Bonnie: Hi, my name is Bonnie and I’d like to welcome you to our live NASA-Quest Web cast here at NASA/Ames in California. I’m a member of the Young Women of NASA Advisory Council, an online mentoring project. Women of NASA is one of NASA-Quest’s outreach programs. Our virtual Take Our Daughters To Work day is a day-long series of online interactive events focusing on NASA’s space research that benefits life on Earth.

Today, we’re happy to have two very important guests with us. First we’ll go live to Susan Helms aboard the International Space Station. I’ll be able to talk with her for about 20 minutes, which is lucky because on the ISS every second is scheduled for the astronauts.

The questions I’ve prepared come straight from our forum where viewers like you at home and school, were able to write in their questions. Then once we’ve heard from Susan on the ISS, we’ll get a chance to hear from our ISS research expert, Marianne Seale. She’ll tell us about her work with NASA and fill us in on some of the science experiments that go on up in space with Susan Helms.

Marianne, it’s very nice to have you with us. We’re so glad you could join us today.

Marianne: It is delightful to be here.

Bonnie: Well thank you. And now we’ll go to Houston, Texas, where thousands of men and women at Johnson Space Center are helping manage the ISS from down below on Earth.

What you see here is the path that tracks the actual location of the ISS. If you can spot the red circle on your lower left corner, it shows you that the ISS is orbiting above Earth in that specific area.

Now a little behind-the-scenes action. On the far-right is the flight director. On the left is CatCom. It is CatCom’s job to handle all communications with the astronauts while on the ISS. The CatCom position is always held by an astronaut, in this case, Stephanie Wilson.

This big room is called Mission Control. The name speaks for itself, because in here, each person is in charge of a different part of the ISS. They handle everything in here, including connecting me to Susan Helms through the phone line and special satellite. The man in the blue shirt, on the right, is the flight director.

F: Alpha this is Houston, thank you so much for your patience. Are you ready for the event?

Susan: Alpha is ready.

F: Bonnie [Cameron] for voice check. Please call Alpha for voice check.

Bonnie: Alpha this is Bonnie [Cameron] how do you hear me?

Susan: We have you loud and a little bit unclear, Bonnie. How do you hear me?

Bonnie: I hear you clearly.

Susan: Okay.

Bonnie: Susan, this is Bonnie from the Young Women of NASA Advisory Council. Thank you so much for talking to us today here at NASA/Ames for our virtual take our daughters to work day. These questions

Susan: Sorry Bonnie, you had some feedback there.

Bonnie: Yes, we’re trying to eliminate that.

At this point we’re experiencing some feedback from the microphones in all the equipment. Obviously when you’re talking to someone in outer space, there can be a few technology glitches. But while we were fixing it, Susan took advantage of the microgravity in space.

You can see her here putting down her microphone and practicing her gymnastics.

Bonnie: All right ... how do you read me?

Susan: Read you with an echo and some garbled feedback.

Bonnie: This is Bonnie, how do you read me?

Susan: Okay, got you loud and clear there.

Bonnie: All right, great. Thank you, Susan. Again these questions have been gathered from young people across the nation. So we’ll start with, can you please tell us a little bit about where you are right now on the space station?

Susan: Right now I’m in the U.S. built laboratory called Destiny. The space station out there has about four major modules right now, the Destiny module being one of them. Just behind me in the next module is the [node] Unity. Beyond that is the [FGB] which is [Velya], and then the very last module on the end is [Gazelle] which is Russian built as well as the FGB, The [Zelya] module.

So we have basically this big long string of modules which stretch out from right where I am basically all the way down there by many, many meters.

Bonnie: Thank you, Susan. Now we’d like to know a little bit about what it’s like to be living in space. What’s a normal day like for you? Do you have a specific schedule or specific tasks?

Susan: I don’t think NASA would get their money’s worth out of us unless we were put on some kind of schedule. Basically what we do is wake up about 6:00 in the morning, every morning and work all the way up until about 10:00 o’clock at night. We have some breaks for lunch, breakfast and dinner, and we do have some time available in the morning and in the evening to either get done with sleep or get ready for sleep. But basically all day long we’ve been given work to do and we have a [inaudible] array of [inaudible] the information on how to do that work. And so we spend most of our days getting work accomplished that NASA and also the Russian Space Agency have determined to be the most important priority for the day.

Bonnie: Susan, it sounds like you have a lot of several important responsibilities while in space. But do you have any leisure time for any type of fun things on the ISS?

Susan: Well unfortunately our leisure time is really not all that much. They try hard to give us a little bit, and when that happens, I often write personal e-mail to my family at home, as well as my friends. In addition, I try to practice my space gymnastics. I really love being up here in zero G and having the opportunity to do all kinds of neat things you can’t do on the Earth. And of course one thing we all do all the time is look out the window, because the Earth is just so incredibly beautiful. It’s difficult to believe we’re even here to see it this way, and we want to watch it over and over. There is no getting tired of looking at the Earth from afar.

Bonnie: So it sounds like zero gravity has definitely changed your lifestyle. Can you share some other specific examples from daily life that have changed? For example, sleeping, eating, clothing, family, gravity or privacy?

Susan: Well I would say that the things that have changed the most are things that need water. And by that I mean sleeping’s okay, you don’t need water to go to sleep, and sleeping up here is about the same as sleeping on Earth. But when it comes time to taking a shower, there’s a major difference between life on Earth and life in space.

