ISS Research & Design Conference

Posted on August 3, 2017 by Danielle

(From left to right) – Space Tango’s Director of Business and Communication Operations Kirsten Jenkins, CEO Twyman Clements, and myself at our booth.

It’s been a pretty computer-heavy summer with my internship at Space Tango as we prepare for our next batch of customer payloads to be launched on SpaceX CRS-12. From cleaning up the website to controlling social media, I’ve spent the last two months behind screens completing a lot of background work. Needless to say, I was absolutely enthralled when Space Tango invited me to attend this year’s International Space Station Research & Design (ISS R&D) Conference in Washington, D.C.

The ISS R&D Conference is an opportunity for aerospace industry leaders to network among each other, share ideas, and learn from their personal business ventures in commercial space. Through a series of talks, technical sessions, and a huge networking event, I got to learn first-hand what it’s like to be in the industry. Just so you know, they are just as excited and geeked-out about space as any other college student. It’s truly a shared passion.

Not only did I meet several astronauts, like Embry-Riddle Alum Terry Virts, but I also networked with people at Bigelow Aerospace, Leidos, Made In Space, and the Sierra Nevada Corporation to name a few.

Astronuat Terry Virts and myself – We had a great talk about his experience not only at Worldwide, but at the Daytona campus as well.

Astronaut Kate Rubins shared a detailed story on what it was really like getting to and from the ISS. If you check out the ISS R&D Conference website, you can access a full video on her experience.

Astronaut and Orbital ATK Space Systems Group president Frank Culbertson shared a heart-wrenching story about what it was like to be the only American not on Earth during the 9/11 events. As a military dependent, it was an honor to hear stories from an American hero.

JAXA Astronaut Soichi Noguchi and I not only spoke about JAXA, but I shared a few stories about my time in Japan. Truly an amazing place to visit, but an even better place to live!

It was absolutely exciting to listen to Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelow. He shared with the audience why we should remain a leader in space exploration. This was another great talk I urge you to check out at the ISS R&D website!

I even got to meet Dr. Camille Alleyne! We bonded over our Caribbean roots and she even shared some insight on her newest non-profit, The Brightest Stars Foundation. As a woman of color, to say that our conversation was empowering is truly an understatement.

Several students from high schools and universities were also in attendance to share their research. My favorite part of this whole week? A tie between two young women for the Genes in Space Science Contest.

Elizabeth Reizes (14) and Sophia Chen (14) were both named the finalists for the 2017 Genes in Space science contest. Their experiments will be performed aboard the ISS.

The conference was an amazing opportunity and has given me the motivation to get through my last year of my undergraduate degree. It’s a little costly, but this event is well-worth the time for any looking to enter the industry!

⋆ Dani

Ditch the Yellow Brick Road

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Danielle

Interning at Space Tango has certainly put project management into perspective. Throughout my last four years at Riddle nothing was more challenging to me than staying on task. Assignments sometimes require so much more than we expect.

So what happens when you give a communication major MATLAB for a math gen ed? What happens when you give an engineer a business plan? Or a paper to write? Or a lab to test for safety and health issues? At Space Tango, the CEO is more than just a businessman. Twyman Clements is not only an engineer, but sometimes he’s a marketing specialist, a technical report writer, and a human factors psychologist all in one day. Staying on task means taking on extra responsibility.
On the International Space Station, astronauts have a VERY strict schedule. Their days are planned out by the second. Astronauts don’t get to float back and watch an episode of Bob’s Burgers. They have to follow the red line. On their schedule, known as the Onboard Short Term Plan Viewer (OSTPV), a dotted red line runs across the screen at the pace they should be working. Astronauts use this to figure out if they are on task, or behind.

An old OSTPV that astronauts use. The dotted red line indicates where on their schedule astronauts should be.

As we know, each astronaut is extensively skilled. They’re more than just astronauts. They’re physicists, biomedical engineers, researchers, and many of which are parents, too. “Astronaut” is a pretty broad title, and even with all their responsibility they manage to follow the red line.

