 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I was fortunate enough to
graduate from main campus here in 89.
2004 when I left JSC and went on to the commercial industry, so stayed in the space business
but I was able to see the space business
from the opposite side of the fence very
valuable and I got selected be a flight director in 2008 and had the privilege of flying
out the last handful of the space
shuttle flights as the flight director was
a long period long careers of flight controllers on the shuttle
even got the opportunity to lead the second to last mission. It was amazing.
Since then, I've been international space station flight director. I'm doing that still today.
I'm also our exploration lead in the flight director office so
for all the lunar work that's coming up
and we'll talk about a lot more.
It's really great to be back.
Thanks, Gary. My name is Marcos Flores. Born and raised on the beautiful island of
Puerto Rico. I've been in the States for about ten years at this point
I received the bachelor's in mechanical
engineering from the University of Puerto Rico
I came to NASA around 2010, started working software development
systems engineering for the
simulators, the next generation for a couple
of years of my transition over to be a
flight controller to work in power and systems for the International Space Station.
Through that process I actually worked through the Purdue distance learning program and received a
master's in aerospace engineering. it's
real very busy for the last couple of
years. working hard on thermal
and recently got
selected in class of 2018 last year so for
the last year we've been working a lot
of time training to get ourselves
certified to be able to work on the 
International Space Station missions.
Thanks, Marcos. Allison Bolinger here. I grew up in
central Ohio actually got my folks up in
the audience, so I'm glad they were able to
drive over to support me today. So
similar to Wayne, I grew up in Central Ohio
dreaming about eventually going
to space and when I was trying to decide
what college to go to
I found out that that at the time Purdue
was truly the cradle of astronauts
so I thought, growing up, I'm going
to be an astronaut I'm going to be an
astronaut and as I got a little bit older,
probably a little bit wiser, I realized I'm afraid of heights.
I get car sick. I get panicky, as these gentlemen know, as we were leading up to this event
so maybe I'm not cut out to actually be
an astronaut but I knew that I still
really wanted to work in the space
program so with that in mind I
headed off here to Purdue University so
I majored in aerospace
engineering while I was here. Graduated in 2004 so it's fun to be back on campus
after about 15 years. I was lucky
enough while I was here at Purdue to be
part of the cooperative education
program so that's where I could spend a
semester here at Purdue and then a
semester down at Johnson Space Center in
Houston where I work now. So it was very
beneficial for me so that's definitely
some advice that I have for any students out there is to get involved in internships
or the co-op program if you can. 
It's an invaluable amount of experience
that you're able to put your degree to
use when you're still working on getting
it to let you know that you're in the
right field for sure.
So I spent five co-op tours down there
at Johnson Space Center. My last two
tours were in the extravehicular
Activities Office actually with Tomas
our moderator so I found that that was
the place that I truly loved
so teaching astronauts to do spacewalks.
Teaching them all about the suit that
they're wearing. The tools that they're
using when they're out doing the
spacewalk. Choreographing the spacewalk,
doing all the training in the Neutral
Buoyancy Lab, which is one of the world's
largest swimming pools, and then working
in Mission Control while they were
actually executing the spacewalk was the
home for me. So I was lucky enough to get
hired on full-time. So I started in 2004
in that EVA group. Spent about 12 years
there let's see I worked on a handful of
Space Shuttle missions. Gary mentioned the second to last
shuttle flight sts-1
34. Gary was the flight director. I
was the lead spacewalk officer on that
flight, so I helped plan and execute all
those spacewalk missions. So as I
mentioned there was in the EVA group for
about 12 years and I spent about
a year and a half out at the Neutral
Buoyancy Lab, actually is the deputy
chief out there so running the
day-to-day operations and when I talk
about this pool being large
it's 6.2 million gallons of water. It's
200 feet by 100 feet by 40 feet
deep and if you think that's big we
can't fit the entire space station in
there so that kind of gives you a
perspective about how big the space
station. We actually have to break the
pieces apart. So I spent a year and a
half out there as a deputy chief
doing a job that I really
loved but when the opportunity came up
to apply for flight director, again, this
was my third time applying, it was
definitely something I really wanted to
do. I threw my hat in the ring once again
and it went along with Marcos and four
others. There are six of us total. We were
selected as the new class last year in
2018. So I'm definitely, this is such an
exciting time to be part of the flight
director office and then taking part in
all these Apollo 50th anniversary
festivities going on here at Purdue. If you
got a chance to hear Gene Kranz speak on
Thursday, I got goosebumps just thinking
these are one of our founding fathers
in the flight director office so it's such
an incredible time to be a part of this
so all right, Tomas, back to you.
I want to start by giving you a little clarification. So the term flight director gets
thrown around a lot,  so Wayne can you please explain exactly what a flight director
is, their responsibilities. So in the
simple terms and I really like I say
this, we tell the
astronauts what to do. Tell them when to get up, when to go to bed, when to brush their teeth
when to go out the hatch. Flight director is responsible
for the overall conduct of the mission so
the program NASA leadership will establish
the objectives of the mission, space
station and the flight director is in
charge of the team that builds that plan,
trains to execute that plan, works with
the astronaut crew to ensure they work
seamlessly together and then goes
and executes that plan in the Mission
Control Center so unlike, if you've ever seen
be Apollo 13, and you see one flight
director for simplification sake for an hour and a half movie they only showed one flight director,
which was Gene Kranz
very inspiring. But there were actually
four flight directors involved in activity
and to keep the story simple, we only met just one. So it's a round-the-clock operation
multiple flight directors with their
individual teams working with the
astronauts to identify problems
recommend how to solve the problems
ensure that the crew, if they need something from the ground, we're
responsible and then you have an answer
to the program management to see so I think that's
about it.
Thank you very much.
