The Latest Buzz

Our man Aldrin has already danced with the moon, why not the stars??

While enjoying the stair-master at the gym this morning (the closest I will probably ever get to dancing), I saw on HLN that Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, first PhD in space and second man on the moon in 1969, will be a participant on season 10 of Dancing With The Stars.

Rushed out to vote, then rushed home to Google, and found many mentions across the web of the new dancing line-up. Two articles mentioned that Buzz will be the oldest contestant ever on the series at age 80. I see no reason why this should be a problem – he's still spryer than chaps half his age, and astronauts are notorious for staying healthy and active.


I've heard casual chit-chat about this show before, but have never seen an episode -- not precisely my cup of Darjeeling. However, I might impose on a relative to TiVo this for me as long as Buzz competes! Other contestants on the list are… Shannen Doherty? Really? Some producer is still willing to employ her? That might be harder to stomach. Also: Pam Anderson, skater Evan Lysacek, NFLer Ochocinco... and then a pack of collagen-injected hollywoodies I didn't recognize.

There always appear to be strong opinions about whether our space heroes should be "stars" in the glitzy, over-developed American sense of the word. Astronauts themselves have an internal cultural habit of looking down their noses at the idea, and stop just short of shunning those who court obvious upsides to fame. I’ve never understood this mentality.

While it’s clear to everyone by now that Neil Armstrong prefers to sit at home watching television while Buzz Aldrin likes to be ON it, I’ve always felt this should be left up to the preferences and natural personality of the space-faring crews once their jobs are done.

Buzz with wife Lois

If there were more astronauts on TV, I sure wouldn't have canceled my cable package years ago out of boredom and disgust. Why glorify actors? Last I checked, they weren’t racking up college degrees, spending years in grueling training, or risking their very lives for the advancement of human knowledge. They merely stand in front of cameras to play pretend for a living, and yet they are far more recognizable when walking down the street than anyone on a current Shuttle crew.

It shouldn’t be that way. It should be precisely the opposite. So here’s to you, Buzz… for being brave enough to dance before the nation. It’s a great opportunity for parents everywhere to tell their children who you are, what you accomplished, and what our space program could still do if it had the support it deserves! Shine that limelight, I say. Get the kids interested again. It maybe the only way we get anywhere now.

Quick mention: William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy both turn 80 in time for the 2011 season. Can they play next? =)

Triple Nerd Score!

Finally got the last of my pictures formatted and uploaded to the Picasa Galleries, featuring the STS-130 Twitterati. And what a diverse crowd! Both my Follow and Follower categories on Twitter have doubled, thanks to this event, and I learned a great deal about how the Twitter options and sub-cultures work. Just what the newbie was hoping for.


The final part of our day was spent in the third and final Mission Control Center at JSC, where once again, John McCullough hosted the tweet crowd, and explained the finer points of MCC operations -- this time for the space station.

Apollo, Shuttle and ISS Mission Controls ... all in one afternoon, and so much activity in each center! Of course, ISS operations, unlike Shuttle missions, are 24 x 7 x 365. No rest for the orbiting!

The ISS room has been used for certain Shuttle operations in the past, and also for Skylab monitoring. Recently, this center was updated with a high-definition screen that provides a continual view into the International Space Station.

As McCullough spoke, astronauts Jeff Williams, TJ Creamer and George Zamka floated about in the background. We had just come from Shuttle MCC where we had heard their wake-up call, so they were all busy with morning tasks... and preparing for a call from President Barack Obama.

Accompanied by local school-children, Obama hooked in. Both the President and the astronauts passed phones and microphones about for a lively Q&A session -- which is now all over the web, but my clips have fun moments you won't see in the media uploaded to NASA.gov or released to the press. Granted, my informal filming isn't as steady, but I got some great crowd reaction... namely our group commenting and laughing when no astronaut wanted to answer one little girl's question!

Pinch me, we got to watch this live from Mission Control!

Upon being handed the phone by the President, young Ruth of North Carolina asked, "What are some of the benefits of exploring space, as opposed to some of the other places on Earth?"

