Flying in Colorado

One of my friends at the Space Weather Conference is traveling with someone who has a pilot's license. Today, they invited me to go along to Boulder Airport to see if they could rent a plane and do a little flying. We were able to get a plane, and I was able to fly around Boulder and see the mountains and scenery from above. It's only the second time I've ever been in a small (4 person limit) plane - it was really fun, and I got some cool pictures.

This is the type of plane we flew.

This was my seat in the back of the plane.

Cool picture of the planes at the airport

Pilots

Me looking slightly nervous, I think.

Enjoying the flight

Myself and the Pilot

Space Weather Week

I’m in Colorado right now attending the Space Weather Workshop. During my first semester at the Space Policy Institute, I did research on Space Weather, Aviation, and Space Flight, and helped to run a workshop on the issue. Professor Henry Hertzfeld, Professor Ray Williamson, and I are completing a final report based on some research I did on what the effects are as well as the results of the workshop.

The workshop is held at the Millenium Hotel in Boulder, CO. I’ve never been to Boulder before, so that’s been a fun experience. I have a beautiful view from my room. After the first session on Monday, I spent some time working on my Space Law paper sitting on my balcony looking at the mountains. Somehow it makes doing work seem much less stressful.

I’m taking notes at the conference and hope to post as much as I can on what I learn from each presentation and session.

Space Weather and Aviation Workshop

The conference doesn’t technically begin until Tuesday, but there was an optional workshop on Space Weather and Aviation from 1pm-5pm Monday. Since this is exactly the topic that I’ve been working on, I flew in early enough to attend.

There were presentations by multiple groups within this community, and the focus was on trying to make the needs of the users understood. There was a panel that included two pilots and a dispatcher, which I found very interesting. One of the pilots pointed out that unlike terrestrial weather information, pilots have no access to space weather information while in flight. Even though pilots are empowered to take the action they think is necessary given current conditions, most do not know enough about space weather to take any action.

Another speaker talked about the need to make the business case for including space weather information into aviation decision making. He felt that the numbers, probabilities, and costs were not available at the level of fidelity needed for managers to make decisions.

One person, who had worked in meteorology and was now in space weather, asked if there are any channels for pilots to provide information back to the forecasters. He said that in meteorology, this is an important way for forecasters to understand when their predictions were not correct, and exactly what the actual conditions were. If pilots have trouble with HF Comms, that information should make its way back to the Space Weather Prediction Center to be included in analysis. This currently doesn’t exist, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

Another interesting comment was on the various types of predictions available. At the workshop we ran at GW, we found that users were interested in models and predictions even if they didn’t have all information or weren’t 100% confidence. This person commented that though it is difficult to predict the duration of Solar Proton Events, it is possible to predict with high confidence the minimum duration of the Solar Proton Event. This is the kind of information I think would be very useful to the aviation and space communities for the purposes of planning.

More to Come...

DC Photography

My First Hearing on the Hill

Last week, on Thursday, I attended my first hearing on Capital Hill. It was the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology, Sub-committee on Space and Aeronautics Hearing on the International Space Station (ISS) Program. The hearing was at the Rayburn House Office Building, which is just to the side of the Capital.

The building is open to the public, so anyone is welcome to go in. I found the room that the hearing was in – thanks to the helpful guidance of some security guards at the entrance. The room is fairly big, and set up so with lots of chairs for the people who are watching the hearing. In the front of the spectator section is a table where the witnesses sit. The witnesses are the people who are speaking at the hearing. In the front of the room, facing the witnesses and the spectators is a raised dias where the congressmen sit.

First, I’ll give some general thoughts on what it was like to attend a hearing, and then I’ll go into the specifics for those who (like me) are interested in the progress being made on the ISS program.

One thing that surprised me was the relaxed atmosphere. The room, with its quotes and proverbs on the wall and dark wood paneling, gives a sense of seriousness, but the congressmen running the meeting seemed very easy-going.

Congressman Udall was chairing, and Congressman Hall was sitting to his left. Congressman Hall was pretty funny – he’s been in the subcommittee for many years, and made a few jokes about his age. He also happened to know the father of one of the witnesses, and said a few words about him.