Allison and Marcos were in the
most recent flight director class of
2018
there's a lot of training, document
reading, simulations, all of that so can
you guys explain what you guys are
actually going through right now in
order to become certified. Sure. It's been busy, I'll tell you that. We got selected in
July of last year, we've been working
through training back-to-back since then.
A couple of us have completed their
certification and they are
on the console but a couple of us just
to have a couple more months to go until we finish up.
In terms of training, there's a lot
that goes into it right? We carry a lot
of experience from our backgrounds, as
flight controllers, me
specifically. I was part of that in the ISS. Through that process, I
get a lot of experience in terms of
becoming a flight controller itself which carries
over into the flight director role to some extent. On top of that, we actually take a bunch of classes.
We basically go through the same training that a lot of the new crew members go through.
In terms of getting perspective on learning how the systems on the International Space Station work
and ensuring we can handle all the intricacies of everything that goes on on the station
So back to taking a lot of classroom lessons, we saw all of our facilities,
to go do hands-on training. Some of them were mock ups
A lot of the hardware, we were actually able to touch it and use it.
Lot of reading. We learned all the flight rules.
So there's a lot that goes into it, with all the technical knowledge.
Allison, maybe you can talk a little bit more about the simulation training.
Sure, so to add a few things from what he says a lot of reading, we mean
a lot of reading. We made the
mistake of printing out the flight rules, so they're
decisions that are made pre-flight on how to handle either
failures or contingencies or normal
operating procedures. And we went ahead and
decided to print out just one section. 
There are many sections in this flight room
volumes, we printed just one section
and I held a ruler up to it. It was
seven half inches tall. That's just
that's just one piece of the things that
we have to read. And
also for me it's been interesting in
terms of the training, Marcos mentioned
learning all about the systems on the
outside of the space station. The
a majority of my career was spent on the
outside of the space station learning
how to fix it and how to assemble the
outside of the space station so I was
very surprised to find that the inside
of the space station wasn't filled with
water, like it is at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. How 'bout that? There are actually
things inside the space station so it's
been a lot of fun for us to learn all
these things. He mentioned the
simulations and that's just it's it's an
out-of-body experience almost when
you're sitting in this room. So how we
run the simulations we're actually using
the flight control room that was used
for a majority of the Space Shuttle
missions they've converted it now and
we're using it for all of our
simulations and so this would be any
given day, whether a
visiting vehicle that might be
coming up to Space Station to bring up
supplies whether you're doing a reboost
on the space station to change the
altitude or whether you're doing a
spacewalk, we simulate all these timelines and
this is how we get our flight
controllers ready to go. So I'll be
sitting in the room on the flight
director console. I'll have a bunch of other flight controllers,
maybe in between eight and a dozen
flight controllers supporting me and
they're also in training. So we're all
making mistakes together and learning
how the systems work and then it's the
responsibility of the simulation team to
throw failures at us. So they basically
throw everything in the kitchen sink at
us to see how the team reacts when you
have a major power failure or you lose
attitude control the space station to
see how the team pulls together to keep
the space station safe. So we've got
three priorities and first and foremost
that's to keep the astronauts safe
onboard the space station. So any decision
that you make from the flight director
chair first and foremost is to keep the
crew safe. Next is to keep the vehicle
safe. We have how many millions billions
of dollars put into assembling this
International Space Station over the
past 20 plus years, it's definitely a
national treasure that we want to keep
safe. And then finally the third
objective is to complete your mission
objectives. So while it's important the work
that we're doing up there keeping the
astronauts safe and the vehicle safe is
definitely more important. So in terms of
those simulations we spend about a year
taking those classes reading those
thousands of pages of documents and then
we spend just something a couple of
months in the simulation flow. So we'll
do anywhere between say 10 or 12 of
these simulations and then we'll get a
check mark from our boss and then she'll
send us over to the real control room
where they're flying International Space
Station and then we'll
do a series of what we call cold OJTs,
on-the-job training and that's when
you're sitting with a gray beard like
Gary over there with the experienced flight
directors and learning how the real
space station works because it's a lot
different once you move over in the real
room. Knock on wood, things aren't going
wrong like they are in the simulator so
you get really used to this
fast paced momentum and tempo
in the training room and then you move
over there real room and things are a
lot more quiet over
there. So we do a series of these cold
OJTs and then we take the reins
ourselves and do a series of hot OJTs
but we're the ones making the
calls, but we have a certified flight
director with us and then eventually we
get certified and that's when we
announce our team name, which is exciting. If you've seen, Gene Kranz is white
flight and Chris Kraft the original
flight director is red flight and that we
can go down the line and everyone can
mention their call sign. So Marcos and I
haven't yet made our call signs because
we're not yet certified but as he
mentioned two of the six of us have
already been certified so it's a it's a
really exciting time frame in our
training right now is they're getting
almost to that point of moving over to
the real room to start on doing real
space station work. So Gary what your
what your flight call sign?
It's Viper.
Viper Flight.
How did you come up with that?
Do we have this much time?
I started working shuttle flights in 89.
so back in early 90s
we're flying six to nine missions a year, which is a
very healthy pace you know, one to
two-week mission at the time.
And
anyway so sitting there watching Top Gun
You know playing that song going into work at 2 a.m.
It's a really cool name and you know the
call sign thing started out as being colors
back at the beginning. All the good
colors were taken. By the time I got there, there were no more colors left on the palette.
So, anyway, I thought it was a cool name and it tied in with my shuttle career so I grabbed it.
Yeah, so red, white and blue were the first three flight directors.
And their right is to retire their team name and color.
For a while we went through constellation  and stars
I was born and raised in New Mexico
so I picked turquoise, which I think it symbolized
that heritage. The colors, let's see
Then Rebecca, one of our classmates, she is cerulean flight. Sky blue. She mentions it
actually is in the box of 64 crayons so
I'd say Viper is creative
Just before me, it was Raptor. So I didn't break any codes or anything. Do you want to tell us yours? We won't tell anybody in Houston.
