close with, scientists, too, and engineers?

Elizabeth: Sometimes.

Erica: We're going to go ahead and continue with our questions that all of you guys are sending in.

So the next question that we have is from Monica. And Monica is also is in the seventh grade. And she wants to know: What kind of classes should she take in high school if she's interested in working toward an engineering degree in college?

Elizabeth: Make sure, Monica, that you take math and science classes. If you can, take four years of math and at least three years of science while you're in high school.

Erica: Terry writes in and after we finished talking Terry, I know that you went to the International Space University, but she wants to know what is your Master's degree in.

Elizabeth: My Master's degree is in something called space studies, kind of like getting an extra degree in both business and engineering. We learned a lot about a lot of different things.

Erica: Well one of the things that we want to share with everyone watching today is that if you have some additional questions about some of the things that are happening, for example, we have a space shuttle that launched this morning. Space Shuttle Columbia is already on orbit and on its way to the Hubble Space Telescope to do some re-servicing of that telescope. So if you have any interest like that or to find out about the engineers that work here, the astronauts and their biographies or when the International Space Station will be in your backyard, you can log on to spaceflight.NASA.gov and find out all that cool information and actually find out when the next shuttle mission is going to be. Just about anything, you can find out from this Web site. So we encourage you to do that.

We're going to go ahead and continue with your questions. Thanks for all the great questions; Elizabeth is here to answer them live for you. Frank writes in, Elizabeth, and wants to know: Are all the arms you are training the astronauts to use already on the International Space Station?

Elizabeth: Well, all the arms we're currently training the astronauts on are on the Space Station. We just have one on the Space Station and then we have one on the space shuttle right now. However, we have three more robotic arms that we hope to have on the Space Station someday. And we will train those probably in the next couple years.

Erica: Now someone told me one time, Elizabeth, that there is a difference between the shuttle arm and the Space Station arm. What's the big difference?

Elizabeth: The big difference between, although there's several differences between the space shuttle and the Space Station arm, one is the Space Station arm is physically longer, it's bigger than the space shuttle arm. Also, one of the neat things about the Space Station arm is it was designed so it can Slinky on the outside of the Space Station, almost crawl on its own.

And here we can see the Space Station arm moving. It was on one place on the Space Station, and you can see it grab another place and how it's moving. The Space Station robotic arm also has its own, almost like a little railroad car, that rides on some of the railroad tracks on the outside of the Space Station.

So the Space Station arm is really a versatile arm and very interesting to work with.

Erica: Ok. Well Shawn writes in and wants to know: Do you know how many robotic arms will be on the International Space Station when it's completed?

Elizabeth: It’s going to have a total of five robotic arms on board the Space Station when it's completed, two from Canada, two from Japan, and hopefully from here.

Erica speaking on screen

Erica: Well I have a question kind of for that, and this is just for me, Erica. I'm always thinking of these things, but I was wondering, Elizabeth, as far as the different robotic arms from the different countries, are each of the arms going to be different, used for different things? Because I just found out, I didn't know until you just said that. I thought maybe it was going to be the arm we have from Canada that we're using right now to help construct the Station. But I didn't realize the other arms are going to be used as well.

Elizabeth: Actually each of the arms are going to be built for different purposes. The Japanese, as I mentioned, are going to have two arms on the robotic space station

and their robotic arms are only going to be used on what's called the exposed facility, which is kind of like a back porch for the Japanese portion of the Space Station. The European arm is going to be used only on the Russian portion of the Space Station.

And the Canadian arm that we have on the Space Station right now is only used on the United States’ portion of the Space Station.

Erica speaking on screen

Erica: Well Cicely Hughes, a fifth grader, writes in and wants to know, do you have to travel a lot for your job?

Back to Elizabeth

Elizabeth: I do get to travel some. I've been to Japan a few times, to actually their robotic arm. I've gone to Canada several times. The Canadians do a wonderful job of teaching us about their robotic arm so that we in turn can help train the astronauts, and of course getting to go down to Florida to the Kennedy Space Center.

Erica: Well we're getting a lot of questions in, and a lot of them are in reference to National Women's History or being a female in your career. So we have another one, you kind of answered to this earlier, but this is a little bit different. This is from Joanna, thank you for your question, Joanna, from [Decora] High School, and she wants to know: How has working in a male dominated career affected your personal life?

Elizabeth: I think you just... That's actually a pretty good question. I personally haven't had any trouble working in a male-dominated world. I have had some girlfriends who've had troubles where maybe their supervisors weren't as supportive of them because they're women, but that is getting less and less, and when that has become a problem they've been able to go and get help. So more and more people are very supportive women as engineers these days. So it's a good thing.

