Friday, July 29 - Time to say goodbye

It's our last day.

The week went by so quickly, in part because every day was action-packed, and in part because everyone was pumped up on adrenaline, speed, and inspiration.  I have no idea how I can convey what a truly amazing week this was.  But of course I'm going to try.

We ended our week where we started it, in a conference room overlooking the T-38 jets that NASA uses as trainers for the astronauts.  This time, instead of an introductory orientation, each team was asked to creatively sum up their week.  This was an opportunity for the teachers to share both the science and the wonder of their 11 weightless minutes (30 parabolas of approximately 22 seconds of 0g = 11 minutes total).

First up was the Space Cowboy team.  They naturally led a campfire sing-a-long and convinced VIP/Astronaut/Educator Leland Melvin to not only join them but to wear Patty's cowboy(girl) hat.

Space Cowboys + special guest (all photos courtesy of Sheriff JDL)

Next up was the Jersey City team with a 5-minute movie, "Zero g-Men."  It included a trailer for the movie created by team member Craig Lapierre.

 Team Philly presenting their slideshow...

 Team Princeton sang a song...

 Team Auburn a movie...

And Team Trenton a rap...

Quite honestly, a photo could never do justice to the presentations.  We laughed, we were touched by the emotions that the teams expressed, and I found myself getting a little misty.  These presentations were my "fuel."  Hearing how this experience had already changed people in such a positive and powerful way let me share in the joy that was pouring out of everyone.  And, quite selfishly, I got to be a part of all six teams' emotional journey.  As I write this, I still have all of those feelings wrapped around me and I don't want to let that go.

But we needed to say goodbye and pack up our equipment.  I hand-waved a few closing remarks and we headed on over to the hangar.

There was one last thing to do before we could go. 

Teams that have previously flown on the aircraft hang a banner in the rafters of the high bay next to the runway.  Earlier in the week, Aliya took the new PPPL logo and gotten our own banner made and now everyone signed it.  Before we could hang it, we needed one last picture.  So I got on the public address system (never give me a microphone Sara!) and asked if everyone could gather by the plane.  Cameras were pointed, we smiled and hugged, and *poof* it was over.

As we walked out the door, I told our friends from NASA that we'd be back again next year.  I can't wait.

Thursday, July 28 - Two flights in one day + a dinner that couldn't be beat

We arrive at Ellington Airfield at 7:30 am and find out that there will be two flights today - the regularly scheduled 9:30 am flight and a 2:30 pm flight.  Tropical storm "Don" will be in the area on Friday and no one wants to be flying an airplane that dives up and dow 10,000 feet in the vicinity of it.  That means that any problems with the three experiments will have to be fixed in a short amount of time. The teams all meet, work out an experimental plan that takes this into consideration, and get to work.

Those of us flying in the afternoon head onto the plane to get everything ready.  The team from Princeton loads their crystal solution slowly and carefully in order to not prematurely trigger the chemical reaction that they will study.  The Trenton team loads their water tank with ball bearings that they will shoot into the tank during the flight.  The Auburn team sets up their computer and equipment for their equilibrium experiments.  We have 45 minutes to get everything done and we need every moment.  Before we know it, NASA calls out "time" and we get off the plane so it can go through a final check-out and the flyers can board.

Trenton, Auburn, and Princeton, along with Aliya, ready to board
the morning flight.

All systems are go, the flyers have taken their anti-nausea meds and line up to board the plane.  As the plane takes off into clear and calm skies I realize that for the first time all week, I have nothing to do.  It's a strange feeling, actually.

90 minutes later, the plane lands.  All three experiments worked well and everyone had a spectacular time!  Teams get ready for the afternoon flight and I put on my flight suit.  The afternoon flight has two special guests, a staff member from the White House's Office of Science, Technology, and Policy (OSTP), and Leland Melvin, a former astronaut and the head of NASA's education programs.  We take our meds, go through the pre-flight briefings, and are ready to go.

