A Closer Look at Advanced Space Academy

The Inside Information

Well, to start off, Advanced Space Academy is for students in grades nine through twelve. There are three different intense training curriculum for the positions of Pilot, Mission Specialist, and Payload Specialist. The curriculum concentrates basically on the aspects of shuttle operations. Program highlights include three one-hour training missions, SCUBA diving experience, and the opportunity to design, construct, and race a Virtual Reality Mars rover vehicle. Students put their training knowledge to the test during a six-hour simulated shuttle mission. Mission simulations utilize some of the most accurate and detailed shuttle mockups outside of NASA.

I went to Advanced Space Academy in October of 1997 in Huntsville, Alabama, and it was the best week of my entire life!! I had the time of my life!! It's much more than learning about Space and shuttle missions, although that's a big part of it. It's also about trying new things, meeting new people, overcoming challenges, and pushing yourself to the max. It was just a refreshing and renewing experience, and I've never done anything like it! It's weird to think that learning can actually be fun, contradictory to school. Advanced Space Academy has found a way to make everything you do, and everything you learn there as much fun as it can possibly be. And it was that, and much much more.

Ok, well, here's a little bit-o-history on spaceflight.....get ready for some fun filled learning!!!) Okay, well....here goes. The words of Astronaut Bill Pogue's poem becken us to "sail the boundless sea", a sea rich with inspiration and passion about manned space exploration - the fullfillment of "human destiny." People have many different emotions and convictions about why or why not to explore space, but the fact is that humans have begun a grand adventure by taking the first steps off Earth, delighting many hearts, and benefiting many lives.

Why Explore Space?

Leaving Earth to explore the voids and treasures of space is an exciting challenging and sometimes hotly-debated endeavor. Exploration has been in the heart and soul of humankind since the dawn of time, but the frontier and its costs have progressed. TO continue as a space-faring nation, the benefits and rationales must be persuasive to merit budget allotments. Taken with those effects on the human soul, space travel benefits appeal to the pragmatist as well as the philosopher. The words and wisdom of one NASA professional contribute to this discussion as gathered from a compassionate letter from German Rocket Team member Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger in response to concerns from a nun working with starving African natives.

S.C.U.B.A.

Underwater Astronaut Trainer

WHAT IS THE UNDERWATER ASTRONAUT TRAINER?

The Underwater Astronaut Trainer, the UAT, at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama is a smaller version of the neutral buoyancy simulators used by the astronauts and design engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The UAT is 29 feet in diameter and 24 feet deep and holds approximately 123,000 gallons of water. A stainless steel platform, set at 4 feet deep, allows shallow water SCUBA training. Tank water meets community health standards and is usually kept at 88 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

WHY NEUTRAL BUOYANCY SIMULATORS?

Microgravity simulators are necessary in order to prepare astronauts for spacewalking activities once in orbit around Earth. Astronauts repairing satellites, building space structures, or operating a manned maneuvering unit, MMU, spacesuit and gloves. Moving in a spacesuit is like trying to use an arm or a leg that has gone to sleep. There is limited control and feeling in the limb an astronaut must learn to compensate for these restrictions and impaired coordination.
Many attempts have been made to simulate the environment of space: suspension harnesses, vacuum chambers, and the infamous KC-135 Stratotanker. Suspension harnesses only serve to take weight off of the feet and are ineffective and uncomfortable, vacuum chambers are too expensive, and the KC-135, although still in use, provides only a few seconds of weightlessness at a time. The preferred method of training now is a Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, NBS, which is essentially large, deep, above-ground swimming pool. This simulator is very cost-effective, can offer hours of simulation time as opposed to seconds, and generally does not have adverse effects on the participants.

HOW DOES A NBS WORK?

Neutral buoyancy is the state in which an object suspended in liquid will neither sink nor float but will maintain a constant depth. Essentially the object is suspended in a pseudo-weightless environment. In this way, conditions very similar to the microgravity of space are created. In fact, this method is so effective that it is said that any task which can be sucessfully completed in an NBS, can definetly be performed in space.
Astronauts and design engineers wear actual spacesuits for their excercises and their weight is perfectly adjusted so that they are neutrally buoyant. During a simulation, an astronaut is suited up and rehearses entire space walk scenarious from start to finish. Individual tasks are taped and analyzed, practiced and repracticed until the excercises are perfected. Astronauts have plenty of opportunity to become familiar with their spacesuit controls, all tools to be used in space, and have the freedom to test, in a controlled environment, various means of reaching a goal.

WHY HAVE AN NBS AS THE U.S. SPACE AND ROCKET CENTER?

The Underwater Astronaut Trainer is designed to alert the public to an effective, but often surprising method of creating weightlessness. The UAT is utilized by the Advanced Space Academy program to give 9th through 12th graders an advanced microgravity experience as part of their astronaut training. This opportunity includes an Entry Scuba Experience (ESE) which enables the trainees to safely participate in an activity that necessitates a basic understanding of diving physics and the use of self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Trainees learn skills in which teach them to sope with common underwater inconveniences like water in their regulators and masks.