Erica: Do you have any suggestions for maybe younger men watching that are hearing some of these questions that some of the older students are asking, some of the younger ones, they wonder well I'm not sure now. You have any suggestions just to help them through that or help them to focus on getting their careers and not making that such an issue?

Elizabeth speaking on screen

Elizabeth: If you're referring to being worried about whether people will accept them as engineers, really the thing that I found is if you do your job well, people don't care whether you're a guy or a girl. They respect you for the work that you do, not whether you’re a male or female.

Erica: Billy writes in and wants to know: Do you miss being a flight controller and what are you going to do next?

Elizabeth speaking on screen

Elizabeth: Well there's certainly some parts of flight controller that I do miss. I do miss working in the control center during the shuttle missions and having the excitement of being there and watching the shuttle take off from Kennedy Space Center. And to be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. I may stay in my current job. I'm training one of the crews that are living on the Space Station, or that will be living on the Space Station in March and May, and I might stay and train another crew after that.

Erica: When it gets time for you to, for them to do actually a robotic mission, another question for me also, I was just wondering, I think the students may be interested in hearing this. What happens during missions? Do you actually work a console here in Mission Control and is actually, something, a robotic task to be done that day or does someone in your team do that?

Elizabeth: We do have a lot of flight controllers and it's really their job to watch the astronauts and make sure that everything goes very smoothly when they're actually using the robotic arm on orbit. However, I will be there probably sitting beside the flight controller, watching him, saying please, please, do everything well. At that point I'm like a coach; I'm standing on the sidelines and I'm hoping my team does a really good job.

Erica: Juanita is a seventh grader, and Juanita thank you for your question. She writes in, Elizabeth, and she wants to know, where do you see yourself in five and then maybe ten years from now.

Elizabeth: Well I certainly expect to see myself here at NASA, and I hope, particularly in ten years, that I would be an astronaut too.

Erica: You know I was just wondering, Elizabeth, do you see, once the International Space Station is finished being built, what do you think about working on the International Space Station as an astronaut, or giving some inspiration to our students about, it's going to really be their generation that's going to need to come up and get back on it's feet to explore space a little bit more.

Elizabeth: Oh I would love to live on the Space Station, once it's completed. It's going to be a very large place to live with lots of experiments going on. Should be a really fantastic opportunity. I would go in a minute if they would invite me.

Erica: This is a timely question, and as a matter of fact, I think you just answered something along those lines. Josh is a fourth grader and Josh wants to know how many times have you seen the shuttle launch?

Elizabeth: I have seen a shuttle launch four times. My very first time was when I was in third grade, I was eight years old, and my parents were in Florida. And they just took me down by the beach, and I didn't know what to expect, and I was just amazed.

Erica: Look at that, that's a beautiful launch right there.

Elizabeth: Oh yeah, look at that.

Erica: I've never been to a launch, so I am a little bit envious of your four launches. I've never been able to see four launches, but is it true the ground shakes?

Elizabeth: It really is. I didn't expect it to really shake because you're three to five miles away, you wouldn't think it would, but it does and you can hear it.

Erica: Have you seen both day and night launches?

Elizabeth: Yes, at night it's like watching a star just shoot towards the sky. It's absolutely beautiful.

Erica: It looks like it would be very beautiful. Well we have some more questions coming in and I'd like to find out the answer to this one because I'm not even sure if I know what this is. Gloria, an eighth grader, from Jackson Intermediate wants to know, whatever happened to [MicroSat].

Elizabeth: [MicroSat] was a project sponsored by the Air Force, and it is actually going to be launched not on the space shuttle, but on a Delta Rocket in May.

Erica: Okay. What exactly is [MicroSat] anyway?

Elizabeth: It was a small satellite, maybe three foot long, that the Air Force was testing.

Erica: Very interesting.

Well it's really obvious that you guys are reading Elizabeth's bio and you're writing in, and we really appreciate that. For all of you that are still watching the video, you can still send in some emails and that email address is questteam@hotmail.com, and we look forward to answering your questions.

We're here at the Johnson Space Center in Houston with Elizabeth Bloomer, one of our engineers that helps train the astronauts to get ready to use the robotic arm that's helping to build the Space Station. So we are going to go on and get some more questions for you, Elizabeth. Cory writes in and wants to know: Do you do simulations, practices with the robotic arm like you did as a flight controller? Now I know you answered part of that during your presentation.

Elizabeth: Yes, we certainly do practice a lot.

We do have a lot of simulations with the robotic arm.

Erica: Right, you were talking earlier how under the water in the MBL, you practice seven times to the one that you're going to do in space. What about in the other facilities, do you use Virtual Reality at all?