My afternoon flight as seen from the Johnson Space Center (photo courtesy of  Up and At 'Em Cohen)

I cut my anti-nausea dose by 50% because I was too tired for too long yesterday and I'm sure the lower dose will keep me feeling good during the flight.  On board, I sat next to a journalist from the technology blog "Boing Boing" who is writing a story on our Trenton team. One we began the parabolas, I helped out where I could and spent the rest of the time floating.  It was wonderful to see how much control Leland had in zero-g.  All his time in space meant that he could move around the cabin with ease and confidence. Everyone got really good data that they will analyze when they get back.  Here's a video from my phone.  Starting in 1.8g, I point the phone around the plane and wait until we reach 0-g before I let go, directing it towards one of the teachers on the other side of the plane.  The phone spins around so it is difficult to tell but it glides over to her and she passes it back.  We do our 32 parabolas and head back to the airfield.  Everything went smoothly.

In the evening, I had dinner with the VIPs and the education leadership team from Johnson Space Center at an Italian restaurant overlooking the water.  It was a wonderful day.

Wednesday, July 27 - My turn to fly

Some people call them the Space Cowboys...

Today is the second day of parabolas for the first three experiments and I will join them.  Like yesterday, we will do 30 in microgravity, 1 lunar, and 1 Martian.  Before take off, I checked on the engine from the Philadelphia team.  It is cleared to fly and getting loaded on the plane.  Everything looks good so we go to our pre-flight briefing, take our meds, and get ready to board.

This will be my third flight and, even thought I felt good previous times, I can't help but be just a little bit nervous.  As I take my seat, I'm surrounded by the teachers and their excitement is palpable and contagious.   We laugh, smile, and take off into a clear blue sky.

The first parabola is always my favorite.  The airplane is flying level and then it pulls up hard and you are driven down into the cushions on the floor (the walls and ceilings are also padded). As the plane begins to turn over the top of the parabola, the weight on your relaxes and then, like magic, you float to the ceiling.

I was sitting next to the "Space Cowboy" team (John, Allison, Darrell), our journalist Patti, and the alternate from the Trenton team, Bocary. The looks of wonder, of amazement, of joy on their faces were so beautiful that I felt myself smiling and laughing.

As the parabolas progressed, I floated over to check on our other two teams.  Team Philly (Paul, Matt, Ron) felt great and had recorded the spark from the spark plug from two parabolas but they were shut down.  The pilots reported that they could feel the vibrations of the engine starter in the cockpit and requested that the team stop the experiment.

The Jersey City team (Jose, Chris, Fred) also felt great and their experiment with oobleck was working well.  Right next to them, a team of teachers from a different program were cracking eggs in microgravity and I had to take a look.  So I floated over to them and grabbed onto their glovebox so I could peer inside.  The egg was floating as a perfect sphere, yolk and all.  It was ridiculously beautiful to see that.  As the call for "feet down" came out, the teacher running the experiment held a piece of tupperware under the egg and it dropped down into it, and he snapped on the lid.  Wow.

The rest of the parabolas were wonderful.  The Space Cowboys got good data with their bubbles and with their pendulum/spring setup.  Highlights for me included passing a tennis ball around and watching it float, Bocary and I even pretended it was a soccer ball and passed it back and forth with our heads.  For one parabola, I strapped my feet down and grabbed onto John and Allison so it would look like I was lifting them over my head.  I also looked out the window and saw the horizon at 45 degrees.  It was beautiful.

When we got back down to the ground, we took a group photo, did our post-flight briefing and then got ready to unload the experiments that were on the plane to prepare for the next teams.  Next up are the teams from Trenton, Princeton, and Auburn, Alabama.  Their experiments were loaded into gloveboxes and attached to the floor of the plane.

The schedule currently has one flight Thursday, one on Friday.  Tropical storm "Don" is headed our way, however, and we are going to try to get both flights done tomorrow.  Friday's weather does not look good and the next chance of flying after that is Monday, after we plan to return home.

Stay tuned...

Here are some photos, courtesy of John's camera

Some people call them the Gangsters of Love...

Patti and I post-flight

Ron and Paul heading to the plane

John and Bocary

Jose and Fred

Allison and Patti after the flight

Ron and Matt

Thumbs up from me

Tuesday, July 26 - Failure is an Option

In science, failure isn't simply an option, it's the normal state of affairs.  Most experiments don't work at first and at second and at third.  Instead, you have to make constant adjustments and changes until you get it right.  That's typical when you do it in the 1-g environment of the Earth-bound laboratory.