No. So it's definitely kept a secret. So you
announce your call sign your first shift
on console when you're you're doing it
for real. You announce your call sign
and that's the name of your team for
that shift so a lot of thought goes into
it and you write a big old speech
that you're gonna read and I'll probably
start crying because these things always happen. It's a very emotional and a symbolic
gesture that goes on. But it's
definitely held very close to the vest
until it's time to release it. Tomas, what about your call sign?
Mine is Lightning Flight.
they say that it should be something personal
I had just had my first son.
Again, the story could be really long. I'll shorten it to basically
I had the movie Cars
Lightning McQueen.
And then, of course, they teased the flight director that was right after me.
That he had to choose Thunder. Thunder always comes after lightning.
Next question, it's interesting working on
console and after the shuttle retired folks
would ask me, 'Well, what are you doing now?' What do you mean? I work at NASA.
They said, well, didn't they shut that down? No the shuttle was a very visible aspect
of the space programs
but obviously NASA has been hot heavy
doing a lot of work, international space station,
the most recent call to go back to the moon
by 2024
So clearly NASA is doing a lot has a lot
of has a plate. So, Gary, this question
is for you since you did a lot of exploration work.
Will you please
tell us about the plan to return to the Moon?
Absolutely so the first thing if NASA is closed
so we have the space station up there
i'm not sure everybody realizes that we had a
continuous human presence in space at
the space station for almost 20 years
now. So it is definitely time to take the
next step
Up until about two months ago
we're preparing on the path to get
back on the moon in 2028. Then there was a little announcement made by our vice president that sort
of accelerated that to 2024.
So we in the last couple of months have pretty much gone full
throttle trying to accelerate how we can
get back our astronauts back on the moon by the end of 2024. So the path forward
that shifted in acceleration has changed how we're going to plan to address it.
So we're going to build a Gateway, basically a space station around the moon, the staging area
and then the lander meet at Gateway. Send a crew there
We'll jump in the lander, on the surface,
do the spacewalks won't work down to the
surface come back up to the Gateway
station, jump in the Orion
spacecraft and come back home. So moving things up
by four years we're now basically have a
test to do the Gateway space
station in two phases. The
first one it's going to be a minimal
capability just enough to accomplish
this 2024 mandate and then after that
we'll have a longer-term much more
capable space station and that will extend our lunar surface
capability as well. So we're coming in
at two-phase mode right now trying to get
back to moon as fast as we can and then
set up a sustaining capability there in
the lunar environment the lunar
neighborhood and all that will be able
to get us the only things we need to be
prepared to take the next step, which would be to go well beyond the moon.
We have the Orion spacecraft basically the
spacecraft that the crew will jump in
there on the launch pad on top of our
new Space Launch System rocket. It's
basically a Saturn V class rocket and that will get the crew out to the Gateway space
station and then again we will 
wait for and they'll be able to go to
the surface mission and in return. So we
are on track to do a test flight of
Orion and then the rocket at the end
of next year.
That's going to make sure that
those vehicles are ready and capable of
flying our crew safely. That'll be Artemis 1, this side
of the chart and about two years later
Artemis 2 will follow it
We will have crew inside riding the vehicle
this time, send them up to the moon do
some checkouts, full of capability and then
that will set us up for Artemis 3 which
will be the first lunar landing since 50
years ago today. So we're on track very
busy and
it's going to be very exciting. Already, it's very exciting. It's really great to see
so many people excited here today, all
around the world what we did 50 years
ago. I was almost four years old at the
time so I don't remember, but this is
amazing. We need to do this. We're on track.
so you've heard a few questions from
myself I might tell you they're in there
once in a while that I wanna start with
give you all an opportunity to ask
some questions 
you might have
and there's some microphones up here
We've got all day.
I think this one might be actually for
Gary since he's been flight director for
the shuttle and the ISS and can
you describe a little bit how being
flight director for one is different
on the other because I assumed when you're
flight director for the ISS you're
flight director for the ISS went around
as opposed to the supplying missions, correct? Yeah
let me expand a little bit. So space shuttle missions were relatively short,
a couple weeks at the most and
so that was basically a spring you
launch you had limited time to accomplish
more activities and goals
really had time for them if we're gonna
come back to the surface so those were
those were like I would say just to full
up sprint. The space station is up there
24/7 365, waiting to sit for almost 20
years now so you're not operating that
mode and not burnout. So we've got the
running station more like a business
week, five days a week of
work, then trying to get the crew
a weekend off so we get back at it again for
the next week. But to keep that
incredible flying machine going you've got
to have people bringing cargo up
keep it resupplied, to repair vehicles
so we have flight director at console all
the time rather than an immediate
operation day-to-day operation we have
an expedition lead
flight director who's responsible for a
four to six months chunk of time but they've
got a team that's worried about what's
happening in the next day next week next
month and we make all the adjustments for a real time day so we're still accomplishing the goals
Then we assign new flight directors for each
critical activities whether it's a space
walk, a visiting vehicle coming will be a
dedicated flight director and a team will be back
to make sure those are successful too so
So shuttle was just like I said full throttle activity and
station is a continuous ongoing, very methodical and goes a little slower, but not all the time
One quick follow-up question regarding our mission tools
was two-hundred-some pages for this
mission for Apollo 11
and it was mentioned the seven inches for what section.
How big was the shuttle mission
mission rules?