We often overlook the humanities courses that we take, but I’m witnessing first-hand how it all fits together. We aren’t astronauts (not yet at least if that’s what you’re in to), but we are taught to recognize how interdependent our classes really are. The minors you take will only expand the depth of your knowledge.
I’m studying communication, but I don’t just focus on the complexities of grammar and speech. As a communication major I have to understand body language and the art of persuasion all while maintaining background knowledge in the subjects I address. I have to target an audience based on their interests and needs.

All of this sometimes, and more often than not, means I need to understand sociology, psychology, engineering, commercial space laws, international relations, marketing, physics, astronomy, organizational behavior – the list goes on. These are only a few of the subjects I’ve researched for papers, speeches, and interviews. It’s a lot, but by understanding everything, not only am I more valuable to a company, but I can depend on myself to get everything done on time.
I’m not an astronaut, but how could I ever say I’m just a communication major? I’m so much more than a writer and you are so much more than your major. We’re all just following the red line.

⋆ Dani

November & An Update or Two

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Skye

Hello hello everyone! It is finally November! Sorry I have not written anything in a while. It has been crazy busy on my side! School has been coming along. We are almost done with the semester. We have a little bit less than a month left. This is when all your final projects and final assignments are due. I finally figured out what my MATLAB final project is going to be, a NASA database! I got the idea from a friend, Julia. She knows how much I like NASA so one day we were sitting in class and she happened to mention the idea. I sat down and did some planning with my professor and he loved the idea. I must have been in his office for about 2 and a half hours just planning. He gave me some really good ideas and we brainstormed the project. I am really happy with what we came up with so now I just have to execute it and I have a month to do it!

For my CATIA project it is moving along! We are going to measure and model 10 parts tomorrow since my caliper that I ordered finally came in! I am really excited to get working on that because like I said before, I am doing a space shuttle pullback toy. Yes, NASA again!

November is going to be full of schoolwork, schoolwork, and more schoolwork. But there is still a break for Veterans Day coming up on Wednesday and Thanksgiving Break later on in the month. I will also be going to Kennedy Space Center later in the month. It has been too long! I miss my second home!

I almost forgot! Besides the craziness of school, during one of the Society 4 S.P.A.C.E. meetings, we had a guest speaker, Ronald Caswell, who worked on the ISS and Shuttle. He spoke for about an hour and a half about the Colombia and Challenger disaster. Let me tell you, being a space nerd myself, I knew a lot of information about the two disasters but I learned a whole lot more! It was a pleasure hearing him speak about his work. I loved how passionate he was. It was like nothing was stopping him from doing what he loved. It was truly a great experience to hear him talk.

Life has been flying by really fast lately. Final projects and last semester as a freshman. I have even started looking for a place for next semester. Time has flown by since the Fall Semester started. I cannot believe it is almost over. With all the craziness of school, I have taken time to relax and have fun. I have hung out with some friends and had a Netflix day where I sat and watched Netflix all day. Yes, it was a nice break from all the school craziness and stress. With a little less than one month left, it is time for the big push. One more month and the craziness of fall is all over!

Hold on Riddle kids! We are almost at the end! Have a great Monday everyone!

My first 5 day week in 3 weeks

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Carolyn

I FINALLY FINISHED A PROJECT!!!! Monday I felt incredible. I was productive and finally saw an endpoint to something I had been working on for weeks. That is a great feeling. So, as a result I was trying to finish up many projects. Some people are good at multi-tasking. This person is not. Amongst the many projects I have needed to complete, I have also needed to start finishing things up for the end of my internship. Not to mention I have a big move coming up that will take me across the country. So things are starting to close out for this internship, and they seem to be coming together at the same time. Next week I have a final paper do explaining everything I have done for my internship. Oh my God! I just wrote do instead of due. What is happening to me? Didn’t I tell you to not to multi-task?