On the Weightless Wonder, you have exactly two chances to get it right.  Each experiment flies on two consecutive days with half the team flying on the first day, half on the second.  If it's difficult to get an experiment to work the first time when you are on Earth, is there really any chance of getting it right inside an airplane with all of the safety requirements and the fact that you and your equipment are undergoing a constant and changing force as the airplane flies parabolas?

The answer is no...and yes.

NASA's motto is that "Failure is not an option."  That's a powerful and critically important perspective when people are involved.  So failure is not an option holds true for the pilots of the Weightless Wonder and the NASA personnel supporting us aboard the airplane. No one will get hurt.

Failure is an option for our experiments. Today, we planned to fly the first three experiments. That didn't happen.

The day began with a meeting aboard the aircraft to test the combustion engine to find out if it still leaked. The team bought the proper fitting, a NASA technician modified it so it would mate to the vent line  of the airplane and it was time to turn it on.  In the photo, three members of the team are on the left, NASA personnel on the right.  The team fired up the engine and instantly the call came to turn it off, the smell of propane was obvious.  A quick investigation found that the exhaust line was no longer leaking, the new fitting was good, but the intake valve and the engine seals were all leaking.  There was no choice, the plane had to take off without this experiment.  The forklift came out, the rig was unbolted from the floor of the plane, the hatch opened, and the engine went back into the hangar.  I met with Doug (education) and Dom (flight director) and we quickly made a new plan.  Ron, the auto tech. teacher would not fly today and work on the engine.  Jayatri and Kathleen would fly as scheduled, but be assigned to other experiments.  The team met to discuss the new plan and the plane was prepared for takeoff.

Everyone then met for the pre-flight briefing and to take the anti-nausea medicine.  You take two pills, the scopolamine for nausea and an upper because scopolamine is a bit of a downer.  Here is Aliya ("I'm good"), Kathleen (I'm good but I can't feel my legs"), and Adam (I'm good, I mean really good!) about 15 minutes after swallowing the magic pills.

Along with the three of them, our other flyers included Susan, Pat, Nick, Craig, Tony, Chelule, and Jayatri.

Jayatri, Susan, Pat, and Nick getting ready to board.  Photo courtesy of John DeLooper.

Boarding the plane. Photo courtesy of John DeLooper.

Photo courtesy of John DeLooper.

While the plane went out over the Gulf of Mexico to fly 30 microgravity parabolas, 1 lunar, and 1 Martian, I went back to help the Philly team figure out what to do.  It was clear that the engine could not fly without major modifications and those could not happen in 24 hours.  The question was whether or not there was something else on the engine that could be studied and still be scientifically interesting and also relevant to the students.  I suggested that the team study the spark behavior in a varying gravitational field.  No fuel, but what happens to the spark in a spark plug at 0g?  Or at 1.8 g?  Or if it was on the Moon?  Or on Mars?  (Yes, I know, that's now a plasma physics experiment too!) The team had the camera set up, all they had to do was reposition it so that it could see the spark and convince NASA that this new experiment was safe.  That took the rest of the day, but the team worked incredibly hard and the  safety inspection was short because everyone was convinced that this new experiment could fly safely tomorrow!

In the middle of all of that, the flyers came back down to Earth though each of them was still floating.  First off the plane was Pat, arms raised, soon followed by everyone else.  Kathleen was beaming and just hugged me, smiles were everywhere, and the wonder and joy just burst out of people.  Everyone that stayed on the ground cheered.

Photo courtesy of John DeLooper

What about the experiments?  Of the other two, the oobleck did well and the team got some results.  But oobleck leaked out of the chamber and some cleanup and resealing was required.  The bubbles, spring, and pendulum all failed.  The spring fell off, the bubble chamber floor didn't stay in place, and a camera mount broke.  There was no data.  A failure?  Not at all.  Instead, the experiment showed the team every weak point, every problem with moving from a 1-g to a zero-g environment, and they were all fixable.  By the end of the day, the team had made the adjustments so the equipment was ready for the second day.  Tomorrow, they are confident that the experiment will succeed.