Elizabeth: Oh, absolutely. We do the virtual reality lab here at the Johnson Space Center and we're looking to have the robotic arm,

we can have someone practicing, pretending like they're moving the robotic arm. And we can have people pretending they're using the virtual reality helmet and gloves and they're practicing a space walk. Because sometimes in the space walk, they are actually at the end of the robotic arm so they have to talk. The people on the end of the robotic arm have to talk to the person who moves the robotic arm.

Erica: Charlie is a fourth grader and writes in and wants to know: Do kids ever get a chance to go to space?

Elizabeth: I sure hope so, Charlie. I would've loved to have gone to space when I was a kid. So probably not while you’re still a kid, but maybe your kids will.

Erica: Absolutely. Rachel and Amber want to know have you ever worked anywhere other than NASA?

Elizabeth: Yes, I did work at Texas Instruments for a while, and I also worked for another company in Dallas called [Loral]. Actually they were working on part of the Space Station. But my very first job before I started any of this engineering, I was a cashier at [Eckert’s]. That convinced me I should go to college.

Erica: Absolutely, I completely understand. Okay. It's great for students, so see you start working, it does make you want to hurry up and get your degree and be able to qualify for a jobs that a little bit more rewarding.

Tell me a little bit about living in Strasbourg, France. And I think that a lot of the students probably it’s their first time hearing about the International Space University. We want to highlight that a little bit today and probably ask you a few questions about how did you hear about it and was it hard getting in, and as far leaving, were you already working and had to make the decision of whether or not to leave your job to go off to get a master's all the way in France for a year or two.

Elizabeth: I actually went to the International Space Station immediately after I finished my four-year degree here in the United States. So I was not already working at NASA. I had been working at NASA as a student, and I continued to work at NASA as student even while I was in Strasbourg, I came here and worked for a few months.

But I heard about the program. I think I went to a student conference while I was, I received my engineering degree from Texas A&M and while a student at A&M, I heard about this thing called the International Space University. And I looked it up on the Internet and decided it would be a fantastic place to go and live for a year.

Erica: That sounds really interesting, and I'm glad that we're able to highlight to you students out there and again for you to find out more about that, especially those of you that are getting ready to possibly finish college or you're getting ready to go to college, something to think about to further your career and to get some credentials there.

So, Wilson writes in, Elizabeth, and wants to know: How hard is it to actually operate that robotic arm?

Elizabeth: It actually takes a good bit of training. The astronauts practice for many, many months before they're really very comfortable with the robotic arm. It's kind of like where you have Driver's Ed to learn a car, or to learn how to drive a car.

Erica: So you said earlier that you used a virtual reality a little bit to actually train them a little bit on the robotic arm; how does that work?

Elizabeth: Well particularly for the space walks when we had somebody standing on the end of the robotic arm. You need the person who is inside the Space Station operating the robotic arm. You want them to really understand what the person who is doing the space walk says when they say move me left. Well in space there's no up and down, left or right, so he has to be able to figure out what the person who is doing the space walk when he says, move me left, what does that really mean, so we do a lot of training there.

Erica: Jeffrey writes in and wants to know, are the Canadians and/or Japanese the robotic arm specialists, and is that why they are building the arm?

Elizabeth: I know Canada has a very good history with robotics. They actually built the space shuttle robotic arm, and I think it was just when we were looking for a robotic arm on the Space Station and we said, Canada did a fantastic job on the space shuttle, we would like them to do the same for the Space Station. And the Japanese are of course, as a country it's very talented, and they were very excited to develop their own robotic arm and we fully welcome their robotic arm on board the Space Station. I can't wait to see it there.

Erica: You know, it's really interesting, too. You had mentioned earlier about all the different robotic arms and a lot of us were like, wow, we didn't even realize that there were that many robotic arms. Now you and I both know we get the privilege of actually working at the Johnson Space Center and actually get to see all the cool training facilities.

Because remember at JSC is actually where all the astronauts train so we have life-size mock-ups of just about everything. And the neat thing is with the Japanese experiment with the module that is located here at one of our buildings has a mock-up of that robotic arm right here in the building. And a lot of students may not understand that they're going to use their arm specifically like you said for the platform, and that is for research, for experiments.

Elizabeth: Right. Moving the experiments around.

Erica: Absolutely. I think absolutely. There we go. You know what's interesting too, Elizabeth, I think a lot of students have to remember that all of us are working together, this is going to be a huge research facility the size of two American football fields and so once we get the station built, we're actually doing research now, but once we get the station built,

we also will be able to increase the amount of research we're doing, and we also need to think about maintenance too. When you continue to train astronauts in robotics for maintenance and upkeep of the Space Station.