What would we do with resources mined on the moon and other planets
Let me take a crack at that. I did study on this. As a retired guy, you come back and you've been looking
into what's called insitu resource organization
It's on the next Mars rover going to Mars,
has got an experiment on it that will convert the carbon dioxide on the martian surface
to oxygen as a demonstration. So while
they're out there looking at rocks and
all the sorts of things that science want to do, we're doing a demonstration
to convert carbon dioxide which that
atmospheres of carbon dioxide into
oxygen. We know now that the polar
regions of the moon, there are several
craters that are permanently shadowed
and they become cold traps that 
track
and the the indications from 
satellites
so there is quite a bit of water. all the so we would like to get out there to make sure we understand what
the way that water runs. And once you have water they have one of the
building blocks you can
use sunlight to generate electricity to
break that water into hydrogen and oxygen, air to breathe, and you have water to drink
and then you have rocket fuel that can
enable missions to Mars or other places
because that's an out source of fuel
which is the biggest and heaviest
part. You've got that outside and great
so there are there are some companies
that are very interested in doing that
they think that there are certain
asteroids in particular that have rarer
developments or platinum and other
precious metals that could be mined
fairly readily in those asteroids. Two
things are holding that up. First of all is
transportation to get it here and back and
the second is the Outer Space Treaty
other prove almost those resources and
trust me there's a whole field of space
law and people are arguing about you know
who can basically mine
resources. But clearly there is opportunity and the nature of
our business taking back some of those
moments that are that are not very
present
The SLS has been in the works in some form for 10-20 years
What are your thoughts on switching to commercial option
I can give you my perspective, I'm sure Gary and Wayne can you give perspectives as well. Maybe Allison.
My perspective is we have some options out there, and I'm really thrilled at the fact that commercial vehicles are being developed.
We have options now whereas in the past we were very limited
so I think it's very good to be able to
accomplish some of these missions
to start that race and be able to compete and able to get there.
SLS yes it's being in development in some shape or form
for quite a bit definitely a lot more
closer not just for being able to use it
but I think in a perfect world, we will have options that we will raise above in
terms of how much capability
So just to expand on that, the Orion spacecraft right now
it's designed to carry four through the
deep-space mission so it's a
sizeable spacecraft and right now the
only thing that can lift it is an SLS.
you would have to disassemble it in probably
three pieces for part of rockets go
ahead and get that into orbit on its way
to the moon. the industry is growing very
rapidly in recent years and eventually there probably will be a commercial capability
to lift these significant masses that we need to get off the moon and
Mars. So right now we need that rocket. Somewhere down the road, there will be a handful of commercial options so we
have many more choices.
because you are living together with
such a close proximity I'm wondering do
they check you out
personality-wise to see that you are compatible
So, yes, psychological selection for crew members is a very important part of the process.
we need a legendary story and I think
that after that between psychological
evaluation or an important part of the
selection process flight directors okay
that's a great question first of all
very cool shirt so we're the team right
now didn't actually work Apollo. We have studied all those lessons learned
we are applying everything to this next effort. We've over the years
have been doing a lot of kind of
background research on how do we make
a better lander, how that we make it
avoid big rocks on the moon
automatically so the crew doesn't have to try to figure out avoid that and not crash so
there's been a lot of work on the on and
off you know ever since went to the moon
so it's kind of a continuous process. But
we definitely are applying everything
we are aware of from that time to this
next effort. We actually, it was unfortunate
that I flew over here yesterday but the astronaut office managed to get Charlie Duke
one of the Apollo astronauts, to come to Johnson  Space Center and spend a couple hours
with our team and he just talked
about some of his experience trying to
fly on to the surface and
those are the kinds of experiences and
things that are incredibly valuable because if we're
trying to go do this again and we have
this team has it done that exactly
these guys are talking about how they went
through it and speaking to us, address
some of the assumptions that we may have made and not fully understood and so we were
taking advantage of everything we learned
back then and it's going to be a much better
spacecraft
One of the things it sounds like flight directors are responsible
for is dealing with crises as they come
up so I was wondering if you could be
able to speak to crises that have come
up and maybe when making no decision was
the right decision to make or just you
how you know what is the right decision
I've got a really good story.
So let me just say my very first
shift was overnight. They always put
on the shuttle team, we put the
rookie flight director on when the crews
asleep so they can't screw up as bad. Your job is to look at the plan for the next day routine and make any
changes. We had this group at Mission
Control that I've never talked to. I kind of
knew they existed, I read the document. They lived up in upper the floor in a closed room
behind a locked door. They were the space radiation analysis group. And so here I am
it's 3 in the morning, and I get this call in the flight director room. Flight,
this is S ray A and we need to come
down and talk to you.
Come on down.
Can't be good.
We have solar flares we think that
the crew might be exposed to harmful radiation. We need to invoke the flight rule
to do an emergency landing right now.
This is not a drill.
I was terrified.
You can't really
just get on the phone, well, you can but
you're a little hesitant at 2 in the morning and call you boss. So they gave me an out. They said
we'll get another reading in 45 minutes,
update on our model predictions for the radiation.
Crew's asleep. Do I wake the crew up?
It was sweated out
About 45 minutes later as well it's not as bad as we thought
We think that you can wait until the next planned landing opportunity
which is you know if you do an emergency landing and we have landing sites all over the world.
Easter Island. I don't know. Some place in the middle of nowhere.
The next planned landing could be
And it would be the next shift's problem.
So it went on and I worried about this and finally about
6:30 the next shift flight director
comes in, and I tell him the story .
He immediately goes upstairs and starts yelling at these guys.
When he comes back, he says, normal mission duration
That's an honest to god true story, and we got the crew back
and they got briefed, you may have been exposed to higher than normal radiation
Turns out that their predictive
model was not up to snuff.
So there's a crisis story for you.
The first rule that the Chris Kraft
says is if you don't know what to do
don't do anything. That's like flight director rule No. 1.
If you don't know what to do, don't do anything. Because you can make it worse.
If I had landed the crew
I might have had a short career
It's interesting that you mentioned that happened on your
first shift Wayne because I don't know
about you Marcos but I'm getting
closer and closer to my first shift I'm
getting more and more scared because
everyone seems to have a war story
about the space station or the space shuttle
knows it's your first shift. I mentioned your
goal is when you get over to the
real room and fly the real vehicle 
it's a lot quieter than the simulations
but it seems like for your first shift I
don't know Gary or Tomas did you have
anything in your first shift that got your pulse up?