Sometimes, failure is an option and it leads to success.

Monday July 25 - Test Readiness Review

7:30 am and it's back to work.

Today is the Test Readiness Review (TRR) for all six experiments.  If you're a PPPL'er, just think of it as a safety walk-through.  For everyone else, just imagine you've worked on something for months and at the last moment you take it apart, ship it to Houston, rebuild it, and have about a dozen NASA engineers pour over it and decide if it is safe enough to put on an airplane that climbs to 32,000 feet and then drops about 8,000 feet before climbing again.  (Remember the parabola trajectory from a previous post)

If you don't pass the TRR, you don't fly.  From 7:30 - 10:30 am each team prepared, built, got everything ready.  As the day started, I thought I'd have an easy day.  I'm not attached to any particular team, my role is just to make sure everything works.  Everything.  How hard could that be???

Well...

The team from Trenton (water splashes in microgravity) borrowed my really fast video camera, my really fast and really expensive video camera.  My $35,000 camera.  The one that isn't working.  At all.  Even though it worked Sunday.

The team from Philadelphia (automobile engine in microgravity) is using propane instead of gasoline because it burns cooler.  That's great, except it's leaking out of the engine.  And they want to put their engine on the Vomit Comet.  An enclosed environment that, in case you haven't figured out by now, flies these enormous parabolas that sometimes makes people sick.  Every smell propane?  How's that feel?  Ok, there's also the small concern of a flammable gas leaking inside the aircraft.  Might want to solve that.

But the other four teams are doing great.  In fact, they passed their TRR and were approved to fly.  The problem is that the Trenton and Philadelphia teams are scheduled to fly Tuesday.  Tomorrow.  Less than 24 hours.

So what should I do?  I got on the phone with the company that sold me the fast camera and arranged for them to overnight a new power supply.  Then I met with Doug, the head of the microgravity program and we moved Trenton to Thursday/Friday.  So I asked Jersey City (oobleck in microgravity) if they would switch from Thursday/Friday to Tuesday/Wednesday.  Their eyes opened wide and said, "YES."

That's one crisis solved.

For Philadelphia, the NASA engineers and technical experts swooped in (flew in?) and came up with a solution to plug the leak.  No, it wasn't duct tape and cardboard like Apollo 13.  It was new propane connections and some machining.  All the team had to do was go to a local hardware store and buy the fittings.  Then, first thing tomorrow morning, they could put it all together, test it, and hopefully fly.

Crisis averted but that took all day.

I'm exhausted, nothing to do now, so let's go bowling.  A team competition, winning team all gets plasma mugs.  Adam, Kathleen, Aliya, and I are the PPPL team.  Lots of fun, bonding among teams, laughing, and bowling.  I broke 100, we lost, the team from Trenton won.  It was great.

Tuesday is a flight day.

Sunday, July 24 - Sailing

Whenever I go on an adventure no matter how big or how small, I always hope it all works out.  I never hope that it is "perfect" because it seems like that whenever I do, it isn't.  But when I don't think about the outcome, and when the day's adventure is over and it is "perfect," that's when I smile, then laugh, and then realize it wasn't perfect, it was "magical."

Sunday was magical.

My day started in a house of worship, a Jehovah's Witness Hall.  Now, if you ask, I'll label myself an atheist, or perhaps an atheist jew (whatever that means, or just ask my mother and she'll tell you)  My only experience with Jehovah's Witnesses were probably like yours, a knock on the door and a request to come in, leave a magazine, and talk about religion.  But Friday night, while sharing a spirit (not THE spirit, but A spirit, or perhaps a spirit or two...) with some of the teachers, the conversation turned to religion.  I know the rule says don't talk politics or religion, but that's boring.  Instead, we had this incredible talk about religion and our wide diversity of beliefs.  Since one of us is a Jehovah's Witness, he invited the group to join him Sunday and I eagerly accepted the invitation.  I may not believe in god, and I might tell you that I'm very angry at her (if you know me well, you know what I mean by that), but I'm open to understanding something that is new.  So a couple of us went and it was really a wonderful experience.  The service was about 45 minutes and the first thing I noticed was that there was a spectacular diversity around me.  A diversity of age, of race, of ethnicity.  In other words, my stereotype was just that, a superficial lack of knowledge.  There was a prayer, a song, a sermon, and a closing song.  The people I talked to were lovely and kind, just happy to see new faces.  I left with a little more understanding of what it means to be a Jehovah's Witness and a smile.