Elizabeth: Oh. Absolutely. Absolutely. We need the Space Station robotic arm in order to help do some of the maintenance tasks on the outside of Space Station from this really, extremely hard to get to, if not impossible for the astronauts during the space walks to get to on their own.

Erica: Two questions for you. First one, when you pick an astronaut,

when an astronaut crew is already selected, part of their training has to do with figuring out what it is they're expected to do on board. So you're going to have a person that's going to be responsible for robotic arm movement. Do you train the entire crew, do they have a back up?

I mean how far in advance do they have to train prior to their mission and what if something happens to them where they're incapacitated on a station they can't control or just something happens where another person has to go up instead of them? How do you do that, work with that?

Elizabeth: Well for example I would say my Space Station crew, the one that's launching in May, we have three crew members who will be living on board in the Space Station for five months, and two of them are fully qualified to operate the robotic arm.

Erica: Kind of interesting. A lot of people tell us walking around, it's not exactly the same, but they said if you like playing video games, okay, you could actually make money one day, actually doing something like training someone to work the robotic arm or actually work it. Not quite as simple, but it may show that you have some interest in something like that. So that's just something to think about.

Okay, we're going to move along with some of your questions. We have about 10 minutes left in our program, so be sure to write in to questteam@hotmail.com. We'd love to answer your questions. This is our very last National Engineers' Week webcast and we're highlighting the women of NASA with Elizabeth Bloomer.

All right, Elizabeth, Ira writes in and wants to know: Would you like to ride in the Vomit Comet again? Now before you answer that question, maybe you can share with some of our students who have no idea what Ira's talking about.

Elizabeth: The Vomit Comet, can we go ahead and show him a picture of that. Okay. The Vomit Comet is a KC135, it's an airplane that NASA has modified and what it does is it actually flies in

parabolas, so it goes up at a very steep angle, and just like you see there, you can see that, you see the scenes here. They're going to be floating, and in just a moment you'll see the plane go over, and there'll be a very steep nose dive, and when the plane is going down, that's when you see everyone float like that. You have about 20 seconds of what we call free flight or free floating, which is where you feel like you are on the Space Station.

You feel like you are in space. It's a lot of fun, but a lot of people get sick on it, hence, that's why it's called the Vomit Comet.

Erica: And that's really interesting. That's just another one of those many student programs that you got to find out about, as a matter of fact we have Web site for that. It is education.jsc.NASA.gov, and you can find out about this education program, you can find out about the co-op program, which a lot of students in universities come to NASA to work with a mentor and find out just what types of engineering jobs there are. You can find out more about that program again at that Web site, which is education.jsc.NASA.gov.

All right, we have a question that's coming in, Elizabeth, from Krista and Krista wants to know, in your travels, what was your favorite place to visit and which culture interested you the most?

Elizabeth speaking on screen

Elizabeth: In my travels, I've been so fortunate to go to so many countries. I certainly enjoyed my time in Japan because the culture was so different. That was really a surprise to me, but I really enjoyed getting to know the people because they were so incredibly friendly and open. But I also very much enjoyed living in France for a year and just having a different laid back lifestyle. For the first time in my life since I was sixteen when I lived in France, I didn't have a car. I walked everywhere. I had a bicycle. I took public transportation, and I thought it was wonderful.

Erica: That's kind of like here on site, Elizabeth. You don't really have to have a car here at the Johnson Space Center, but once you get off, you have to have one. Kind of like a really, really close knit community, and it's really nice working out here.

Well, we have a question coming in from Willy and he wants to know: What did you do to get help to design or build anything since getting your degree as an engineer. I guess he's wanting to know, have you helped design anything that's gone on Space Station or anything like that.

Elizabeth: I haven't really done much design work since I got my engineering degree from Texas A&M, and that's simply because my current job is more hands-on, when you're a flight controller, you're writing procedures, you're creating documentation. It's not quite as technical as when we were talking earlier about the foot restraint and I said an engineer would have to design the bolts and test the materials and all of that. I'm not doing that kind of work, but there are a lot of engineers at JSC here in Houston who do that very thing.

Erica: Now, Elizabeth, when you come to work for NASA and you come and you're hired on.

Do you have an opportunity to work in different areas as an engineer once you're here? For example, when you, I guess maybe when your positions come open, or do you know immediately when you come if that's the type of engineering work you want to do.

Elizabeth: Are you referring to when you come in as a...