There weren’t any female congress-people present on the subcommittee, but two women (out of six people) were witnesses. After working in DC for a bit, I tend to notice the gender balance, especially in positions of seniority, and in technology-related fields.

The last general comment I’d like to make was on how exciting the hearing was. I thought the panel might be a little boring – it’s two hours of people reporting on the status of a program to Congressman. But it really went by so quickly and was really interesting. When Congressman Hull announced we only had 10 minutes left, I couldn’t believe it – I would have guessed that the had only been going for about 45 minutes at that point, not an hour and 50 minutes.

Now to the specifics, the meeting was organized into two sections – first a panel of mostly non-government people speaking on how the ISS can benefit them and their companies/ industries. Then there was a panel of government representatives that talked about the ISS benefits to the government agency they were representing.

The first speaker was from USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), not an agency you usually think of as interested in the International Space Station. Actually, it turns out that USDA and NASA have a history of collaboration. NASA satellites are used for Earth observation and remote sensing that allows USDA to predict and monitor disease, drought, and other issues relevant to their agency. With the ISS, they are interested in doing basic research on biological and cellular research – looking at the early development of cells in micro-gravity. He suggested that as the ISS transforms to a National Laboratory, that a new organization be set up to organize the research agenda. He also suggested that Congress provide some funding to support research, due to the high costs of transportation and special materials needed to do research on the International Space Station.

The second speaker was from Arizona State University and was talking about the disease research that can be done on the ISS. Already they’ve done research using the shuttle (STS-115 and STS-116) on salmonella. Microgravity provides a unique ability to look at microbial issues and gene regulatory pathways. They recently found that bacteria is propogates more quickly and is more virulent when in micro-gravity. Better understanding these changes helps them to better understand what genes regulate diseases, and will lead to better cures and will advance global health.

The third speaker was from a commercial company called Spacehab, and was interested in doing research on viruses in micro-gravity. Their company is already getting some research flown, but as the ISS is the only platform for doing long-term micro-gravity research, that’s what they’re really interested in. They believe that micro-gravity can be used to develop vaccines much more quickly, and that these advanced vaccines have the potential to be worth millions – and also the potential to save millions of lives. Protein Crystal Growth is one of the methods they are interested in, which can be done in micro-gravity much more precisely than on Earth. He also suggested that Congress put more money into basic science research, including that which is high-risk, because this is the research that leads to innovation and is the research that commercial companies are not able to do.

An interesting question asked by one of the Congressman was dealing with the issue of health-related research. He pointed out that the health benefits that could be acquired by ISS research have been talked about for many years, but nothing has materialized. He asked why Congress should believe that this time we should really expect such impressive advances.

The witnesses replied that in the past, ISS was in a construction phase. In 2010, it will finally be complete, and truly ready to support a research agenda. They also argued that promising new developments are already occurring, such as the recent discovery, due to research done in space, on gene regulatory pathways.

The first speaker from the second panel was Dr. Gerstenmaier, who leads the NASA ISS Office. He talked about the benefit of the ISS to exploration research. It is important to realize that there really is no where else that we can do research on long-term space exposure for humans or for space systems. These are very important things to understand if we’re going to travel to the Moon and Mars.

The second speaker was from the GAO, Government Accountability Office, and she basically said that NASA ISS is going pretty well, and that it is important that the two contingency flights are funded and flown. These flights will bring important spare parts to the ISS, and will be the last before the shuttle is retired.

The final speaker was from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, and spoke about the biomedical research that can be done on the International Space Station. Similar to the first speaker, it was clear that this research is important to future exploration missions.

I’m almost finished with a paper discussing the various benefits of the ISS that I am hoping to get published. I’ll definitely be posting about that when it becomes available.