Oh wait, this post is supposed to be about sailing....

After lunch, seven of us rented a sailboat.  The Skipper, Gilligan, a millionaire, and his wife, a movie star, the professor, and Mary Ann.  Oh wait, that's Tim, Darrell, Sophia, Patti, me, Bill, and Joy.  Just call me Ginger for the rest of this post.

We rented a 26 foot sailboat and went out on the Galveston Bay.  The weather was beautiful, the wind steady, the water warm.  We spent about 5 hours (not a 3-hour tour) out, ate, swam, talked, and just took in the beauty.  We got back at dinner time, hungry yet satisfied and smiling.

Like I said, the day was magical.

The Power of People

It's amazing what happens when you bring a group of people together.  On Saturday, our teacher-astronauts spent the day in our professional development workshop.  We began a few minutes after 9am as I welcomed the group and then Sophia explained the agenda she had designed.  The idea was that everyone had spent so much time preparing their experiments that there really hadn't been much time to think about how to bring the experiment, and the experience, back to the classroom.  We began with a lecture by Prof. Ed Thomas of Auburn University, he is also mentoring a team from Alabama, on how the airplane actually achieves microgravity.  Ed's lecture was excellent, even with the challenge of explaining this to a group that included elementary teachers through AP physics teachers.  He explained that the plane does not "turn off" gravity, but is moving such that inside the plane it appears that there is no gravity.  According to Ed, imagine being inside an elevator and the cable broke.  (Note:  do NOT try this at home!)  As the elevator falls, with you inside it, you take a tennis ball out of your pocket and let it go.  What happens?  Since you and the tennis ball are falling at the exact same rate, if you let it go you will both continue falling at the same rate and so, relative to each other, the ball just floats in front of you.  It looks like this:

Courtesy of Prof. Ed Thomas, Auburn University

Ok, so the plane does NOT do this.  It doesn't dive down, or plunge, or anything else like that at all!  Instead, imagine a quarterback throwing a football.  The football follows a path that is more like an arc.  You could call that path a parabola.  And while the football is on that path, if a little ant took a little tennis ball out of her little pocket and let it go, what would happen?  The exact same thing as what happened on the falling elevator, the ball would float!  And that IS what the plane does.  It follows a parabolic trajectory for about 25 seconds before it does dive down for a short period of time and then pulls back up to follow another parabolic trajectory.  And everyone, and everything, on the plane feels the equivalent of zero gravity during this parabolic trajectory at the top and then feels about 1.8 times gravity when the plane does a similar parabolic trajectory as it begins to climb again.  And if I weigh about 180 lbs on Earth, at the top of the trajectory I weigh nothing at all and at the bottom I weigh 1.8 times 180 = 324 lbs  Do that 34 times in a row and you have the "Weightless Wonder."

Now it was time for the real work, bringing all of this back to the classroom.  So each team spent about an hour brainstorming how they would bring their experiment back to their students.  To add to the fun, we asked that each team create a poster explaining their ideas and handed out flip charts and markers.  Then, everyone voted on the best presentation.  The winning team each received a $20 certificate to the NASA gift store.  That took us to the lunch break and when we returned, each teacher chose someone else's experiment that they also wanted to bring back to the classroom and we did the same thing.  Everyone also wrote up their ideas into a preliminary lesson plan and we collected everything.  When we get back, we will put everything online so that it will be available to all.  We will also put all of the data online and the revised lesson plans so that everyone has access to everything.  We ended past 4pm and it was an inspiring day.  Here are photos of the winning teams (courtesy of John DeLooper)

Finally, after spending such an inspiring day with an incredible group of teachers, it's difficult not to reflect upon how much negative attention is given by some politicians and, from that, some of the public, towards a group of people that devote their lives to making our children better people.  They do so because they love to teach, they do so because they love to inspire young people, and they do so because they, in turn, are inspired by their students.  The poet, Taylor Mali, sums it up better than I could every hope to do.  Watch this by clicking on the link.  "What Teachers Make"