Mine was silky smooth.
It's the team name.
My first week, it wasn't the first day, it was the third day
My first shift, it was to be that
overnight. But it got moved
to prime time so we were doing a reboost
ATV vehicle in the back
All of a sudden, there's a software problem and it cuts out.
Obviously didn't get as high as we want to
So of course you have reclaim communication
replant everything because that 
altitude
the funny part would of course would be
the director of the ATV vehicle gets on
says, hey, the engines could relight at any
point
What?
So the whole time I'm thinking I'm going to lose the space station.
On my first week. We're not going to know where it is.
It's just going to start firing thrusters left and right.
So an awesome anecdote that I have
flight controller stands up in the back
and goes like this. I trusted him. We're fine. Then you move on.
There's definitely something the station or the vehicle knows that you're new.
I don't know about you, Marcos, but I think maybe I'll stay in simulations just a little bit longer.
You said how do you make those decisions of right or wrong and respond to any surprises
We experienced this in the simulations, because that's the whole purpose
is to stress the team and making sure we're making the right decisions.
Some of them mentioned, we have flight controllers
that we trust with all this knowledge being able to respond
when things happen
to make the proper decision
so there's a lot of trust involved in that, in that discussion, so to make sure we understand what's happening
 
 
 
The member of this fraternity that is not here is Mike Moses.
Mike Moses, a Purdue graduate who was also a flight director,
and he went to work a few years ago for Virgin Galactic.
As you know they are working on a flying Spaceship2 and his wife Beth Moses
who is also a Purdue grad began
the first commercial astronaut in their planes just a couple of months ago
They're going to fly out of SpacePort America
and they had plans to go to
other places. I know that the Sierra Nevada folks
were flying a Dream Chaser Cargo spacecraft
would like to bring them back
to land at perhaps or some of the other cargo space ports
So yes
For a crew launch, we're probably stuck with
but that will probably change
I don't think we're going to launch out of ellington.
Not a vertical rocket launch.
How is NASA looking forward to the
technology of inflatable habitats
especially with companies like Bigelow
Aerospace working on their inflatable modules
What are the constraints you see we face with the technology and how will that impact the future
so I'll start but I'll be really quick because I don't know a bunch about it.
We have a Bigelow inflatable module on
ISS right now but maybe a year or two
ago supposed to be a short-term
demonstration test of his technology
is now a permanent part of station you use
it to store the hardware and as far as I
know is now going to be there for the
duration of the space station program
now as far as the constraints or challenges is that what you were asking
I can tell you that then what when it got to station and the flight directors
were trying to figure out how to inflate them in station without breaking station, it was
a very very complicated process. They
were so concerned about the amount of
basically force they can put back into
the space station as if it's fully
inflated it was like watching grass grow. Very slow very incremental. We got it
fully inflated and it worked really well. Now obviously you have concerns about
damaging whatever you're attached to
if you go a lot faster
So these inflatables also plan to likely be used on the
lunar surface and perhaps Martian surface and as well as
in orbit. Bigelow has had inflatables for a couple years now. He's the main guy out in industry that's focused on the
technology which we handed over to him. It was a NASA technology for a while
and we gave him the rights to it and he carried it forward
That's basically all I know.
I think you covered it very well.
I think it's really important that we continue to study the inflatable modules and
advantages that we have with the vehicles
the modules we can actually build up in space easily, hopefully. But by getting
new technology, we're still trying to learn more. The module on ISS was a big part of that.
So we're still trying to learn from that.
We check the pressures every so often. We've used it as a permanent module
but we want to go in there and make sure the thing is still working as it has
and looking forward to the potential
A few days ago, Gene Kranz mentioned the flight directors of Apollo, he was focused on landing.
But they had one launch system
My question is in the future of training, the complexity,
what's the complexity in terms of flight directors and controllers training for one system vs. mulitple
Well, OK, so the SpaceX Dragon has their own flight control team. The Boeing Starliner has their own.
The Russians have their own for ther Suyoz launch vehicle.
So I think you get to learn a little bit about what they do
and they certainly have to interact with the station. they have their own flight control teams.
Orion is going to be completely NASA controlled. Lockheed will offer engineering support.
There's going to be a full team there
We're still kind of brainstorming a little bit for
the Gateway Space Station and the lunar lander side. Kind of have to wait a
little bit longer we have been people
with designs coming in so we can
understand how complicated they are and then we'll try both the training and how we orchestrate the flight control team there.
in using the operators. A lot of
that really depends on how
the spacecraft designers turn out.
So as far as the training for a new flight director like Marcos and I
if you first learn all the international space station
systems and then more than likely we'll
be assigned to one of those vehicles to
kind of cut our teeth on learning either
what goes on into play in a six-month
increment aboard the space station or
when I could focus on one on the
Commercial Crew vehicles or one of the
resupply vehicles or the exploration
aspect. So we'll learn the space station
basics first and then focus on a vehicle
to kind of grow our experience base.
What are some of the more memorable moments you've had as flight directors or people training as flight directors
Well so for me I should have put their picture in our
slide deck. So I was able to attend the Gene Kranz lecture on Thursday and I met Gene
when he was still pretty active around
Johnson Space Center. He made it a point
to talk to all the interns every
semester so I got a chance to meet Gene
back in it was spring of 2001 and we
took a photo together giving a thumbs up
and then I was able to talk to him after
after his lecture on Thursday and I
still remember being, let's see how old would I have been at the time, maybe 19,
a 19 year old kid sitting there listening to the Gene Kranz talk about how it
was to be one of the first flight
directors and thinking to myself wow I
don't know. I think I'm pretty smart but
I don't know if there's ever a way that
I'm going to be able to do that. So
fast forward 18 years here I am wearing the flight director emblem
and able to recreate that photo with Gene Kranz.
We might look a little bit older, but we were able to recreate the thumbs-up photo.
