Plowing the mind: In praise of astronauts

Rob got a text from his friend last Monday saying, "Guess who I'm having lunch with today? Astronauts!"

Rob texted back some expletive, meant in jest, and then asked, "Can I come too?"

Within an hour, Rob was having lunch with astronauts.

There's no way to describe the look on his face as he raced out the door to go to lunch and there's no way to describe the grin he had upon returning - it's what sheer joy and wonder look like. He quickly texted daughter Emily to say, "Guess who I just had lunch with?" and she texted back, "You didn't have lunch with the Atlantis crew at the Academy, did you?" Turns out that she had been following the Twitter feeds of astronaut Mike Massimino (aka "Astro_Mike") who even sent tweets from space.

The astronauts were in Beverly Hills to give a presentation at the Academy called, "Astronaut as Filmmaker." The astronauts were as excited to be part of the Academy as the Academy members were to welcome them there. (Where do astronauts live, you might ask - in Houston. Makes sense.)

From Astronauts

These particular astronauts (there were six of them) were part of the amazing recent mission to repair the Hubble Telescope in May. One was absent, Megan McArthur, as that day she was part of the team at Kennedy Space Center trying to make sure that the upcoming launch wouldn't be delayed any longer than necessary. We decided that was a pretty good excuse.

Rob and I went to the reception prior to the presentation. The first person we saw was our friend, Caleb Deschanel, one of the finest cinematographers around. He shot "The Black Stallion," "The Natural," and "The Right Stuff," among other things. He was going to be the moderator, along with John Dykstra, who did the special effects for "Andromeda Strain" and "Star Wars." Caleb was there with his wife, Mary Jo. And also with him was "Astro_Mike" of Twitter fame (he has 690,042 followers as of today). We walked up just as Astro_Mike was meeting Caleb and Mary Jo. He was excited because Right Stuff was one of his favorite movies (he took the dvd up into space!) and Mary Jo had played the role of Annie Glenn in the movie.

I talked with Astro_Mike's wife, Carol, who told me that before Mike became an astronaut, they had gone to a talk at Columbia where he was doing his undergrad work. The talk was by Jim Lovell and he told all about the Apollo 13 mission (this was before the movie, so little was known about it). Afterwards they went up to meet Lovell and Mike was completely awestruck and speechless while Carol tried desperately to make small talk, hoping that Mike would say something eventually. He didn't.

She said that on one of his missions, their family hamster died. When it was time for she and the kids to have their face time with him while in orbit, she told her kids - whatever you do, DON'T bring up the hamster. We don't want to make daddy upset. So, during the transmission, their little son kept tugging at her the whole time saying, "Can I tell him now? How about now?" until finally she said, okay - tell daddy about the hamster. She didn't want Mike to feel bad, but she said sometimes you just have to go with the flow. She said when the kids became teenagers, it was like any other teenage thing - hard to get them to show up on time at the Space Center to be able to talk with their dad.

Here's Rob and Astro_Mike.

From Astronauts

Here are some interesting things I learned from their presentation:

1. They had 30 different cameras on board. And they had to be trained in how to use all 30. One was a gigantic IMAX camera with which they could only shoot a total of 8 minutes of footage! 8 minutes out of a 13 day mission. They had 33 classes in the IMAX camera alone. The photo at the beginning of this post shows them learning how to use it underwater as practice. Wow.

2. It's hard to get acclimated to the lack of gravity, but once you do, you always think YOU'RE the one that's right side up, and everyone and everything else is upside down. (I've felt that on earth...)

3. Making a burrito in space is really cool. The tortilla just hovers there as you pile some shredded chicken on top. And if the flat, floating tortilla tips to one side, all the stuffing still stays where it is and doesn't fall off. You can even flip it upside down and it all stays together. Very cool. It was more suspenseful than you might imagine to watch and everyone applauded when Drew got it folded up and took his first bite.

4. For some reason, there is a real lack of American flags on the shuttle or on the astronauts' uniforms. HOWEVER, there is a giant "CANADA" on the robotic arm (which, coincidentally, has a Dalsa camera at the end). Rob says that the Canadians talk about the Canadian arm with a spaceship attached.

5. They took up 400 different tools, 116 of which were unique to this particular Hubble repair. So, they not only had to know what each tool was for, but had to be able to choose the right one while wearing a puffy space suit and looking through 4 layers of glass while floating in space.

6. I forgot that you can't hear sounds in space. This makes those space repairs harder, like when you can't hear when you're stripping a screw. Also, when you use an electric screwdriver in space, you have to anchor yourself to the robotic arm, otherwise the screw stays in one place and YOU go around.

7. The footage shot at the end of the mission has little white dots around the image. That's due to gamma rays killing pixels in the camera over time.

8. Since they're traveling around the earth at 17,500 mph, they see one sunrise and one sunset every 90 minutes. So kind of hard to plan the lighting for your photos... you're just gearing up for the right light, it's looking good, almost perfect, and then - wham, it's dark again.

9. When one of the handles on the Hubble was damaged, and the word finally came from Mission Control that Astro_Mike should just break the handle off, Mike said he was conflicted, "Really? They want me to BREAK it? I'm pretty sure they gave me specific orders in training NOT to break stuff on the Hubble."

10. Mike's first thought when he looked at earth from space was that he should turn his head - that God didn't intend man to see this. Then he cried. Then he thought this must be like the view from heaven. Then he thought, this IS heaven.

Here are Maryrose (from the Academy), Astronauts, with (in front) Tad, Sid Ganis (President of the Academy), John Dykstra, and Caleb.