Oh yeah, absolutely. They really like it when you enter the co-op, and go and you try different jobs. This is, I consider co-oping is kind of like window shopping. You get to go try one group maybe specializes in propulsion, and you get to go to another group and you get to see what it's like to be a flight controller, or you can go to another group and see what it's like to train astronauts. Then you can decide, based on all these different things, which one you'd like, and then that way you know where you want to go after you've graduated.

Erica: What a great opportunity for you to figure out if engineering, first of all, is what you really are interested in doing, and second of all, to just explore and see all the different facets of the engineering that there are. NASA just is an absolutely wonderful place because there are so many different areas of NASA that work with in the engineering field. Not only is the Johnson Space Center, we're just one of ten NASA centers around the country and just about anything you can think of that has to do with designing or creating, creativity, ingenuity, you can find it in the Space Program.

Shannon writes in and wants to know: Are you interested in getting your doctorate degree?

Elizabeth: Well, I will never say, never. At this time I don't have plans to, but it's a possibility for the future.

Erica: Well this is going to put you on the spot, so...

Elizabeth: Oh no.

Erica: Elizabeth, Sarah wants to know: If you could have any job in the world, what would you want to be.

Elizabeth: Well, I think this goes back to I would want to be an astronaut. But until then, because it is very hard to be selected as an astronaut, I love my job of training astronauts, and I love working at the Johnson Space Center; I really couldn't imagine working anywhere else.

Erica: Okay, we still have time to take a few more of your questions. Right before the hour, while on that note, maybe this would be a great time to share with you guys exactly what it takes.

First of all, you have to have at least your bachelors degree and specifically in math and sciences.

Elizabeth: Absolutely.

Erica: I think the only other way that you can become, actually be looked at to be an astronaut is if you came straight from the military.

Elizabeth: Right, if you're a pilot in the military. But many of our astronauts do have

master's degrees, and a lot of them have gone on and received their doctorate's. So they're medical doctors and things like that, so a lot of schooling to be selected as an astronaut. Also one thing that a lot of astronauts do is they get their private pilot's license. And actually I'm working on learning how to fly right now.

Erica: That is really neat.

Elizabeth: I'm hoping next week that I, I will get my own license.

Erica: Well guess who's going to ask her to take her flying. Okay, so that should be a lot of fun, absolutely. So we do, we work with a lot of people that do have their pilot's licenses and things like that. The one thing to remember is that a lot of our astronauts, if they didn't get accepted around, they'll wait and keep on going, they'll get more education and keep going back and trying.

Elizabeth: Many of the astronauts say they don’t get selected their very first time. Some of them try four or five or even six times, and that's part of what they look for is perseverance: are you really serious about wanting to do this. Because being an astronaut can be a lot of fun, but it's not all just about flying. There's a lot of different things astronauts have to do.

Erica: That's just some encouraging words to let you know that there are a lot of people out here that are astronauts and engineers and scientists, and they just kept on looking at what they wanted to do and just kept working towards it.

So we have a couple more questions, and we're going to get to those really quickly. Jackie wants to know: What other areas of NASA are you interested in besides robotics and flight controller.

Elizabeth: Well there are just so many different areas you can work at, at NASA. One of the neat projects out here right now is the X38 project, which is a crew return vehicle. I have several friends who are actually helping build this vehicle, and it's going to be tested. It'll go up in the space shuttle payload bay, and they'll release it once it's in orbit, and then it will fly down, on its own, and, hopefully, safely land. So this is a really project here at JSC.

Erica: Okay. Well it's about time for us to go ahead and wrap up for the day. We're wrapping up the end of a celebration for National Engineers' Week. It's been a great week, we've met a lot of people, learned about a lot of things going on here at NASA, and we couldn't think of a better way to culminate our week without focusing on Women of NASA to kick off March, which is National Women's History Month. Elizabeth thank you so much for joining us today...

Elizabeth: Oh, You're welcome.

Erica: And students, we hope we've given you some encouragement and enlightened you about some of the really cool things that are happening here at the Johnson Space Center. With that, we would like to ask if Elizabeth had any encouraging words to give students about focusing on engineering and maybe what to do in school if you haven't quite decided what you want to be when you grow up.

Elizabeth: I would say just decide in your heart what you want to do and keep working for it no matter what any body tells you. You can do anything.

Erica: Okay, well with that everybody, we'd like to say thank you from the Johnson Space Center's Distance Learning Outpost Team and the team at Quest at Ames Research Center. Have a great day. We're leaving you with a little bit of rock and roll to the International Space Station. We call this an ISS Rockumentary. It's kind of like rock & roll and a documentary put together with the best and the greatest of the International Space Station. So with that, thank you very much, and have a wonderful day.