So that was a really memorable experience to have those two photos side by side.
so definitely on the shoulders of giants in this office. It's great.
I think from my perspective, in terms of flight director, part of what we did right after we got selected was
travel to different centers for NASA and see what they're doing, all the work that is being done
One of those places was Kennedy Space Center. We actually got a chance to go there for a couple days.
And from my perspective, I was very surprised and shocked in a way even though I work at NASA
to know how much is happening there right now. So to talk about
being serious about going back to the Moon, we actually got a chance to go see where the Orion spacecrafts are being built
and how far along in the process they are
Same thing for Boeing, for SpaceX
there's a lot of activity going on and just seeing how alive Kennedy Space Center is right now with everything that's going on
just makes it very rewarding and exciting for us in the next couple of years
So I was the lead of Expedition 55 to the space station last
year and it was really cool because two of my crew members on board at the
time were Boilermakers along with me. Drew and Scott Tingle
So we did a bunch of events here with the university, getting ready to fly, which is awesome
and during the expedition, I was doing my work and all of a sudden
I wonder how many Boilermakers are on
the team. So I sent a little email out.
What I pretty much expected to be that in the teens and then all of a
sudden this spread out all over JSC and
I probably 60 Boilermakers and we just we
decided we're gonna take a Boilermaker
photo in the control room. I'm going to
commandeer the room for five minutes, pile all these people in for a group photo and get them out of there
It was really amazing, was able to get the Boilermaker lead from human space flight from headquarters who happened to be in town
be in town. We got him in there, the center director there, and then this whole team.
It was just awesome. Purdue's reach is really incredible and it was a really neat event that we got to do
I don't know if I can top that story.
You really get to meet all these people who really are heroes and listen to them
I don't know, working with the astronauts, every single one of them is a person of
courage and integrity and what
they do is very hazardous
I think we forget sometimes how hazardous it is and they're putting their life on the line
for our country and I'm just awe inspired to
to be in company with those people.
Now cool things?
Tours we get to give in control rooms.
Best tour I ever gave was to British royalty so you get to meet some very interesting people
So he gets British royalty, I get the Barenaked Ladies.
We got Ed Sheeran a month ago.
I'm still waiting for my big celebrity.
You got Gene Kranz. I got Gene Kranz
Oh, I got to meet Adam Savage and as a true nerd, I was trying to shake his hand
and my hand was shaking
Given that some see commercial spaceflight as a more lucrative industry, why have you chosen to work at NASA
So as I mentioned earlier I actually left
twice and came back.There's a reason I came back to NASA
And this is really a sign of the times
when I went out. We have sparked so much
energy and so much growth within the
commercial industry really in the last
decade. I've got some experience outside
it didn't have the same energy and
really NASA was kind of still 
operating in the way they were in the
past but if I buy a spacecraft versus
buying a service so we started shift the
strategies at the agency like say
about a decade ago. We wanted to energize the
industry. We wanted to help them to grow and we start buying services so we started
with cargo for the space station so
NASA no longer owns that spacecraft we buy
a service from commercial company to
deliver our cargo and return it for us
so we no longer own the spacecraft. We're
applying that to the next
commercial crew spacecraft which Wayne mentioned, the Starliner and
SpaceX vehicles about to
start flying here later this year we're
buying a service from them. We're not
going to own the spacecraft. We're applying that same
we plan to leverage a lot of that going
forward to our lunar activities as well
so. First element at the gateway space
station is the power to propel the
propulsion element we just got a company
signed up to provide that for us so
we're taking off an effort to work with
them to turn that around to get in space
within two years and then each element
of the Gateway is planned to be run that
way so, like I said, if I were to do
it now I'm not sure I'd be going back
to NASA just because there's all the
energy in the industry the way things
have changed but is a different time
though then back when I snuck out
and got some experience
I think it's all different
interests right. Commercial companies are there
typically to make profit and other
companies and then provide more products and grow
and NASA's perspective is
being unique in terms of all we're trying to
accomplish as a nation and in the
world in some cases so I think from my
perspective personally I think that
there's a lot more passion in what we're
doing right now based on that ideal of
being able to explore the universe right and I think
a lot of people at NASA take that to
heart so it comes down to a lot of the
people that we get to work with on a day to day basis
it's a great environment to be at and if you get to learn and see so many things everybody
aiming in the right direction with the
same direction to accomplish our goals and that's what has kept me there
The answer is to be determined.
Let me rephrase that. They have not been assigned.
the next the next woman and man to walk on the moon are in the
corps right now, in the astronaut office
right now but they've not been assigned.