Houston is a great place to live, once you get used to sweating

I was in hangar 990 at Ellington Field, waiting for the return of the STS-135 crew, talking to a woman next to me and melting. After a while, you can't help but talk about the temperature. As I looked around, I could tell she was right, everyone around me was glistening. I know that back home right now there is a heat wave engulfing the area, but this was a typical summer day in Houston, temperature in the high-90's and humid. And we were in a large, open airplane hangar with several thousand people all crowded together to greet the crew. My feet were aching, my PPPL polo shirt was clinging to me, people were bumping into me, and I was loving every moment. Any minute now, through a door about ten feet away from where I was standing, American heros were about to come out. Not the celebrities that so much of our culture idolizes, but four people that represented the true American spirit. When they did, the crowd roared, the astronauts waved, the music blared, and the emotions poured out of me. We were all there to celebrate their achievement and to celebrate the men and women that worked behind the scenes to make the very last shuttle mission a rousing success. Here is my video of their entrance.

The STS-135 Crew Return also had a different impact on me and everyone else today. Hangar 990 is the place where we spent the afternoon unpacking and building our experiments. Instead of three hours to work on each experiment, we had less than two. In that short amount of time, a crate needed to be unloaded, boxes unpacked, and six experiments set up. Once our hangar orientation was complete, teams sprung into action.  Tables were covered in equipment, teams huddled together, building, preparing, and testing.  Right before the lead NASA official announced that it was time to leave, the first team lowered their completed experiment into their glovebox. I looked around and saw that the other teams were not far behind. Then I met with the head of the Reduced Gravity Eduction Office, Doug Goforth, and his team to review the flight manifest. Teams were assigned a flight day, along with PPPL staff that is not part of a team. Our VIP, PPPL's Chief Operating Officer Adam Cohen, and our logistical crew chief, Kathleen Lukazik, are flying Tuesday, our journalist, Patti Wieser, on Friday. Aliya Merali will provide technical support to all the teams Tuesday and Thursday, I'll do the same Wednesday and Friday.

We'll be back Monday morning to complete everything and prepare for our final safety inspection before the first three experiments are loaded onto the aircraft.  Tomorrow, we'll spend the day inside an air-conditioned conference room designing the curricula that each teacher will use in the classroom.  But today, as we walked out of the hangar exhausted, it was impossible for me not to glance back over my shoulder, think about our day, and smile.

July 22, 2011 - Day 1

Our group is scheduled to report the Ellington Airport (EFD) at 7:45 am this morning.  EFD is 15 miles south of Houston and just a short distance from the Johnson Space Center.  Originally created as a training facility during World War I, it is now home to a variety of aircraft including military and NASA.  Besides the Vomit Comet, NASA also houses high-altitude aircraft, cargo aircraft, and the Shuttle Training Aircraft here.

This morning we get our badges and then an overview of the week. After that there is a 2-hour physiological training class followed by meetings for the team mentors and the team leads.  Finally, right after lunch, there is time to take the experimental equipment out of the crates and get it ready for the flights next week.  At 3:30 pm, we are invited to the STS-135 Crew Return.  We don't know the details yet but, WOW!  STS-135 landed successfully yesterday and was the last shuttle mission.  Is the actual crew on the way here to say thank you to everyone at Johnson Space Center?  We'll find out.

The experiments that are unloaded later today cover a variety of different topics.  Each was chosen by the team members because it showed a clear need for microgravity and the results could be woven into each teacher's curriculum.  I'll get more into the details of the experiments as the week progresses and only briefly list them now.

Team 1, with teachers from Ewing, Trenton, Matawan, South Brunswick, and The Peddie School, is looking at the behavior of bubbles in microgravity.  They are also looking at the motion of a pendulum and a mass on a spring.  Their mentor is PPPL's John DeLooper

Team 2, with teachers from Princeton, is studying crystal growth in a varying gravitational field.  Their mentor is Sophia Gershman from Watchung Hills Regional High School.

Team 3, with teachers from Trenton, is filming water splashes caused by metal spheres with either a hydrophilic or hydrophobic coating.   Their mentor is PPPL's Stephanie Wissel.