We basically can’t really do that. We have to take what we call sponge baths with just wet towels because we don’t have a way of taking a hot shower. Likewise with our food, there is no ability to cook anything from scratch because we don’t have the ability to get to water to prepare it. But we do have the ability to use a water dispenser to put water into pre-packaged food. And so that ends up sort of limiting the different kinds of food we can eat on orbit.

We have to stick to the things that can be prepared with water or with our small oven, and we aren’t really in a position to get fresh vegetables and fruits from the store every week. So we don’t see a whole lot of those.

Likewise, I think if you think about what a toilet would be like without using water, you could probably get some kind of idea about how different that is than a standard toilet on Earth. But that’s definitely you can get used to quickly, and it’s not been a problem. It’s just a different way of doing that type of thing.

Bonnie: Well we’re glad to hear it hasn’t been too much of a problem for you. Now, we’d like to ask you a little bit more about your life before your NASA career. What were your favorite activities and classes growing up and was there a special role model or mentor that you remember?

Susan: Well I think I have to admit my favorite activity growing up was math and science. Anything having to do with math or science in general was the type of thing I was interested in. I wasn’t really a good student of history. I did have some role models when I was growing up. I had, believe it or not, mostly female science and math teachers and they were always people I looked up to. And of course by having teachers that were female in those topics, there was no reason why I couldn’t continue to study science as a career. I didn’t see that there was anything strange about doing that.

I also had, in fact let me mention one teacher in particular, [Orry Pauli], she was one of our junior high science teachers and she was extremely motivational and I really enjoyed learning science from her and I think there was something about that that stuck with me for a long time.

I also want to mention I had a great guidance counselor, [Deb Pratt] and she worked very hard to make sure that I was motivated in the right direction. And I also was surrounded by great friends who were very supportive about studying math and science and doing well at it. I just hung out with the right people, I guess.

Bonnie: Well it sounds like you had a lot of good support in your scientific development, I guess. It sounds like teachers and counselors were especially important. It’s good to remember that all adults have an important role in our life.

Now how do you feel about being

Susan: That’s right.

Bonnie: I’m sorry. How do you feel about being a female astronaut? What about being a woman makes you especially good at this particular job?

Susan: Well I like to look at it from the standpoint of just being an astronaut who is able to do the work. I don’t think a whole lot about whether or not being female makes a difference on that. And that’s probably a good thing, because the less that you pay attention to differences, the more those differences seem to really matter. So my philosophy is to not pay attention to gender differences, but to really focus on whether or not the work gets done, and whether it gets done the right way.

In any case, if there is some aspects of being female that are helpful, I don’t know. I hate to stereotype women, but I will say that two qualities up here that are very helpful are patience and an open mind. And if you have those two qualities, whether you’re a male or female, you’ll do well as an astronaut I think, because working with a whole lot of other people requires qualities like that. Not only if they’re American, but also if they’re from other countries.

And if you can do things to develop your own level of those qualities, then the astronaut program will be looking for people like you.

Bonnie: So Susan, do you have any of your own personal qualities that you feel make you good for this position?

Susan: That’s a hard one. I would say that I’m pretty conscientious. I’m also trying to be patient and I’m also looking at things with a very open mind. I like to see things from other people’s point of view and I think that when people don’t view the world with a more open attitude of being able to see everybody’s point of view, it can get you in trouble. And I’d like to think that that’s part of one of the reasons I can be successful up here working with a huge ground team of thousands of people.

Bonnie: Well Susan, it sounds like you’re very open minded. And being an astronaut seems to be a very meaningful position for you. What does it feel like for you personally when a shuttle takes off?

Susan: When a shuttle takes off, it’s basically like riding a fairly rough train ride. I’ve done that five times now and every time it feels about the same. I basically just keep myself strapped in the seat very, very tightly. There are some good movies that are out there that you can watch that give you an idea of what the shaking, rattling and rolling is like, because they’re fairly accurate movies in that respect. And the one thing it can’t really show you in the movies are the G forces that you feel.

But those G forces don’t last a whole long time. They’re only about a few minutes long and there are things you can do to your body to offset the push you feel from all those G forces, and I’ve had a lot of practice doing that since I’ve done this about five times.

But in any case, the emotional feeling of launching into space overwhelms just about every other feeling. And that emotional rush is not going to be beat.

Bonnie: Now Susan, I think the most important thing we can hear about today is your perspective of young women. We’d like to know what you wish most for these girls and women of today. In that sense, what are you hoping to change or impact through your own experiences?

Susan: Well what I wish for all the girls and young women today is for them to know that if there’s something they really want to do, go do it. I think the young women I’ve met, so many times so many of them feel like there are barriers that they simply don’t have the energy or time to fight. And I would tell them that those barriers often aren’t as strong or in existence as they may think. And so sometimes the worst barrier of all for a young woman is what’s in her head.

So I wish for all young women today is to look at things from that perspective and to realize that if there’s something they really, really want to do, oftentimes it’s just hard work and endurance and persistence that ends up getting you past those barriers, and they shouldn’t ever think that there’s something they can’t do because of external forces. It’s all something that you can work on from within and you can go far once you put your mind to it.

Bonnie: Well thank you, Susan, you are truly an inspiration. I’m wondering if we have time for a couple more questions?

Susan: Sure, go ahead.

Bonnie: Okay. If you could tell us a little bit more about your family, we’re going to meet your mother next week. Could you tell us a little about your relationship with her and what impact your family had on your development?

