So we finished our first day. Jim Berkman, Rose White, and I left the hotel at 7:15. Missing was Laurie Glenn whose train from LA was delayed??? We drove to Johnson Space Center to the Giruth Conference Rooms. Once there, the first thing we saw were several heads of oxen on the walls. As we checked in sans Laurie Glenn, we were informed that if she didn’t make it in time for the physiological training, she wouldn’t be able to fly with us. Yikes!
We then listened to several introductory talks. Then at 8:30 the two hour Physiological training began. No sign of Ms. Glenn. After 45 minutes learning about hypoxia, we began to learn about hyperventilation. Still no Ms. Glenn. We talked to the Flight Surgeon and he said that if she could make it to JSC before the end of his talk, then he would fill her in. Otherwise, she couldn’t fly. I contemplated hyperventilating to delay his talk. I realized this wouldn’t work. A long discussion of bodily gasses. We heard a long discussion of the inner ear. 10:20. The door opens. My head swings around. I realize, I just did something you are not supposed to do on a reduced gravity flight, which is suddenly turn your head while standing up. Ms. Glenn walks in. She can fly!!!
So at 10:30 the Flight Surgeon gives Ms. Glenn the abbreviated version of the talk. He covered every slide (without the jokes, and I must admit, he was funny). But it makes me think, why did I just sit through two hours physiological training if it could be done in under 30 minutes? Ah well.
A quick lunch at Lenny’s sub shop and we drove to Ellington Field. After a quick introduction of what not to do (AVOID the Flight Line), we started to work on our experiments. The first thing to do was unpack. Except they lost our experiment. It was on the field….somewhere. An hour later…Laurie found it sitting in a corner of the hanger.
So along with our NASA mentor CJ, we began to quickly assemble our experiment! We finished. All is well mechanically. Except that the bluetooth connection to our WDSS (wireless accelerometer) kept cutting out. So tonight I charged the battery up and it seems to work in the hotel room. Unless there is radio interference……we won’t know until Monday morning.
While I was at NASA-JSC, Catalina took the boys to Space Center Houston. They had an exciting time. An entry from Alejandro’s journal: We went to Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. When we went in we saw a big Jungle Gym. We went on a tour bus which took us to the Apollo Mission Control Room. When we left we went to a circle of oak trees which was planted to remember the Challenger Astronauts. We went to Rocket Park where we saw Apollo 17.