Around the 00:17 mark, you can hear us all crack up at the collective ISS response. Flight engineer and resident ISS guitarist Stephen "Stevie Ray" Robinson stepped up, and spoke about the human body's adaptability, how much we learn about how the body works in micro-gravity.

Having experienced some of these "adaptation" issues first-hand in my studies, I absolutely loved his answer!

Callsign: HOUSTON

Seeing Mission Control Center Houston (MCC-H) abuzz with activity and visual updates is such an amazing experience! The JSC organizers timed all of our visits to various sites, and thought ahead to herd us Twits into the MCC just in time for the daily wake-up call! I had only seen and heard these on NASA TV before.

Our host was John McCullough, the new Chief of the Flight Director Office, part of the Mission Operations Directorate. He has been a flight controller, flight director, and is now, in essence, king of the all the FDs.

John oversees the mission operations teams, who are dedicated to safely planning, training for and executing missions for NASA human space flight. He offered details of the MCC seating configuration, and the meanings of all the fields, alerts and maps on the giant overhead screens.

John McCullough, Chief Flight Director
Also: Scott Stover (sitting), Flight Director on duty

He also answered some of the basic operational questions, such as:

How many people work in Mission Control?
There are about 50 people per team, on three teams who each work 9-hour shifts. Alongside them are engineers who support specialized problems, if they arise. Each team has their own FD and CapCom (Capsule Communicator, still so-called, even though they are no longer communicating with "capsule" type crafts).

What do controllers do between missions?
About 10% of overall work time is spent on live missions. About 75% of any controller's time is spent planning and organizing missions down to the last precise detail. The remaining 15% is dedicated to training – running simulations of missions in attempts to predict any possible glitches, and developing procedures for handling any conceivable eventuality.

One of the women in our crowd asked specifically, "What is the wake-up song today?" and of course, John gave the standard reply that no one knows until it plays (at least, none of us riff-raff who aren't involved in cuing it up). We didn't have long to wonder – this happened next, and a funny follow-up to the woman's question:

So, the crew of Space Shuttle Endeavour awoke at 4:17 p.m. EST to the song "Oh Yeah" by Johnny A., played for Mission Specialist Steve Robinson. Also check out Astro_Soichi's Twit Pic of "Stevie Ray" in the new cupola.

Shuttle Mission Control pictures have been added to the JSC Tweetup Gallery, and be sure to scan the walls in the pics and video for the awesome STS-130 banner we all got to sign!

SCH JSC SVMF NBL MCC

Death by acronyms!!

All guests of the recent Tweetup event were treated to a crash course in all the lovely abbreviations around Space City. SCH is "Space Center Houston," the public/tourist portion of JSC, or the working "Johnson Space Center."

On a well-timed and thorough VIT ("Very Important Twits") tour, we were taken in groups to the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility (SVMF), the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), the Mission Control Centers (MCC) and the historic Missions Operations Control Room-2 (MOCR2).

AsCans in the pool!

I'd been to some of these locations before while on various trips to JSC for medical checkups or screenings, and multiple views of them exist in my general Pillownaut Picasa Galleries... but even after all those trips, I still saw some new things!

Configurations are always changing in the astronaut training facilities, different hardware is always being moved in and out of the giant pool and on this visit, there were actually some astronauts training in the water!, and of course different missions are always being "controlled" by the Shuttle and Space Station centers.

For all the newest photographs and all my wonderful new Twitter friends, check out my NASA Tweetup JSC album.

Beautiful miss Ivy as our Apollo FD

For additional views, check out Eric Merrill's set of photos -- his quality camera has a more powerful flash, and many of his photos taken in darker settings are far superior to my snaps!

There was also a professional photographer darting around the crowd, and some of his captures are on NASA Johnson's Twitpic area.

Finally, the hosts of the event took a group photograph of all attendees, and we're waiting for that to be released. Can't wait to see how that turned out...(I'm assuming someone will raise an alert when it's online somewhere!)