Susan: My relationship with my mother is pretty good. She’s obviously been a very key point of support here as I’m going through this whole experience. And I’ve been very close to all my family members all my life, and I think that’s probably important and has helped me a lot to be where I am today.

I would say that the family and the kind of support you get at home has a lot to do with how your self-esteem is as you grow older. And it’s very important for this to be the case for young girls, because they often have a problem with self-esteem. So I have been blessed to have a wonderful family, including my mother, and they continue to support me as I’m up here, and I thank them for that.

Bonnie: Do you miss your family, especially being so far away?

Susan: Thank goodness for the invention of e-mail because that really helps offset a lot of that. I do get the chance to talk to a family member once a week on the space com here. And I also e-mail with them several times a week, and that has done a lot to offset any feelings of homesickness. Although I don’t recall ever feeling homesick up here, because right now this is my home.

Bonnie: Well it sounds like technology has been especially useful for you. I’d like to know a little bit about your Russian crew mates. Is it difficult to communicate and work with them, considering the language barrier?

Susan: Well Bonnie, one of the things we’ve been doing in the last three or four years is trying to break that language barrier. Yuri [Usechov] my commander, is now speaking very good English and I am speaking pretty good Russian, and then Jim [Voss] of course speaks both languages near fluently. And I would say that over the last two years, the three of us have worked out a relationship whereby we can communicate fully in either language, either Russian or English.

And I think that’s been one of the keys to success on this flight, working together as a team, is that we’ve internally managed to offset any issues of language barrier. And it’s going very, very well. And working with Yuri is a joy. Working with the whole crew is a joy, and I think because we’re able to communicate with each other, we can avoid some of the problems and issues of communication. Because we’re able to do that, we’ve learned to do that over the last three years and I think that’s been a key of our success.

Bonnie: Well Susan, you’ve accumulated five flights now. And do you think being up in space and having this experience has changed your perspective of life in general at all?

Susan: Well I think that one easy answer to that is that it has changed my perspective of the Earth and how it appears. It’s easy to look down there and see the cities on occasion, and you can see evidence of humans inhabiting the planet. But there’s so much more of the planet that don’t show the human impact and it is a beautiful planet. And when you see the humans encroaching upon it, it makes you realize that the world is a limited resource. And because of that, we need to make sure we’re taking care of it.

Bonnie: So it sounds like it’s definitely increased your appreciation of what we have here. I think that’s important for the rest of us to remember, considering we only see bits and pieces and you get to see the whole big beautiful Earth.

Susan: That’s right. In fact, when you look at the atmosphere, it looks like more like the skin of an apple than it does as an infinite expending of air beyond the planet’s surface. It looks very fragile and I come back from every flight thinking that we have to make sure we protect our air.

Bonnie: I think that’s definitely an important thing to remember, Susan. Can you tell us a little bit about the type of preparation you’ve been through, training, schooling, both in the Air Force and through NASA for your flight and your stay there?

Susan: Well, right now the stay here, the preparation for that took place mainly over the last three years. The preparation for becoming an astronaut just in general took place for me about 10 or 11 years ago and that was something that NASA provided as a training program.

The Air Force has been great as far as getting me prepared in my career as an engineer. I’ve got nothing but positive things to say about that as well. My education started in 1976 when I went to the Air Force Academy as you’ve mentioned earlier. And from there, I progressed through the engineering studies, became an Air Force officer after that. Spent 10 years in the Air Force doing great experience jobs and from there got selected by NASA to come to the astronaut office.

The astronaut training is very specific and oriented toward space flight, but I have to say that a lot of the things I did in my previous Air Force life and in my high school life, did a lot to help me prepare to be a better astronaut. So you can’t come to NASA with a blank slate. You have to come with at least some skills in dealing with people and understanding technology prior to stepping through the door at NASA because they don’t try to train you at the grade school level. They start right at the Ph.D. level for that.

Bonnie: Sounds like you’ve spent a good portion of your time preparing for this, and I think you’ve got some good qualifications there, and I appreciate all the time that you’ve spent with us. How are we doing on time?

Susan: Well Bonnie, I think I’ve got at least a little bit of time to congratulate you on your selection for this role. I hear that this is going to be Web cast and I think that it’s terrific that you get a chance to be just as famous as an astronaut.

Bonnie: Well I don’t know about that. I think you’ve been through a lot more preparation than I have. But I have to say that being chosen to speak with you is an honor, to say the least.

Susan: I’m sure it’s a well-deserved honor for you and I congratulate you. It’s a great experience. You’re the only person I’m talking to today on the Earth.

Bonnie: Well it’s great to talk to you, Susan. We have one more little question here. If you could give one piece of advice to young people in school, what would it be?

Susan: I think that it’s never too late or it’s never too early I should say, to start developing the good habits you need to be a successful adult at whatever it is you want to do. And in school, that’s a good place to start developing those habits. For example, doing your best is something they teach you in the classroom and kids today shouldn’t [schlep] that off. They should absolutely try to do that.

Also staying healthy is just as important. I think maybe 10-15% of the people that NASA interviews to become astronauts are eventually weeded out of the process because of health reasons. And I just can’t emphasize enough how important this is and how there are things you can do at an early age to try to keep yourself healthy. And of course, I’m also talking about making sure you don’t do any drugs.

