Had fun with the new camera this weekend.

You know you’re in trouble when Hathaway scores

Boquillas Canyon. 2 sandstone cliff walls converge around a tan river.

A pink cactus flower

A picture of a picture of a coyote looking dubiously toward me as he stands in the road.

A black and white speckled roadrunner looks to his right.

Adventuring with my oldest and youngest in Big Bend.

They brought the map to our cockpit working group. At one point to be reviewed by our crew officer rep, human factors folks and other stakeholders.

Lockheed created a Velcro map years ago for pre-installed locations and put them in the vehicle prior to turnover from LM to NASA. Our materials folks review locations to make sure they didn’t violate spacing and size constraints.

It’s a combination of pre-decided locations and crew preference Velcro.

I went to Energia & sat across from my counterpart who was over 70 years old and had more knowledge on the Elektron than I could ever hope to have. It was funny & I was just glad he took me at all seriously.

I’ll never forget my first meeting with a Russian counterpart. I was 24/25 years old & went to Energia in Moscow to take training on Russian life support equipment on ISS. I had been on the job less than 2 years. I wasn’t the most experienced person on the NASA side, but I had the most knowledge

As the lead of the working group, I was expected to give a toast. So I toasted to our grandfathers, mine had fought for the Navy in WW2 & is buried in Arlington, who would not have believed that we could sit around the table and work on something like that together.

Almost 2 decades ago, I ran an international working group to define ISS crew training. The team met in Star City, Russia, an old military base & at the European Astronaut Center in Koln, Germany. One was an old Soviet military base; the other built on an old Nazi base.

The design of the kit was one of the last things to be completed. Then along came the AVATAR payload which we wound up installing in the location where the med kit was supposed to go and we stowed the kit in the locker. Red cross was added to remind them where to go if needed.

I’ve been watching some of the crew videos from the mission. The Red Cross on the locker indicates where the med kit is stowed. The med kit was originally supposed to be in the cabin & readily accessible in an emergency. The team had challenges fitting within their mass & volume constraints.

I’ve spent my entire career working in collaboration with people around the world exploring space. Whether it’s been the Japanese, Europeans, Russians, or others, we’re all just people who’ve shared common goals & dreams. Time after time, we prove we can always achieve more working together.

Teapot featuring a wide angle shot of the Moon's horizon and a small Earth above and to the left. Mug featuring Orion spacecraft with a shining spot on the panels reflecting the sun.

Teapot featuring a wide angle shot of the Moon's horizon and a small Earth above and to the left. Mug featuring Orion spacecraft with a shining spot on the panels reflecting the sun. (Left detail of teapot)

Teapot featuring a wide angle shot of the Moon's horizon and a small Earth above and to the left. Mug featuring Orion spacecraft with a shining spot on the panels reflecting the sun. (Detail of mug)

Teapot featuring a wide angle shot of the Moon's horizon and a small Earth above and to the left. Mug featuring Orion spacecraft with a shining spot on the panels reflecting the sun. (Detail of the Moon)

Artemis II tea set 🌓
#SciArt

That’s fantastic

We haven’t even kicked off our formal review of Artemis II results yet. That happens tomorrow. It’ll be a month before we have even a preliminary report.

No, we’re not required to disclose the status of the vehicle within a set period of time. Deadlines are self-imposed. We’re trying to accelerate things to allow us to shorten the schedule to Artemis III, but that’s all of our own doing.

We captured a ton of data throughout the mission that needs to be analyzed. Individual components will be removed, inspected, and evaluated to make sure it’s ok to re-use them.

There’s been no release of heat shield photos and I wouldn’t expect anything any time soon. I’d be skeptical of any claims about heat shield performance at this point.

Over the next 30 days, the team will complete an initial assessment of any issues seen during the mission and whether we need to take any corrective action for Artemis III. For things that we know we’ll need to address, like the urine vent line, team will put together a more detailed resolution plan

Just about everything that worked well except the pressure vessel and the heat shield. Goal is to re-use as much as possible on Artemis V.

The spacecraft will ultimately be shipped back to KSC to remove parts but we’re pulling off some high priority/time critical items like payloads and data recorders.

I’d love to help but that’s not my area of expertise. Maybe someone like @barbylon on the science side of the mission can help.

Gotta go with my favorite mission photos for this #stunday

Acoustics, Manufacturing, Textiles, Software, Human Factors, Physicists, Geologists, Chemists, Materials, Environmental, Doctors, Programmers, Mathematicians, Photographers, Statisticians, Technicians, Accountants, Lawyers, Videographers, Education

If you can get a degree in it, we use it somewhere

I used to speak at a middle school career day and my closing message to the kids was that no matter what you want to do, you could come do it for NASA, because we need every skill set to pull off these missions.

Engineering -Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical, Computer, Biomedical, Chemical, Robotic

Gray T-shirt with the blue NASA meatball logo. In place of NASA it says, “Not Flat”. Underneath the logo are the words We Checked.

Please to report that we collected another data point yesterday and this still holds true.

On the 2017 photo - I had been reading about how Dad’s were unlikely to share their work with their kids. I thought if I can’t share this, I’m doing something wrong. My oldest is getting g a drama & film degree, middle wants to be a doctor. Youngest might go astrophysics. Mission accomplished?

Materials Sciences & Engineering for the composition of the bricks, ablative properties, and thermal reaction. Aerospace with aerothermal heating analysis.

Reminder - we’re going to have a new heat shield on Artemis III regardless of the outcome here. The Artemis I heat shield had a blend of 2 different brick densities - 1 performed as expected & 1 didn’t. We decided ~2 years ago to make the A-III heat shield out of the material that performed well