NASA Tweetup Recap

I attended the NASA Tweetup at the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas. The tweetup was a great experience and I had the chance to meet a few other great tweeps.

We met up at the Johnson Space Center. Since I am “local”, I drove in and did not stay the night at a hotel. We attended a very informative Q&A session with @astro_bones, Robert Satcher JR. Satcher was a mission specialist on STS-129 Atlantis on Nov 16-29, 2009. I sat next to @mclobrudge during the session. Satcher answered many questions including questions brought by Janelle Wilson, an earth science teacher from Atlanta, from her students. The students asked “They really want to know what’s it like to be in a weightless environment, what it’s like to eat in space, do you get scared when you go?”. Satcher answered man more questions including those brought by tweeps who traveled from Braille, Mexico City, and Puerto Rico. It was really need to have a real live astronaut In front of us. In the small auditorium NASA had the Twitter stream of all the attendees on a large scree. Also, was a slideshow of all our Twitter profiles on another large screen. The event was streamed live via Ustream by NASA.

In packing my gear, I forgot my memory card the night before. I was also supposed to have a RCA Small Wonder HD digital camcorder for the trip. The camcorder did not arrive until 5PM the day of the Tweetup. Needless to say I did not have it to bring along. What a bummer. The gift shop at NASA did not sell memory cards either. Something they should think about in the future. All of my pictures and video were taken by my iPhone. By 10am, my iPhone only had ¼ batter life left. Another bummer for me.

After the Q&A session with Robert Satcher, we had a chance to walk around the facility, eat lunch and meet back up for our outside tour of the facility. I walked around and viewed a few of the exhibits in the facility. I met @Trixiet. We played on a few of the hands on exhibits for kids. We figured that we needed to take advantage of playing with these things because we would not have the chance if our kids were here. We had a nice lunch together and prepared for our bus and trolly rides.

@Trixiet and I were split up for our exterior tours. Upon boarding the trolly I met another interesting person, @krussohzg, Kelly Russo. Kelly is also from the Houston area and works at the Houston zoo (@houstonzoo).The first stop of the trolly was the Facility that houses the Shuttle Mission Simulators. We walked around the oversized warehouse that held mockups used to train future astronauts including full-scale International Space Station module mockups and several Space Shuttle cabin and payload bay mockups.

Then we swapped transportation with the other half of the tweeps and were able to ride the bus. I was so happy to ride the bus. The tram fide was too cold for me. We then rode to the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory located at Sonny Carter Training Facility on Ellington field. The building is actually a revamped hanger. Inside is a pool that is 100ft x 200ft wide and 400ft deep. There is a mockup of the International Space Station at the bottom. The mock up in the same size as the actual ISS. I did not realize just by the description, how large this pool was. After arriving at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, we went upstairs to get an aerial view of the pool. I could clearly see the mockup in the pool. There was also a training astronaut in the pool. When training, the astronauts have a minimum of 2 certified divers in the water with them and several watching video of the training session. The future astronauts train anywhere from 6 months to 2 years in the pool at 6 hour intervals daily. Everything that the astronauts do in the pool will turn into what they will be doing on their space mission. They have to be careful of every move they make.

After leaving the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, we were able to visit Mission Control. Now, I have taken many tours of NASA as a child and remember Mission Control. But this was different. Because we were VIP visitors we were able to view Mission Control when they were actually controlling the current space mission, STS-130. Regular visitors to don’t get to view the rooms where they are actually controlling a mission. The first mission control room we visited controlled the STS-130, Endeavor, which launched on Feb 8, 2010. At the time we were able to witness the 1pm wake up call to the Endeavor with music.

The next Mission Control room was the one that is no longer in service. This is the one I remember viewing as a kid. Except, as a kid we had to stay behind the glass panes. Because of our VIP status, we were able to go into this room and touch the actual switchboards. We also took a group photo from this room.

The last stop of our VIP tour was the International Space Center Mission Control room. Upon arriving to the room we were informed that we would be witnessing a live call from the president with students to the astronauts from Endeavor and the International Space Station. While waiting on Obama, we were treated to live cams aboard the ISS. We watched as the astronauts floated around in and out of the compartments of the ISS. Then the call come in. I am sure the president did not know we were there and eagerly watching.

This was my most exciting trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. I felt obligated to allow the others who traveled from afar to get the up-close looks while I stood back. These folks were very intrigued with all of this space information and don’t have the opportunity like I do to visit NASA conveniently.

I am more eager than ever before to see what our space programs have in store for our future. I will also be bringing my children to NASA soon. The schools these days don’t go on enough field trips and I cannot remember the last time any of them had a trip to NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Filed Under: In The News

Tags: blogging, featured, Houston, Johnson Space Center, nasa, pictures, sts-130, tweetup, twitter