The habits that you develop, I guarantee you, will serve you well later on and I do want to encourage young kids today to make sure that they realize that whatever it is they want to do as they get older, there’s lots and lots of other people wanting to do the same thing. And oftentimes you’re a victim of your competition. And so if you’re doing your best and everybody else is doing their best too, realize that it’s still tough to get some of those jobs. That the people that work the hardest are often the ones that succeed. And if you’re not doing your best and the others are, I think you can get an idea about where that will leave you as far as getting something you want.

So it’s never too early to start these habits, do well in school and stay healthy, and you’ll go far. You’ll go so much farther than so many people just by doing that.

Bonnie: Well thank you, Susan. I think your wisdom goes across the board for astronauts, and teachers and doctors and all the like.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule on the International Space Station to participate in our NASA Quest program. It’s been an honor speaking with you and on behalf of all young women and men, we wish you the best.

Susan: Thank you, Bonnie. I appreciate being allowed to participate in this event. I’m sure it’s a great event and I’m only one small part of it. But thank you for asking me to join in. I appreciate it.

F: Alpha this is Houston, ECR, that concludes the event.

F: Thank you, Houston, and everyone with the Young Women of NASA’s Council and Alpha, wonderful job. Excellent audio and video quality, the client is very happy with the event.

F: Thank you.

M: This is Mission Control, Houston, that does conclude our event with Bonnie Cameron out the Ames Research Center in California, speaking with Flight Engineer Susan Helms onboard the International Space Station. We lost signal with the TV pictures for a few minutes there due to blockage, but we’re now back with the pictures and we can see Susan Helms taking advantage of microgravity environment to be what for normal folks on Earth would be upside down. But as everyone knows, in space there is no up or down. We’re able to take advantage of the full volume of the International Space Station in this case, Susan Helms inside the Destiny laboratory module.

Again, this is all part of NASA’s participation in the Take Our Daughters To Work day. In the year 2000, last year, more than 1.5 million young women participated in NASA’s efforts related to that program. Eileen Collins, one of Susan Helms

[talkover]

Bonnie: Well welcome back. It was exhilarating to speak with Susan Helms, the first woman living on the International Space Station. For being an astronaut, she was very down to earth. It was definitely worth getting up at 3:00 o’clock in the morning last week to talk to her.

And now we have a very special guest with us. We’re so thankful to have her here. On my right is Marianne Seale. Marianne is someone who knows tons about being in space because she is a scientist at NASA. Marianne, thanks again for being here.

Marianne: You’re welcome, Bonnie. It is a pleasure to be here.

Bonnie: Now why don’t you explain what kind of science you’re involved in just so we can kind of know where we’re going with this?

Marianne: The science that I do and I’m involved with at NASA is called life sciences research. And it’s non-human life sciences research. So the JSC, Johnson Space Center is primarily involved with the human experimentation. But Ames Research is involved with the non-human life sciences. And that includes rats and mice and bugs, flies, fish, crickets, bacteria, a variety of different organisms obviously.

So we’re looking at physiology, we’re looking at biology, we’re looking at how the organism works. How the muscles and the bone and the brain and the blood work together on Earth as well as in a microgravity environment.

Bonnie: So you know, you would know a lot about what Susan’s experiencing because you know a lot about life up in space.

Marianne: Well,

Bonnie: What you study is what you’re experimenting.

Marianne: Exactly. Exactly.

Bonnie: So then, let’s talk a little bit about what we just saw with Susan Helms. And at first I wanted to ask you a little bit, it sounded like she was congested when she was talking. Why is that?

Marianne: One of things that happens of course on Earth with gravity, which pulls everything down. And so to walk around at all, you know that a lot of the fluids actually pool in the bottom part of your body.

Bonnie: Okay, because they’re lower.

Marianne: Because that’s a gravity effect. Now when you’re in microgravity, the fluids redistribute so that in fact it doesn’t all pool at he bottom of your body. It pools up into the upper part of your body also and certainly up into the head region. And so basically astronauts feel like they’ve got a cold. They have a stuffy nose, they have a congestion in the sinus area. And in fact, if you notice, her face actually was a little puffy.

Bonnie: Yeah, I did notice that. I thought maybe she was sick.

Marianne: No. And one of the other effects of being in microgravity is that you get skinny legs.

Bonnie: Is that because the fluid is [talkover]

Marianne: Because the fluid is moving up as well as over the long term, you do have some changes in bone and muscle. But if you look at in the astronaut as pulling themselves around, you can see that the legs are typically thinner than what they would be on Earth, and the upper body and the head is more inflated as a function of the fluid shift.

Bonnie: I like what you’re talking about with the changing of the bones and muscle. So let’s go into a little bit more about weightlessness. We have a question here from CPC Kids at Work. And they want to know what weightlessness feels like.

Now obviously, you’ve not been to space, you work on research.

Marianne: I’ve not been to space.

Bonnie: But you can tell us about weightlessness. So why don’t we talk a little bit about what happens to the body in weightlessness.

Marianne: We’ve evolved, we’ve grown up in a weigh-bearing environment. So what happens when you go into space is that all the physiology, all the biology has to adjust. And in fact, the body is a marvelous thing, adjusting to a microgravity environment. It does all the right things. And it does it in a very rapid fashion as a matter of fact.

So you do, because you’ve lost the impact of weight in the microgravity environment, you lose some of the bone in the lower part of the body. You lose some of the muscle mass in the lower part of the body. You have this fluid shift. The astronauts tend to use the upper part of their bodies far more than the lower part of the body.

Bonnie: Yeah I noticed that in the [screen].