so we don't know. So you need to study hard, do well and make yourself stand out
I was joking with some folks I have
a t-shirt that I was wearing on campus
yesterday that says the first and the last footstep on the
moon and it's got the Purdue P. I want
to modify it to say the first, the last and
the next footsteps on the moon
There are quite a few Boilermakers in the astronaut office, as Gary mentioned so hopefully they'll be some of the lucky ones
An engineering background
yeah in terms of all the backgrounds of the astronaut corps, you'll find a
great diverse group of people in terms
of what they study or how they came
about right in terms of their careers
and what you're going to see is a lot of sciences
mathematicians to people who are in physics to engineering so
there's a lot a lot of diversity in
terms of what you studied to become a
astronaut there's no specific thing that
you just go by what the message that was
sent to you is to make sure
that you are moving towards to open up
capabilities as much as you can you can focus on
career here but don't stop there keep an open mind really pursuing better
things so that you can gather the
background and the experiences you need to
be able to be selected, is the
question that was asked earlier
You need to be able to work with people working in teams understanding how to compromise
understanding how to provide leadership for a team
so student the soft skills
I feel very privileged today to enjoy
your wisdom your humor and to hear some technical things
This idea of lessons learned and getting along together helps
me to think about the fact that we
wouldn't be celebrating so much today
(inaudible)
the whole team felt a part of that
for the many that aren't here is there a resource you can think of
whether it's a book or a movie or a drama or any video who
knows what how can you I know you're too
busy probably to spend much time
thinking about how to help the world get
along but that's part of your point what
what research can be suggest a high
school might enjoy
There are any number of really great books out there I always go back to the
(inaudible)
There are so many books about it seems like every retired astronaut has written one
There were some out here in the lobby
I just think there are many opportunities to learn those kind of lessons
Something that definitely has had an impact for me is the investigation report that came out after the accident
That's something you can get online and it's great research both from a technical perspective
and also from people perspective to understand
everything that happened and how
they pieced together all the advanced effects
of the accident
just one other comment on that you know
the International Space Station is
international we are working with you
know Russia Europe Japan Canada and then
quite a few other countries so that was
one of the really interesting things when I was
from shuttle to station I had to
figure out how to work all these
cultures and that's really interesting and we're leveraging
those partnerships as we move forward
because they seem to take the
complicated and we do this as a team not
just a simple country to excel that's the
way we're headed
not to take too much away from the time but there are
cross-cultural glances so you learn
how to deal with other cultures and
learn about the Russians things that
teachers in the Russian culture very
important pecking order to find their place
in the pecking order of the welcome the
social standing in a Japanese culture
in the Russian culture
I should say they do that argumentatively  they almost like to pick a fight
just to see how it would come out and
the Japanese culture is avoid
confrontation at all costs so we met with international
partners and sit the Russian guy near the Japanese guy
okay we have just over ten minutes
do you plan to build a base on the moon that
astronauts can live on as long as they
do on the International Space Station
yes
obviously initially it'll be short
duration visits
but the goal is to be in a sustained presence on the surface and lunar orbit
What is NASA's relationship with other companies with similar goals, such as SpaceX.
I get the best of both worlds I worked inside the government most of my career and I'm retired now
so I think the relationship has gotten
better because a lot of the companies
started out that wanted to do it without NASA liking how they
were doing it and as time has gone on
they want the work together and I think
the government NASA is willing to work
with those companies who utilize the
things that they have and the companies
have come to recognize there's a body of
knowledge inside NASA that will serve
them well
so I think it's really come a long way
But it's a two-sided coin
Some of you here have already touched on but I it waited this long I figured I might as well finish the question
Being this is the 50th anniversary of celebrating Neil Armstrong and all this
stuff you mentioned you had like three
four people in mind for being on the
moon next I was just wondering if you
could let us know please tell us is at least one a Purdue alumnus
Real quick, the shirts are being printed
We do have several in the corps right now
So we'll do what we can to influence it
What's the most interesting contingency you've had to inact or rule you've had to inact as a flight director or in training
Do you have a good one from training
So as the watch landing flight director I always had to deal with the weather
weather was not an engineering topic
Meteorologists do not think like engineers.
(inaudible)
Every single time I worked a real shuttle launch and shuttle landing
the vehicle performed like a champ we didn't have a problem it's always been weather
so if you want to do this kind of job
you probably ought to take a course in meteorology
 
I learned it all by watching him trying to figure it out
I'm thinking in terms of contingencies I
go back to you know my space walking days
because things always went right
you plan so long to do these
spacewalks and there'd always be
something that would that would go
unexpectedly so the one that's
coming to mind and Tomas I don't know
where you were during
sts-120 so we had at the time that was
back in October at 2007 and we were
still in the process of assembling the
space station and we had what was called
the p6 truss so it port most truss
was actually stone at the zenith part of
the space station during that time frame
because it was our original tower
channel and we were we had to retract
the solar arrays the really long solar
arrays in order to relocate this Psix
element from its temporary location to
its final home out in the port side of the
truss and I was one of the lead
trainers for the
space shuttle mission and things were
going swimmingly on for the most part
during the mission we used the robotic
arm to relocate that element up to the
port side of the truss and the commander
was unfurling
redeploying the solar arrays and it was
going along great until we hear a little
bit of chatter on the
communication loops and I turned to see
the downlink view from the TV and that
solar array kind of accordions together
and it had torn one of the wires as they
were trying to deploy it had torn and
so everyone just sat there for a few 
seconds staring at it thinking what are we
going to do and it was truly one of
those MacGyver moments where it felt like that
scene from Apollo 13 where all the
engineers get the room and they dump the
box on the table and they say we gotta
make this fit into this because what we
had to do is we knew we needed to repair
that damage before we could undock
the space shuttle because there were concerns
that just the dynamics of undocking the
space shuttle might be too much for that
solar array it might tear it apart and
the space shuttle could only stay attached
to the space station for so long before
it started to run out of consumables so
we had a very limited time to fix this
so it was all hands on deck trying to
figure out how we can fix this damaged
solar array and the engineers came up with
a really unique solution of what we
called cufflinks
they utilize existing holes in the array
and had the astronauts on board the
space station of the space shuttle file
down the metal and and used some wire to
tape everything together and then we put
an astronaut out on the
end of not just the robotic arm but the
robotic arm was grappled on to the
inspection boom and we used on the space
shuttle something we had never planned
on doing and then we put scott way on
the tip of that so something we've never
trained on the ground
never thought about doing and Scott his callsign is too
tall because he was too tall to ride in
