March 2009 Archives

Welcome home, Sandy!

After 4 1/2 months in space, Sandra Magnus arrived back on earth at 2:15 p.m. Rolla time today (Saturday, March 28, 2009), when she and the rest of the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery touched down at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. So ends a long adventure for Sandy. Congratulations!

Editors' note: Sandra Magnus' return to earth after a 4 1/2-month stay aboard the International Space Station has been delayed a few hours due to weather conditions. NASA will post the latest information about the Space Shuttle Discovery's landing on the STS-119 Landing Blog. As soon as we know anything, we'll post it here, too.

On behalf of the entire Missouri S&T community -- the students, faculty, staff and some 50,000 alumni worldwide -- we thank Sandy for dedicating so much time to providing updates to this blog during her journey aboard the International Space Station. And we thank all of your readers for visiting, reading, and submitting so many thoughtful questions and comments.

Editor's Note: The shuttle is docked with the ISS. This morning, the astronauts are taking a call from President Obama. The shuttle is scheduled to bring Dr. Magnus home Saturday.

Editor's Note: As we wait for the shuttle that will bring Sandra home to dock with the ISS, we are catching up on some journal entries sent to us previously.

MAGNUS:

It is very easy to get busy up here and forget to "stop and smell the roses" as it were. (I think that is probably true for all of us everywhere!) So after dinner and before bedtime tonight I finally stopped and took a moment to watch the world go by during a night pass. It seems like it has been a while since I have done this. There are always excuses...other things that have to get done, e-mails to write, feet to warm up, too tired, there is always another day...blah, blah, blah. But I put my foot down, figuratively speaking, and took the time.

We were passing up through the Atlantic going north across Africa and Europe and arcing down through Asia to come out east of Australia and New Zealand into the Pacific. I do not know exactly where we were but it was already night when I positioned myself at the docking compartment window. I think it was the one facing more starboard. I always get myself mixed up when I go into that module; I can never easily find the hatch again. Even though the lights in the docking compartment were off, reflections from the lights in the SM and FGB interfered with the view so I had to put my hands up around my glasses and then wait for my eyes to adjust.

Image: Space shuttle Discovery blazes into the night sky as it lifts off Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA TV

Space shuttle Discovery was successfully launched to the International Space Station at 7:43 p.m. (EDT) tonight, March 15.

From KETC, LIVING ST. LOUIS Producer Ruth Ezell listens in as students Jennifer Mays third grade class from Ellis Elementary School in Belleville, Ill., had a chance to have a question and answer session with Astronaut Sandra Magnus, a native of Belleville. With the technical support of members from local amateur radio clubs, the session allowed the students to see how math and science have real-world applications.

Dr. Magnus and other crew members at the International Space Station are safe after taking shelter in the Soyuz "lifeboat" as a precaution:

The three American and Russian astronauts aboard the international space station took shelter in their Soyuz escape capsule briefly today to wait out the close approach of debris from an old U.S. commercial rocket stage, NASA said today.

The debris, about 4 inches long, whizzed within three miles of the orbital outpost at 11:39 a.m., CDT, causing no damage.

Blog Editor's Note: Last night's shuttle launch was scrubbed. NASA will apparently try again as early as Sunday. This is the shuttle that will pick Dr. Magnus up at the ISS and bring her back home. While we're waiting for that, let's catch up on some journal entries we've received from Sandra...

MAGNUS:

You know, we humans have an amazing ability to adapt. After having been here for several months, the routine is so "normal" to me that I do not even think about the fact that when I get up in the morning, I am in fact, floating up and out of my sleeping bag. I do not contemplate the significance of doing the "Superman fly" down the center of the U.S. Lab to get from one end to the other. The strangeness of being able to "hand" a tool to Mike by just gently pushing it in his general direction never crosses my mind; that is just how life is here. 
 
But every now and then I have a moment where I stop, step back, and look at the big picture and it hits me and I have a "hey, this is NOT normal, this is absolutely weird and amazing and what are you doing here!" kind of moment. That usually gets me started on a line of thought about humans and our desire and compulsion to explore and do new things.

Editor's note: We just received word that this blog has won a major award from the Missouri Association of Publications. Spacebook received the "best overall website presentation" award during MAP's Annual Publishing Summit, held March 5-6 in Columbia, Missouri. Missouri S&T also won a couple other awards for our excellent alumni magazine.

We're proud to have great alumni like Sandra Magnus to help tell the story of this great university in so many different creative ways -- such as with this blog -- and we're equally proud of our great, hard-working staff. Congratulations, Sandy! Congratulations, Spacebook! And thank you, readers, for dropping by to visit, read, and comment.

Well, I know I am behind on these entries and I am sorry... We got busy, I got distracted, I had writer's block--all of the above are in part the reason why. But after thinking about it I decided to return to the subject of our planet mainly because I am spending a lot of time taking photos of it (and I have never been that much interested in photography!).

(Sandra took the desert photo below from the International Space Station. More photos and Sandra's NASA journal post can be found here.)

Can you feel the temperature of space?
-- Teanna, Josey, Tyler

Well inside the ISS we have a climate controlled environment. When we do spacewalks the temperature of our surroundings can swing from -200 to +200 degrees, but our space suits protect us. I guess the closest we come is when coming in from a spacewalk the equipment we have with us has the temperature that it experienced while on the spacewalk.

Editor's note: While a couple of her fellow space station inhabitants are preparing for a space walk, Sandra Magnus continues to lead experiments with fire in space. She has been focused on the Smoke Point in Co-flow Experiment, or SPICE, which determines the point at which gas-jet flames begin to emit soot in microgravity. Studying a soot-emitting flame will help scientists understand how fires spread in space and aid in the control of soot for future combustion systems. Read the full story here.

Pictured above is Sandy (center) with Expedition 18 Commander Michael Fincke (right) and cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov posing for a crew photo between a Russian Orlan spacesuit and an Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit in the Harmony node of the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA

When you return, will you be younger than if you had aged on earth? If so, by how much?
-- Teresa
 
Well I guess if you look at the theories of special and general relativity, I am aging slightly differently than if I was on Earth. But I think it is on the order of something so incredibly small that in the scheme of my life, it is inconsequential!
 

My question has to do with Missouri: Except for the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, can you see anything where you "know" you're looking at the state? Interstate highways? or not? Or maybe something else that hasn't occurred to me? 
-- Andy

I finally was able to photograph St. Louis the other day and I clearly saw the stadium. The angle was not good to see the arch, we were almost right over the city. Every other time I have tried to get shots of the St. Louis area there were lots of clouds -- I do not envy you guys the winter you are having. Now having been able to get some shots, I can hopefully recognize the area faster and try to get some more. I was very excited!