Marianne: They will pull themselves along rather than using their legs for pushing off. Because you don’t walk in microgravity, you float.

Bonnie: And so to your question, that’s what weightlessness is like floating.

Marianne: It’s floating. And in fact much of the training that the astronauts do is in a floating type of environment. It’s in what’s called a neutral buoyancy tank at Johnson Space Center.

So they are like scuba diving in water, because water is one of the ways where they can have a neutral buoyancy effect. They can feel like they’re floating. And many of the operations, such as what’s happening on Space Station right now, installing the Canadian robotic arm was practiced in the neutral buoyancy tank at JSC.

Bonnie: So is being underwater the same as being in outer space? Like if someone wanted to know what that feels like, could you just swim in the pool and get kind of an idea?

Marianne: I think it would be close. I think you can get an idea. I think people that do a lot of diving and do a lot of scuba diving in particular, not snorkeling per se, but diving, will have a sense of what it feels like to be in microgravity. It’s not the same thing, but I do want to say that he astronauts in general love being weightless. They truly enjoy being in a microgravity environment.

Bonnie: Yes, we saw her practicing her gymnastics. At least she does get a little time to have fun during her floating.

Marianne: Absolutely.

Bonnie: Okay. I also wanted to ask you. We noticed that while she was speaking with us, Jim Voss, one of her crew mates brought her over a water bottle, and well I’m assuming it was water. And I wondered if we could talk a little bit about that. Why wasn’t it a normal water bottle?

Marianne: Well I’ll assume that it’s water also. But it could be fruit juice. One of the things that happens in a weightless environment obviously is you have to be very careful of things breaking. You have to do that here also. If you drop a bottle on the floor, you have to be very careful and think of glass shards and glass pieces. But in a microgravity environment, that glass would float. And it would go in a variety of different places around the space station. And it could severely affect some of the functioning of the electricity and the fans, as well as be a real danger to the astronauts themselves.

Bonnie: So it really could interfere with what was going on?

Marianne: Absolutely.

Bonnie: So is there any glass at all on the Space Station?

Marianne: I don’t think I can answer that question exactly. I don’t know. But if there is, it’s very well protected, it’s very well insulated, it’s covered in some thing so that if it does break,

Bonnie: It won’t be a risk.

Marianne: ...it won’t be a risk. You won’t have pieces of glass all over the place. It’s kind of like the windshield that would shatter rather than-, or crack rather than shatter.

Bonnie: That are made specially for that purpose.

Marianne: Right. So it would be something like that.

Bonnie: Well I’m glad that they take those precautions. Now since you are a researcher, and we’re talking about this glass on the Space Station, I think we should probably talk a little bit about the background of research. I realize there are many different kinds of research. It can go all across the board, but can you tell us about the different types?

Marianne: Well we all know that there are different kinds of research and we’re talking everything from geology to astrophysics to chemistry to the biology that I do. Within all of those disciplines, I believe, you have really two basic kinds of research that you can follow. One is a basic research where you’re looking at investigating phenomenon, asking questions, and it’s primarily for knowledge’s sake. It isn’t necessarily towards an end, it’s to get information.

Bonnie: So basically research is just finding information?

Marianne: It is. And trying to understand,

Bonnie: It’s exploring.

Marianne: ...it’s very much like exploring, exactly.

Bonnie: Okay.

Marianne: Now the other side of the research realm is applied research. And this is the kind of research that really has a focus, it really has an end point. For example, there are people that specifically look at how to cure particular types of cancers. How to cure diabetes. How to deal with cardiovascular problems, very specifically. And what they use often times is in fact the research that, and the knowledge that’s been gathered from the basic research.

Bonnie: I see. So the basic research just gives us our knowledge, but then using that with our applied research, we can come up with some sort of answer that’s useful to us.

Marianne: Hopefully.

Bonnie: We hope so. Okay, so there’s two different types of research. Now we have a question here in the chat room from Jane, and she wants to know why do you do research in space?

Marianne: Well, that’s a very good question, Jane. Gravity. Gravity is the basic story. It’s something you have on Earth and it’s something you don’t have in space. So both in the basic as well as in the applied areas of research, gravity is a very important variable and you can go into space and take the opportunity to remove that variable from your science.

So we evolved on Earth, we, from the fishes and the bacteria up to the human being, we have grown up individually as a child to adulthood in the gravity environment. All of our systems are used to being in a gravity environment. The only way we can understand the effect of gravity, and the only place we can take gravity away is in space.

Bonnie: I see.

Marianne: It’s the only opportunity to do that kind of basic research.

Bonnie: Now in space, is it only basic research? Or is it applied research as well?

Marianne: It’s absolutely also applied research too.

Bonnie: Wow, so they can do both?

Marianne: Absolutely. And the reason you want to do that is in a microgravity environment, as we talked about earlier, there are effects on bone and muscle as well as on the cardiovascular system. If we are interested, and this is in the applied sense, of continuing our explorations out into space, the Moon, Mars, and beyond, we have to know. We have to know what happens in space, and we have to know how to what’s called "provide counter measures" if required.

Measures to reduce the amount of bone loss, and reduce the amount of muscle mass. And the primary reason, well there’s two reasons. One is, after you make this space voyage and you get to the Moon or you get to Mars, or you get to wherever, that will probably have some kind of gravity effect. And you want to be able to explore, you want to be able to function in that gravity environment.

Bonnie: [inaudible] once you get there.