Airplane Movies

One fun thing about long flights is that you get to enjoy the movies they play on the way. On the way over (when I mostly needed to be sleeping) they had a million movies to choose from and it was all on-demand. On the way back (when it was probably best to stay awake the whole time) they didn't have many choices, and they just played two cycles of movies, which was a bit disappointing. Anyway, here's what I ended up watching:

The Golden Compass
This movie is based on the book of the same name by Phillip Pullman. It is set in Oxford, but in a parallel universe. The main characters is a little girl who goes on an adventure to save her friends, and along the way there are cowboys, polar bears, witches, and lots of other fun types of people. The acting was good - I thought Nicole Kidman and Dakota Blue Richards both did a great job. It was a fun movie, I thought, but there was a lot cut out of the book to make it movie length. I wonder if someone who hadn't read the book would understand it as well.


Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
This movie was pretty funny. Really silly and ridiculous, but still entertaining. It was funny to see Jenna Fischer outside of her normal role as Pam on The Office. It makes fun of Walk the Line quite a bit - so it helps if you've seen that movie before you watch this one.




Lions for Lambs
Though this movie was directed by Robert Redford and starred him, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, I had actually never heard of it. It's all set in present times. Tom Cruise was a senator trying to convince Meryl Streep, a reporter, that she should do a positive report on Afganistan. Robert Redford is a Political Science professor trying to convince a promising student not to give up on the system. The film really pushed its message hard, and didn't leave much up to the viewer to think about. That made me think less of the movie, I think, so I wasn't that impressed.

England Day 4 - London

Monday was our last day in London, and since we were leaving just after lunch, we carried our bags with us. We started our day by buying some scarves at the little market near Monica's house. It's still a bit chilly in London, so the scarves were pretty useful.









We then went into central London and had coffee in Covent Garden.From there we walked down towards the river, past Trafalgar Square, to Westminster and Big Ben.

I met up with a friend, Hinesh, who works in the foreign service, and he showed me around the building. To get in, they actually take your picture and print a photo ID, which I thought was pretty cool. I saw the room from which England ruled India, and a room that had the names of Indian cities underneath sculpted busts of the governors that ran them, which was pretty crazy. The building was beautiful and there were lots of beautiful murals and elaborate staircases. In one staircase, there are paintings in each corner representing the four continents (yep, just four at that point...) America is represented by a woman with a bow and a deer in the background. At one point I stood about ten feet from 10 Downing Street (which is where the British Prime Minister lives), and that was pretty incredible. If Gordon Brown had decided to go for a walk just then, I would have seen him.

After the brief tour and a short stop to have some Shepard's Pie for lunch, I went back out to meet my mom and head to the airport. And that was the end of our brief adventure in England!

England Day 3 - Cambridge

On Sunday, our third day in England, my mom, Monica, Charlie, and I went to Cambridge. I spent my junior year studying there, and hadn't been back since I'd finished that year (three years ago). Monica and Charlie had also studying in Cambridge, and my mom had visited while I was there, so it was fun to all go back together.

We got up pretty early, made our way to King's Cross Station (the nostalgia setting in already) and boarded a train to Cambridge. When we arrived, everything was familiar, including the walk from the station to the city center - which had always seemed to take forever, because you were either on the way to the station, running late for your train, or on the way back from the station, tired from traveling.

Before long were to the corner that led to the place where I had lived. The one-pound discount shop on the corner had been turned into a department store. But we made it to Botolph Lane, and Botolph Court (where I had lived) was exactly the same. It's probably been the same since it was built in the 1800's...We also saw the hot cocoa place that was right outside my door, though unfortunately for us, it was closed.
From there, we went into Corpus Christi College and saw all the familiar sites - the food hall where I'd eaten most days, the new court and old court where friends had lived, and all sorts of other fun things.We walked up Trumpington Street and went to the market in the city center. We spent time just wandering the streets remembering where people had lived, which places we had gotten tea at (which was practically all of them), and reminiscing.

We had lunch at Cafe Uno near the River Cam and a place renting punts. After lunch, we walked along the backs of the colleges, which was beautiful as always.

We stayed in Cambridge until around 5pm, and then headed back to London. Once in London, my mom and I headed to Leister Square to have dinner with Jackie and Sunita, who had just returned from two weeks or so of traveling. We ate at a place in Chinatown that was pretty good, and then headed back to Monica's, where Jackie and Sunita had left some luggage. We chatted a bit there and then they headed back to Oxford, where Sunita is studying, and my mom and I got a bit of sleep.