On top of the many things coming together at once, my boss also came back this week. Most people would see this as a stressful, terrifying situation, but this is not the case. My boss is way cooler than the average boss, mostly because she is not the average boss. She is older, but her sense of humor is much greater than mine. Aside from her being a amazing person, I feel as though she is not giving me the experience I was expecting out of an internship. When I would hear about the experiences of students as an intern it was mostly that they were told to fetch coffee and not given the time of day from their advisor. My boss not only knows how to make her own cup of coffee, but she sets aside time everyday to talk to me. And if there is a time that she is away, she makes it a priority to set me up with things to do and responds to any questions that I have. As a branch head in the government, that is rare! So I wanted to make sure that the stereotype of internships changes. It’s not always what people make it out to be, whether in a good way or in a bad way. You can set out expectations, but you will certainly be surprised.

At the end of my internship I am supposed to present a poster to the commanding officers where I work. This will be a big deal! So, for my presentation, I am showcasing the projects going on at my branch. This works well because during my time here I have helped in some shape or form on a lot of the projects. If I am presenting on each of these projects I need to become an expert in what I will be talking about. So, I went to each person and asked about the details of the projects they are leading. I also gave them all a questionnaire for another project I am doing. So it looks like there is data analysis in my future! Please try to contain your excitement.

My roommate had a few friends come over at the end of the week. I am rarely a host and after doing it this weekend, I am pretty sure I don’t want to do it again. The reason being the fact that I am lazy and I would rather someone else clean up after me than vice versa. Oh that sounds bad, doesn’t it? Well I know you’re thinking the exact same thing. It was a good thing I didn’t have to be around the house much the next day.

Saturday morning we all went to the beach. Sharelle and I, as well as her co-workers played football, tossed around a volleyball, and congregated around the Pacific. We looked at the ocean, but barely went in. The beaches are covered in giant seaweed and the water I think the water is infested with ice cubes. It was FREEZING! I could barely go past my knees. Ditching the ocean was a good decision. Because what came next was a giant burrito. It was about the size of a newborn baby and filled with eggs, cheese, and bacon. I bet I know what you’re making for breakfast tomorrow. Of course this was enough to satisfy me for about, oh I don’t know.. 15 minutes. Sharelle and I walked to a store down the street to get ice cream sandwiches. You could create it yourself! Why don’t they have these stores in Florida?! They should be as common as a Starbucks.

Trying not to touch the water

Playing football

Burrito baby

Cookies and cream cookies surrounding cookies and cream ice cream.. did I mention cookies and cream?

I was dead asleep within an hour after that feast. Which I needed for the next day. It started out as a roommate date day. I went with my two roommates to a diner at the closest beach. Which is the first one I have been to in months. California doesn’t have the number of diners that Florida has. In fact, I don’t think anywhere has the same density of diners we have in the Sunshine State. Then we grabbed my roommates brother and friend and headed off to the San Diego Pride festival. There was a parade just a day before, but I was too busy eating to see it. It was the most colorful event I have been to while in San Diego, or probably ever. There were tents for food, support, information, local attractions, and many others. I paid $20 to get in, but probably made double that in the amount of free items I got from tent vendors.

The many, many, food tents

At the Pride fair

The most exciting part was seeing a tent for NASA! I touched a moon rock that was over 3.5 billion years old. I also got to try on gloves and a helmet and see the food they eat in space. The best part was that this was held on the 45^th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon! I had my picture taken in a EVA spacesuit model. Later on, as we were walking around a notification came up from a former student of one of the classes I was a teaching assistant for. It said “Carolyn, you’re featured here!” I figured it was something from my department at ERAU. But I was so excited when I saw what it really was. The International Space Station Facebook page had shared the picture of me in the astronaut suit! It was incredible that a friend of mine all the way in Daytona saw a picture and noticed it was me before I even looked at anything. Yay! I feel like a real astronaut now. It’s funny because I never had an interest in space until I met my advisor, Dr. Kring. His classes got me very excited in everything from moon to Mars, and now I am addicted. I have definitely become a space geek since coming to Embry-Riddle.

Touching old rocks

Astro food

Shared by the ISS!

My Life @ Riddle

Daytona Beach Edition

Tag Archives: ISS

ISS Research & Design Conference

Ditch the Yellow Brick Road

November & An Update or Two

My first 5 day week in 3 weeks