Marianne: The other issue is what if there’s an emergency? What if you have to come back to Earth or you have to go someplace else very rapidly? You have to be able to function there also, not just for exploring, planned exploring, but also in an emergency setting. So we do both basic research and applied research in space.

Bonnie: So even the fact that the astronauts are in space, would be basic research because by them being there, with no gravity, we’re learning more about how their bodies adjust?

Marianne: Absolutely.

Bonnie: Okay.

Marianne: And there’s a relationship, I’m sorry, a relationship too in terms of what happens in space to back down on Earth. We have states in Earth where there is little gravity effects on bone and muscle. People that are sick, people that are in bed rest for days, weeks, months, these are the kinds of things that in fact have a relationship to some of the things that happen in microgravity. And some of the things we learn in space, we can bring back to Earth.

[talkover]

Bonnie: So we [inaudible]

Marianne: You bet.

Bonnie: [inaudible] to help life on Earth.

Marianne: Absolutely.

Bonnie: So that is why we do research at NASA in outer space? We made a connection there. We have another interesting questions here from Fran, and I want to bring it up, because I think it’s very relevant. She says here in the chat room, is it safe to do research in space? Are there any risks? And I think that’s important because we do have people up in space and we’re learning about their bodies changing, but are there risks?

Marianne: Of course there are risks.

Bonnie: Of course.

Marianne: Absolutely.

Bonnie: Okay, let’s talk a little bit about those risks.

Marianne: It’s risky on Earth as we well know.

Bonnie: Yes.

Marianne: And you take an organism, be it a human, be it a non-human into space, it’s obviously very risky. It certainly can be classified if you will as a hostile environment. Without the Space Station, without the space shuttle, we would never be there. You have to be enclosed, you can’t be-, you have to have air provided, you have to have water provided. It’s a risky environment.

I personally feel, and I think many people feel, that the risk is worth it. But it is risky and that’s one of the reasons why we do so much ground testing. We take a long time to get from point A to point B, from the inception of an idea to the implementation of that idea in space. It takes a long time.

Bonnie: So how long does it take? Like what does it take to get to space, for experiments first of all?

Marianne: For the researchers and the experiments that I work with, typically you’re talking at least three years. And what happens

Bonnie: That’s a long time.

Marianne: It’s a long time. But there’s a lot of work to happen. There’s a researcher who does a particular experiment in his or her laboratory, on a bench top, with a bunch of vials and beakers and equipment. NASA needs to take that procedure and package it differently because it’s going to be done in microgravity.

Bonnie: Right.

Marianne: You can’t put beakers on the tabletop in microgravity. It doesn’t work.

Bonnie: And that research, that person who’s working on the table, they won’t be going up to space with their project will they?

Marianne: That is exactly the case, you’re so right. So we have to train people to do the experiment.

Bonnie: So is that included in the three-year time?

Marianne: That’s definitely included in the three years. You have to work the hardware, you have to work the experiment itself, you have to work the crew. It’s a very, the simplest experiment you can do on Earth can be very complex when you try and take it into a microgravity environment. It’s worth it, it’s totally worth it, but it takes a while to do it. It’s very creative.

Bonnie: Right.

Marianne: It challenges your creativity.

Bonnie: So, it takes three years. Can any experiment go up to space? Like, what does it take? Are there constraints?

Marianne: Yes there certainly are constraints. One of the things is what happens is NASA receives from investigators around the country, proposals for experiments that they want to do. Those proposals pass a scientific peer review that says this is really good science. This type of science should fly because it really answers, asks a good question.

Bonnie: Sounds like a recommendation.

Marianne: It’s a total recommendation. Then that proposal comes to us as a technical review. And we look at it and we say, "You know what, that is really good science, but you know what, we don’t fly giraffes." It’s just not possible.

Bonnie: So if I’m doing an experiment with a giraffe, I won’t be able to fly it?

Marianne: I don’t think so. We would ask you

Bonnie: Well why not?

Marianne: We would ask you to reconsider your organisms.

Bonnie: Okay.

Marianne: Perhaps you could do that experiment in a rat or perhaps you could do it in a mouse.

Bonnie: So rat goes to space.

Marianne: We fly rats and we fly mice.

Bonnie: And not giraffes?

Marianne: And not giraffes.

Bonnie: Darn it. Well okay, so obviously this brings about the issue of size and space in outer space.

Marianne: That is true.

Bonnie: So are there any other constraints? Are there any other things to think about when you’re sending an experiment up?

Marianne: Yes. Obviously if you remember looking at what’s on the Space Station now and if you’ve ever seen picture of Mir, the Russian space station, things are very crowded. There’s a lot of stuff up there.

Bonnie: Right.

Marianne: And there’s a lot of pieces of hardware, there’s valves going here and tubing and size is a very critical issue. An experiment that’s done on a table top like we’re sitting at here, if it goes into space, needs to be miniaturized, brought down into a much smaller volume.

Weight is also issue. Now obviously in microgravity that’s not a huge issue,

Bonnie: Right.

Marianne: But we still have to launch it. We still have to fight against gravity to get it into the microgravity environment.

Bonnie: So how much is weight really an issue? Like are we talking you can’t be 500 pounds or is it down to every last gram?

Marianne: It’s down to every last gram, absolutely.

Bonnie: Well I’m not surprised, but.

Marianne: And the other constraint certainly is power. It takes a lot of power to run the space station or to run the shuttle. Obviously our first concern is the crew, and make sure that they are comfortable, that they are safe, they have sufficient water, they have sufficient light, they have sufficient air, ventilation. And then the question is what’s left? What can we use to run other experiments besides the crew in the space shuttle around the Space Station.