Team 4, with teachers from Auburn, AL, is studying equilibrium in a variety of ways including dropping a toy parachute and bubbles from antacid in water.  Their mentor is Ed Thomas from Auburn University.

Team 5, with teachers from Philadelphia, is studying burn patterns, efficiency, and exhaust from a one-cylinder, plexiglass internal combustion engine. Their mentor is Simon Hauger from The Sustainability Workshop and West Philadelphia High School.

Team 6, with teachers from Jersey City, is studying complex fluid behavior in microgravity using oobleck (water and corn starch) and a speaker.  Their mentor is Jose Lopez from St. Peter's College.

What Would Happen If You Turned Off Gravity?

And away we go...!

Four years of dreaming, of planning, of wishful thinking all leads to tomorrow.  Six teams of six educators plus two support staff, one journalist, one VIP, and myself are all headed to Houston tomorrow.  We report to Ellington Airfield at 7:45 am Friday and the adventure begins.  We unpack our experiments, hoping that everything arrived in the same condition that it was shipped, set everything up, test the experiments, and get ready for the flights that begin on Tuesday.  But, before I get any further, let me take it back to the beginning.

It was the summer of 2007 and Mike Hvasta, a junior physics major from The College of New Jersey, was working in my lab on our dusty plasma experiment.  Inside our vacuum chamber existed a cloud of dust, suspended in the background plasma due to a balance of forces, including gravity pulling the cloud down. Mike asked a simple question about the dust cloud, "What would happen if you turned off gravity?"  We talked about it hypothetically but then I said to him, "Why don't you find out by applying to NASA's Microgravity University?"  Mike took the bait, put together a team of students from TCNJ, wrote the proposal and sent it in.  The proposal was accepted and the team worked diligently to prepare to fly a dusty plasma experiment aboard the Vomit Comet (I mean, "Weightless Wonder") in the summer of 2008.

The experiment was successful, thought it did have its moments of doubt.  The wooden frame that held the experiment is now semi-famous with the folks at the Microgravity University because they tested its strength by having a fork-lift try to crush it.  (If you ever meet Mike, just ask him about the details!  He's now a PhD candidate in plasma physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.)

That October, I was in Washington, DC talking about PPPL's Science Education programs at the Department of Energy when I showed a video clip of one of the TCNJ team members doing summersaults with the help of a NASA crew member.  At the break, someone comes up to me and says that he is on a short-term assignment to the DOE and he decided at the last minute to attend my talk and the NASA crew member is him.  Talk about a small world!  His name is Doug Goforth and he is the head of the Microgravity University.

That conversation led to a meeting to talk about a collaboration between NASA and DOE through our mutual education programs.  In the summer of 2009, the team from TCNJ flew a modified version of their experiment and this time I went with them, flew for the first time, met again with Doug and the rest of his team, and started talking about a joint K-12 teacher program between us.

That's the program we piloted last year with two teams of teachers. That led to the Space Act Agreement that we signed earlier this year.  The result is that we're spending the next 10 days flying the six experiments and we've added a professional development workshop on Saturday so that everyone will have time to write curricula to bring their experiments back to the classroom.

Just getting everyone out there took a tremendous amount of work.  Thanks to Lynda, Deedee, and Kathleen for getting the people there and Jerry for shipping our equipment. Thanks to John and Bill in the machine shop for the custom parts and to Larry for the technical support.  Thanks to Jackie and Connie and Tony for the financial accounting and to Rod and Ed for making sure the Space Act Agreement was in place and signed by everyone.  Thanks to the NASA folks, especially Doug and Sara for all of their help.  Thanks to John, Stephanie, Sophia, Simon, Jose, and Ed for leading the teams and thanks to all the teachers (and their students) for the tremendous amount of time and dedication it took in designing and building the experiments.  Finally, thanks to Mike for being curious and for asking a simple question,

"What would happen if you turned off gravity?"

How hard can it be to get a VIP to fly on the Vomit Comet? You have no idea...