Once ADVANCED SPACE ACADEMY trainees have acquired the necessary knowledge and training skills, each trainee is accompanied to the bottom of the UAT by a SCUBA instructor where each student attempts various tasts patterned after those performed by astronauts in outer space. There is a hands-on trial of the principles of momentum, kinetic energy and buoyancy, as well as hardware for the assembly of exact duplicates of experimental space structures.

In order to demonstrate the importance of momentum and kinetic energy, trainees maneuver a neutrally buoyant 100 lb. sphere. Thiss ball represents a generic satellite. Although space is a weightless environment, mass still affects our actions. For example, if you were to toss your buddy a 40,000 lb. satellite from one end of the shuttle cargo bay to the other, the weight would present no real problem. An individual would have little trouble grasping or maneuvering this large object. The problem would result from the momentum the satellite would gain in travelling across the cargo bay. If your buddy attempted to catch the satellite, he would be crushed against the Shuttle by the combination of the mass and momentum of the object. This idea is readily demonstrated (on a much smaller scale) by having two trainees toss our 100lb. ball back and forth.

One of the two experimental space structures constructed by trainees is called ACCESS. ACCESS is an acronym for Assembly Concept for the Construction of Erectable Space Structures. The structure is assembled by a stationary subject out of aluminum nodes and PVC rods. These nodes and rods resemble the parts of an erector set and are easily maneuvered by a single individual. The completed project is a triangular tower based on a series of small, interlocking pyramids.

There is another space structure that consists of six very long poles with specially-designed connecting ends. This project is known as EASE, or Experimental Assembly of Structures on EVA. Subjects move with the poles in order to position and interlock the ends so that the final result is a tetrahedron or pyramid.

Both of these experimental structures were designed to determine the least demanding method of structure assembly for astronauts wearing restrictive spacesuits. The results were to aid in the design of the International Space Station truss supports.

Astronauts felt that ACCESS offered the advantage of remaining stationary which greatly increased their control, but the small connections required substantial use of the fingers and wrists. Astronauts complained that their hands quickly fatigued. EASE was found to be very tiring because it required the astronaut to move around, continuously working against the pressure of the suit, but the slide-and-lock connectors were less strenuous on their hands.

The trainees also have access to a mock-up of the SPACEHAB structure that is used in the cargo bay of the Shuttle on occasion. Inside the SPACEHAB mock-up, trainees can perform variuos activities such as extending solar arrays or launching satellites. The UAT's SPACEHAB, like the real SPACEHAB, is designed so it can be continually updated.

WHAT TRAINEES CAN EXPECT

As a part of the UAT experience, trainees are given an hour-long lecture that explains some of the principles involved in SCUBA diving and how to dive safely. The group is then divided into smaller groups of no more than nine trainees that come to do the actual diving portion of the experience at various times.

CELESTIAL NAVIGATION CELESTIAL NAVIGATION --- learning how mariners found their global position long ago by looking at the stars and how Shuttle crews do it today.

Altitude --- the angle between the horizon and the star chosen to plot

'Aries' --- this is the star system located on the sero-hour meridian on the celestial gglobe that we use as a reference to find all other stars and systems. It is, in essence, a 'jumping off' meridian from which we can measure the hour angle of other stars. It is formally termed the first point of Aries but it is referred to simpley as 'Aries'. It is the reference point on the celestial globe for all stars in the outer universe (heavenly bodies other than the planets, Moon, and our own Sun) and has a GHA that is the angle from the Greenwich meridian to the meridian on which Aries is located.

Azimuth --- the compass direction toward a star. It is the angle measured around the horizon, beginning at north (0 degrees), through east (90 degrees) and so on until you reach a line drawn perpendicular from the object to the horizon. Thus east is azimuth 90 degrees, south 180 degrees, west 270 degrees, north 360 degrees - the same as 0.

Celestial Sphere --- the imaginary sphere above and below us formed by the sky, stars, and planets. Part of it is the half-domed "screen" on which the drama of the sky is played.

Circle of equal altitude --- an imaginary circle that can be drawn around the GP (Geographical Position), if it and the altitude of the star are known. The radius of the circle is found by using the formula one degree of arc = 60 nautical miles.

Declination --- latitude of objects on the celestial sphere. It begins at zero on the Celestial Equator just as Earth's' equator begins at zero latitude. Declination is + 90 degrees at the celestial poles.

Geographical Position --- the point directly beneath a star on Earth's surface. If you drew a line from the star to the center of the Earth, the GP is where the line cuts the Earth's surface.

Greenwich Hour Angle (GHA) --- mirrors Earth longitude on the celestial sphere. The Celestial Meridian mirrors the Earth's Prime Meridian that runs through Greenwich, England and is measured to be 0 degrees Longitude.

Nadir --- the point opposite the zenith on the celestial sphere. The point in the sky directly below you and earth.

Zenith -- the point directly overhead.