And so there is a premium on experiments that take not very much power, that are very small, that don’t weigh very much.

Bonnie: And are good science.

Marianne: And are excellence science. Good point.

Bonnie: All right, well we were speaking about the crew and how they are very important. They’re our first priority. We have another question here from CPC kid.work in our chat room. And they’d like to know what happens if there is a medical emergency up in space?

Marianne: A medical emergency.

Bonnie: Well for that case, any type of an emergency. If something goes wrong with one of the experiments or.

Marianne: Well let’s talk about a medical emergency. Thus far, to my knowledge, we’ve been very fortunate. We have not had a medical emergency per se on the shuttle or on the Space Station. There have been concerns with some of the cosmonauts that have flown on Mir. There were potential cardiovascular problems with one or two of the cosmonauts there.

We do the best we can, first of all to send healthy people. But there’s always a risk. There’s always something that can happen. Often times we have medical personnel that fly on the shuttle or on the Space Station.

Bonnie: That’s a good idea.

Marianne: And that’s also a good idea. That’s one of the reasons we have escape vehicles on the Space Station. On the shuttle, we always have an opportunity because it circles the Earth every 90 minutes, to bring the shuttle down if there’s a problem.

On the Space Station, we have escape vehicles that can bring the troubled astronaut down to the Earth environment.

Bonnie: Now what about experiments? Because I know that things don’t always go as planned. Does it happen where something happens that you’re not expecting?

Marianne: It happens, it’s something you have to plan for. You have to plan for the unexpected and that’s sounds kind of contradictory, but it’s absolutely the case. When we fly and experiment on the shuttle, we are asked to come up with a book, basically, that says what is everything that can go wrong? What can go wrong with the electrical power? What can go wrong with the fans? What can go wrong with the lights? What can go wrong with X,Y and Z, and come up with a plan to fix that.

And so there’s always a big issue in terms of contingency. What is it that we need to do in order to fix something? And hopefully, we don’t have to use it. But there certainly have been times when we have had to look into the books and come up with a way of dealing with problems.

Bonnie: Okay, so NASA must do a very good job of preparing for any type of difficulty that goes on?

Marianne: Absolutely.

Bonnie: I’ve heard a lot about NASA safety, so I’m glad to know that. Now I’d like to know a little bit about your experience. We have a question here about, from Amber in the chat room. She wants to know how did your education prepare you for this job, and then after we hear about your education, we’re going to hear more about what you’ve actually done personally with your experiments, and she’s had some that have gone up to space.

First let’s talk a little bit about your education just really briefly so that Amber can know how you got started.

Marianne: Okay, Amber. Went to the typical high school, went to college at the University of Wisconsin, where I grew up. I then went on to graduate school at the University of Chicago. I majored in psychology when I was in undergraduate school, and then in graduate school recognized that I really wanted to know more about biology as well as psychology.

So emphasize the "biological basis of behavior" is what it’s called. And Bonnie and I have talked about this earlier. To me, science is like a mystery novel. It’s a whodunit kind of story.

Bonnie: I think so.

Marianne: And it’s very exciting. To me you always, always have more questions. I can remember when I was in undergraduate school and asking people that were doing research there, how do you do this? How do you know, how do you keep on going? And the person that I was talking to was just laughing. He said, "There’s always another question."

Bonnie: Didn’t that bother you that you could never have an answer, or did you like it?

Marianne: No, it’s exciting. I like it. I like it a lot, because we always do get an answer. You get an answer to some part of the question.

Bonnie: But then you have to go [on more].

Marianne: But then there’s another part of the question that’s out there and [it’s something] that you just don’t expect. And so it’s always a surprise and it’s always very, very interesting.

Bonnie: Well life is exciting.

Marianne: Yes.

Bonnie: Okay, now let’s talk about your NeuroLab. This is very exciting. You have [talkover]

Marianne: Let me tell you about NeuroLab, definitely.

Bonnie: You tell me about NeuroLab.

Marianne: Okay, NeuroLab flew in 1998 and it was at this point the last dedicated life sciences research mission. Every experiment on the NeuroLab flight, and that’s human as well as non-human, was dedicated to life sciences. And in particular, it was related to the physiology community had dedicated the 1990s as the decade of the brain.

Understanding how the brain controls and modifies physiology. And so NeuroLab was part of a consortium with the national institutes of health, as well as with NASA to look very seriously at what are the effects of microgravity on the brain, and then how do those effects, translate down into the physiology of bone, of muscle, of cardiovascular and of behavior.

And so it was a very exciting mission. It was a very exciting mission.

Bonnie: Now what made you, because I guess it’s hard to think, when I think when me and when most people think about gravity, we don’t think of the effects on the brain, we think of it more on the muscle then the body. So what were some of your findings as far as, well I guess where did you come, where did you think of the idea that it would have an effect on the brain, and that you wanted to study it? And what were some of your findings?

Marianne: Well one of the things that we know about for sure is that there is a very profound, a very strong link back and forth, obviously between the brain, the body and the behavior. And so, and it’s a feedback system. It isn’t just a one-way street. The brain controls the body and controls the behavior, but there is feedback.

So as you move, as you function, it feeds back into the brain. It’s a constant two-way, three-way signal that goes round and round and round, constantly modifying.

Bonnie: That are all interconnected.

Marianne: Absolutely. Which is one of the reasons why it makes it so interesting as well as challenging.