the Soyuz rocket thankful we had his height on this
mission because he was just barely able
to reach that damaged location so
he went out and did one of the most
dangerous EVAs because the solar array
was energized so he could have been
electrocuted while doing this so he
install these cufflinks and everything
was successful and the cufflinks are
still installed in the solar array still
functioning 12 years later but it was a
really dicey situation and that is
stressful so tomas were you involved
I was I was actually the EVA
lead for the station increment while
her shuttle mission was going on so my team had to clean up the mess
so i came in and saved the day just like wayne said just push it off to tomas
my question has to do with the artemis program why use a lunar gateway as opposed to launch and come back and launch
there's a couple perspectives of that so first of all the Gateway will be in an orbit
and it's gonna be similar to the
kind of orbit that we're going to be
expected to be flying around Mars as
well so we can gain some
experience there and you can also use it
as a testbed for some of the
technologies that we have got to figure out how to perfect before
we're going to commit to sending
somebody beyond the lunar that's just a
few days where as Mars
is a year and a half to two years
so there are certain technologies that have to be perfected and we'll be using the Gateway
Just me just add on a bit a key to making the lunar project sustainable
is reusability and part of what you get at
the gateway is you get a place to bring
landers and other vehicles in and do the
inspection maintenance lunar ice if we can do that sort of thing it would go
a long way that way to make it
sustainable in the future so we get
these huge arguments about how can we get to the moon faster
well if you just want to go plant the
flag and do footprints again
but the point is not to do apollo 18 the point is to build a sustainable presence
and you need  a rally point
 
objects are discarded from ships and things how does that affect your job in navigation
and keeping space station safe and also is there a plan in the future to collect and discard this
properly so there isn't anymore
debris is a huge problem
(inaudible)
and if it's an intercept course fire up the station and move it out of the way that used to happen
about once a year
things happen more frequently these days
(inaudible)
there's a lot of junk up and
pieces so long and so getting around
orbit to pick them up lots of people
study that
lots of ideas that might work
so they try to make people build
satellites that don't shed a lot of
pieces and they come apart some more
and then they deorbit themselves
the computing analysis capability it is phenomenal what we did 50 years ago
i had the pleasure to give a tour to a co-worker of mine and his father was one of the simulators
back for the Apollo missions and so I gave them a tour of the newly restored bunker two
for the flight control room where we
executed the Apollo 11 mission
they just reopened that in Houston
and if you ever get a chance to go down
there and see that it is absolute
breathtaking it's incredible the amount
of detail they put into restoring it
I was giving this gentleman a tour
and he was getting up in his years because he had been working at
NASA for quite a while before that and
you know he's talking about his job was
to write the math models to simulate the
spacecraft and then thinking about the
technology that he used to be able to do
that is just absolutely incredible
thinking how reliant we are these days
on even just cellphones to do everything
for us even to add numbers right no one
can add numbers in their heads anymore
it's just amazing that the technology
they were able to do back then
with the training did they give you a scenario you can't win
every day
the simulation people are evil
they're very creative people the cases they come up with are things you think are simulations you can ready for
and talk about it for hours and be ready for when this thing is going to happen and then they just throw you a curveball
you have to think on your feet
they're really good at that
I'm really impressed with the talent
And you know going into the sim that more than likely you're going to experience one of the three
emergencies that we have on the soace
station that we protect work so a fire a
rapid depress or a toxic atmosphere and
so odds are something like that's are
probably gonna happen near the
end of your simulation if that's how
things are going to go and it's a great
experience to get the team you know run
the procedures that it takes to kind of
back out of that and keep the crew safe
keep the vehicle safe and then if you
can complete mission objectives
so one of the things that I'm trying to do
as a trainee going through these
simulations is it's very critical as has been
mentioned before we're supporting Space
Station 24/7 and so your job on your own
shift is to maintain a
console log or a console report that you
can get ready to hand over to the next
guy to tell them here's the state of the
space station here's what happened
during my shift so you can prepare him
and I started typing my console logs during my simulation
and I normally end with this part of the space station is one fire
this part of the space station is full of ammonia
so they're pretty dismal console reports by the end
and I don't really want to hand that over to the next person
this is the next shift's problem
last question
i know we just have a minute i was told to get done by 2:30
so just a few seconds what advice would you give to a student listening to today
start with Allison
OK and I have two seconds to answer this
maybe five
find your passion that is the message as I've spent more time working in the aerospace
field and really realizing how much I
truly love this job that it takes a lot
of hard work and if you are not truly
passionate about what you're doing it's
gonna be really hard to put in all those
long hours so that's my message to
students is there are a lot of paths a lot of
different ways that you can get to NASA
you don't have to just be an aerospace
engineer or mechanical engineer or i hate to say it you don't have to
be a Purdue grad to get to NASA there
are other acceptable universities you
can go to we have scientists you know
anybody in science fields but we also
have graphic designers and public affairs
and we have people who work at the
clinic doctors and nurses there
are so many ways that you can get to
NASA that you just really have to find
what you are passionate about and stick
to it and you'll eventually find your way to where you're meant to be
go ahead Marcos
I agree completely with what you said
pick a goal pick a challenging goal
make sure you pick something that is out of reach and something you have to work hard to get to
and work really hard at it so that you can to where you're going
even if you don't know what that goal is you're going to find yourself in a really, really good place
that's exactly what happened to me
throughout my life i didn't expect to become a flight director but at the same time through my career and working hard to be able to accomplish the goals
that I set out for myself in that process I've learned so much and in some ways life finds a place to get you to where you need to go
well said the only thing I'm going to emphasize is you don't have to be a
physicist a rocket scientist can have a
base we need every trait
so again find your passion and
be the best
(inaudible)
take some other courses the one course I wish I would have taken
that would have helped me so much would have been psychology
because you have to figure out how people act
the courses I did take in college that I would highly recommend foreign language
I took Russian you may want to take Chinese we truly work with international partners
(inaudible)
they have to understand where the money comes in
you have to learn to work with people nobody is in this alone
you have to work with a team on some project
multiple team projects get into
situations run for student government do something to learn how to work
with people and working with teams even with people you may not like and disagree with because
that's the nature of the business
something Marcos just said
shoot for something that is really difficult that will push you and something I'd
heard before is shoot for the stars because even if you fall short you're still in the heavens
with that I want to thank everybody for coming out it's really inspiring to see so many
folks here continuing to support NASA the
space program the strategies the plans and
the mission that NASA has out there we're not shut down we're very very busy and thank you very much