As part of our collaboration with NASA, we were invited to fly two VIPs during our flight week and I was asked to suggest the people.  Now that's my type of assignment.  "Hey VIP, how would you like to spend about 11 minutes weightless on an airplane that is the world's greatest roller coaster with a bunch of teacher-leaders that are using the experience to inspire their students? Oh, all expenses paid."  Or something like that.  I mean, it's like handing out the world's greatest birthday present.  Unless the idea of an airplane diving at a 45 degree angle from 34,000 ft. above the Gulf of Mexico is not your thing.

The first person I asked jumped at the chance.  Adam Cohen is PPPL's Chief Operating Officer, a scientist, and a supporter of science education in every sense of that phrase.  I sent him an email with the invitation and before I could blink the reply was in my inbox, a big YES.

I figured filling the second spot would be just as easy.  The question was whom to ask?  I settled on Congressman Rush Holt.  He's the lab's representative in Congress, he is a former PPPL employee (Assistant Director), and he started the Science Education Program at PPPL.  Perfect.  So I called up his scheduler and she told me that he would love to go but....he has a stress fracture in his foot and is on crutches.  Okay, that seems like a reasonable excuse, maybe I can get him to go next year.

So who next?  Let me go big.  Real big.  She's a Princeton alumna, a passionate supporter of education, and I met her husband once (briefly).  The FLOTUS, Michelle Obama.  Just one problem, I don't know her telephone number.  Or email.  flotus@whitehouse.gov?  michelle.obama@gmail.com?  Nothing.  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to even get an email address for her scheduler?  Try googling that.  Nothing.  Go on the White House web page.  Nothing.  You have to really dig.  But I eventually found it and sent off the invitation.  Took a couple of weeks, but here's the reply.


Dear Mr. Zwicker,


Thank you again for inviting the First Lady to fly an experiment aboard NASA’s “Weightless Wonder”. Due to time constraints, the First Lady must decline the majority of the invitations she receives. We wanted to let you know that we have reviewed your invitation, and unfortunately, the First Lady will be unable to participate in your event.


The First Lady sends her best wishes and hopes that you continue to work with those close to you to strengthen your community and our country. Thank you again for your interest and understanding. Please keep us in mind for future events.


Sincerely,                                                                                                     
The Scheduling Department of First Lady Michelle Obama


Please note that for each inquiry or invitation, the First Lady’s Office of Scheduling considers not only the stated request but also the possibility of additional forms of Presidential or White House involvement. This includes, but is not limited to, greetings, messages, proclamations, videos, and the attendance of the President, the Vice President, Dr. Jill Biden, or White House staff at an event or meeting. Replies to this email regarding additional or alternative requests or reconsideration cannot be answered.


Well, that was a long shot, I admit.  Who next?  Got it.  I can't get the President's wife, let me try for the President....of Princeton University.  Shirley Tilghman is her name and she is a remarkable person.  A biologist by training and a current judge of the Art of Science competition that I co-organize, she would be perfect.  So I sent off more or less the same invite one recent evening and got a reply back from her the next morning.

"Dear Andrew,
Thank you but....
Best Wishes,
Shirley"


Hmm, ok, this is getting harder.  Let me give it one more try.  Now who?  I need a scientist.  I need a teacher.  I need an educator.  Got it.  Neil deGrasse Tyson.  He's the Head of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC, he is the host of NOVA on public television, he's on The Colbert Report, he's a former post-doc at Princeton, and he and I were both elected Fellows of the American Physical Society in 2010 by the Forum on Physics and Society.  Too many connections for him to turn me down.

Dear Mr. Zwicker:  Thank you for your interest in Dr. Tyson.  While he certainly appreciates your invitation he does not have the freedom of schedule to accommodate the request.  I'm sorry.


He wishes you and your group the very best.


Regards,

Ok, now I'm getting a complex, starting to think it's me.  C'mon people, it's an adventure of a lifetime and you're too busy?????  Sigh.  Oh, wait.  They truly are very important people and incredibly busy.  They probably get asked to fly on the vomit comet all the time.  C'est la vie.  

Bottom line is this.

We still have an open slot for any VIP that is reading this and just happens to be free the last week of July and can get to Houston.  Of course if you truly are a VIP, you don't have the time to read this post and see that the invitation still stands....:)