[talkover]

Bonnie: A lot to keep track of, I’m sure.

Marianne: So we had a number of different parts of NeuroLab. We had a part of NeuroLab that was mammalian development. And this is looking at rats with their young, their neonates. That’s one group. And looking at the effects of microgravity on brain function, on hormone function, the thyroid gland, locomotion. How does a microgravity environment feed back in terms of altering how the young rats learn how to walk?

What else? Cardiovascular function, how the heart works. And what was wonderful is that we had six experimenters that had all proposed studies to be done. And we were able to bring them together and they were all able to share the animals in this research and all get their scientific objectives and work together.

Bonnie: All six?

Marianne: All six. So that part was particularly exciting.

Bonnie: Wow.

Marianne: In order to bring everybody together and have them work together in such a positive manner, and it was an international group also. We had people from France, people from Japan, as well as people from the Unites States.

Bonnie: Was it difficult considering the different languages?

Marianne: It had its challenges. Not impossible, but it certainly had its challenges. It’s always a case when you deal with a team environment and that’s not just the international, but it’s also when you deal across science, engineering and bureaucrats, to be very clear that the communication is well understood.

Just because I use a particular word, doesn’t mean that you understand it.

Bonnie: Right.

Marianne: And it’s particularly the case if you’re dealing across culture.

Bonnie: Definitely.

Marianne: And across time and space.

Bonnie: Well, I just want to remind our viewers, because we have five minutes left to go, that you can access the chat with Susan Helms’ mother. Now remember Susan Helms is who I spoke to on the International Space Station. Her mother will be with us today at 12:00 o’clock Pacific Time, and you’ll be able to chat with her online along with our Young Women of NASA Advisory Council members. So be sure to join into that and you can find out more about Susan Helms’ childhood and a little more about her mother.

Now we have another question. I want to ask you coming from the chat room, in the future, will there be any way to simulate gravity with a space-type station [on a ship]? So I think that’s a interesting question.

Marianne: A really good question.

Bonnie: Because when we go into space, does it always have to be microgravity, or is there a way to impose gravity while in the Space Station?

Marianne: Well we’re fooled, fooled? We’re promised certain things in movies and in the end, television, that looks like in the weightless-, in space you should be able to walk around on the ground. We’re not there yet. We’re definitely not there yet, and certainly not there in terms of the human experience.

I know I’ve asked engineers the same question, and at this point, it doesn’t look too feasible. It’s not my field. But it does not look feasible. Now, just to stay with research a little bit and moving away from humans a little bit, one of the things that’s actually being built through Ames Research Center here, is a future module for the Space Station called the Centrifuge Accommodation module. And it is a module that goes up on the Space Station and it has a centrifuge in it. You know what a centrifuge is, right?

Bonnie: Right.

Marianne: Round and round and round and it will create gravity in space, so that we can put our non-human research animals, the rats, the mice, the plants, the bugs, the fish in a gravity environment. And do that type of experimentation in space. Do a half a gravity or twice as much gravity. And use that potentially as a counter measure to some of the effects.

Bonnie: Now I want to get to one more question. We just have one or two more minutes before we finish,

Marianne: Okay.

Bonnie: But I think this is very important. We’ve talked a lot about your research, and we talked a lot about the basic and applied research that goes on in space. But I think it’s important for all of us to know what happens with this research? How can, how does it benefit life on Earth?

I know we spoke a little bit about bones and muscles, and people who are on bed rest, so can you tell us a little bit more about how can it benefit us?

Marianne: The research that goes on in space?

Bonnie: Yeah. Like what we learn about the rats. Can we apply that to our life or what we know about our brain?

Marianne: Oh yes, definitely. Definitely. Yes.

Bonnie: It’s a pretty big question.

Marianne: I’m a little bit stymied at this, but I can tell you about one experiment if we have enough time.

Bonnie: Sure.

Marianne: This is in fact an experiment that is a cell culture experiment. It’s where the experimenter has taken a group of cells, and these particularly are bone cells, and are growing them in a cell culture. And what happens is it’s interesting, you don’t have to be a full organism in order to experience changes in bone and muscle. In fact, the microgravity effect can be direct on the cells.

Bonnie: So you don’t even need a body?

Marianne: No, you don’t need a body. But this experimenter is proposing to create a drug delivery system if you will, from one’s own cells, by taking those cells out of your body for example, small little piece, doing some genetic therapy, some genetic recombination therapy, and being able to put that piece back in your body.

Now the beauty of that is that you will not reject that. It is your tissue, it is your cells, and so your body accepts that. Accepts it along with this genetic modification that allows for a drug delivery system. That’s being tested in a upcoming shuttle flight in the cell culture.

Bonnie: So I’ll be able to take my old part back and the new part and hopefully it’ll help me.

Marianne: That is correct.

Bonnie: Well that’s great.

Marianne: Because you can genetically engineer a drug delivery, a hormone that naturally occurs in the body, that may be deficient in space or deficient in a diseased state on the Earth, and uses that way.

Bonnie: Love this research. Okay, thank you all for joining us and thank you very much, Marianne.

Marianne: It’s wonderful.

Bonnie: You are full of wisdom and good luck in the future with all of your research. I hope you’ll join us again so you can share more findings with us. Thank you all for joining us for this live webcast brought to you by NASA-Quest. Please make sure to join us throughout the day for the rest of our interactive events in honor of our virtual Take Our Daughters To Work day.