At the annual meeting of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education (CCSSE) a couple of weeks ago in St. Louis, which included flight directors from most of our 50 learning centers around the world, I received the Chairman’s official light saber! We have an amazing and dedicated board of directors, but obviously we’re big on fun and low on formality! It’s my great honor to help continue the legacy created by the families of the Space Shuttle Challenger in the aftermath of the tragedy, and led so ably by Mr. Bill Readdy these past several years. 

June with the very first copy of Star Challengers!

One of the highlights was the “world premiere” of June Scobee-Roger’s new book, “Star Challengers.” The first books arrived from the printer during our board meeting. I’m the proud owner of an autographed first edition! http://blogs.challenger.org/2010/08/star-challengers-book-moon-base-crisis.html

Chuck Berry still has the moves and the music at 83!

I’ve always been a HUGE fan of Chuck Berry, the inspiration behind Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and generally The Origins of Rock. Life seems to continue to take amazing twists and turns for me — not sure how I got so lucky, as I’m certainly not worthy — and so one evening during the Challenger meetings I was surprised to find myself at Blueberry Hill, in the front row with June, rocking out as the 83 year old Mr. Berry rocked the house! Whatever fountain of youth he’s found, I want some… 

Meanwhile, back in Houston, they’ve announced an opportunity to suggest wake-up music for the Space Shuttle crews of the final missions. Having been the beneficiary of great wake-up calls on 4 of my 5 missions (one flight involved ’round-the-clock operations, so we didn’t have music piped up to us), John Matson of Scientific American interviewed me for his article on the subject: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-shuttle-music My all-time favorite wake-up tunes were Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xotoDy5806Y) and the song my son Luke sent before the final spacewalk of my career, the theme song to Star Wars! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjMNNpIksaI)

I recently had a chance to get back to the recording studios of Purple Songs Can Fly, located at Texas Children’s Hospital Cancer Center. I’ve been inspired for several years by the talented children and their mentor/creative genius, Anita Kruse. Kids undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments can take their minds to another place and create beautiful music, recordings of which I’ve taken with me to space, and more recently to the summit of Everest. Several of my favorite kids on the planet gave a concert while I was there, and I shared a few stories from the mountain with them (and returned a CD that had been to the top). http://purplesongscanfly.com/photos.html

Who's that good looking astronaut hiding behind that floating corned beef sandwich??!

A good friend emailed me a book review (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/06/RVJE1ECBE5.DTL) with a doctored photograph that bears striking similarity to yours truly. The book review suggests dramatic sensationalism with a number of over-recycled themes, like the corned beef sandwich on Gemini 3, so I won’t be rushing out to buy a copy… Please send me yours and I’ll recycle it for you!

I was also recently back at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex to give a few talks to guests from all over the world. It was great to see my buddies Nick, Jon, Livia and others while there. As I left KSC my last visit in May, they informed me that the ladies at the VC had come up with a new nickname for me. This group never misses an opportunity for a practical joke, so they kindly had a new set of wings made up for my flight suit!

I will never wear this in public!

Luke pointing out the contrail from "the best seat in the house!"

Also while down in Cocoa Beach, there just happened to be an ATLAS 5 launch. It turned out to be at a rather uncivilized hour of the day, just after 7 AM, when I’d much prefer to be deep in REM sleep. On the bright side, there happened to be a Starbucks in the lobby of our hotel, so I rousted my son and we were able to watch/feel it soar to orbital velocity while wading in the surf, camera in my right hand and Caramel Macchiato in my left… Absolutely spectacular!

Shuttle contrails and sunrise meet: what a beautiful canvas!

In the past 72 hours I’ve been misquoted in print and added as a signatory to a policy letter I never saw in draft form (and really didn’t agree with; my name has since been removed). Although I’m certainly not a government policy or budget maker, for some reason I get asked my opinion on the future of human spaceflight on an increasingly frequent basis. If you’re interested in my opinion on this emotionally charged issue (for some), feel free to read on. Otherwise, please enjoy the great photo that my friend Dave Strome took soon after the launch of STS-131: the high altitude contrails of Discovery are lit with a dramatic sunrise, a view unlike any I’ve ever seen.

So what does this former Space Shuttle astronaut think of the double whammy of Shuttle retirement and Constellation Program (CxP) cancellation? And what of the future of Commercial Spaceflight (CSF), the gap in US access to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and long range planning for Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO)? Although I think our nation will really miss the capabilities of the Space Shuttle, and I’m concerned about the impacts to our talented aerospace workforce in the short term, I think there’s a silver lining in all of this for our Space Futures.

Times of change can be very uncomfortable, and this is a time of unprecedented — but not unexpected — change. In the aftermath of the Columbia tragedy, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board set the wheels in motion for Shuttle retirement in 2010 (else undergo a major and prohibitively expensive recertification process). Developing a new spacecraft architecture like the CxP, even though solid rocket booster segments were being repurposed for the Ares-1 launch vehicle, is technically challenging and expensive in its own right. With Constellation costing more and taking longer to develop, it didn’t surprise me that it would at least be on the budget cutters’ radar screen during this current recession.

From my perspective as an extreme high altitude construction worker on the International Space Station (ISS), we would be crazy not to reap proper rewards from our investment in this National Laboratory, particularly since we’ve essentially completed its construction and now have a full 6-person crew to take advantage of its science capacity. Flying ISS until 2020 or beyond is a no brainer, provided we have affordable access for crews and their science. The Augustine Commission and the budget proposal also see it this way.

With Russian Soyuz seats running a cool $50M and likely to rise (simple supply vs. demand, coupled with Russian capitalism), affordable access isn’t necessarily assured. To the extent possible, closing the gap in US access to LEO is an imperative. I’m encouraged by the investment the Administration’s new budget makes in CSF, especially if it is spread between several of the viable candidates, ultimately resulting in options to LEO. NASA and other space agencies may one day be able to shop a la carte for LEO transportation, weighing safety margins, price and other factors into their decision making process. There will be setbacks to be sure, with cost overruns and schedule delays for these new launch vehicles as well, but ultimately a few of them will succeed in human-rating their vehicles for LEO. Since the frontrunners in this launch industry are all American companies, the US industrial base will maintain and even extend its leadership in aerospace, not spiral into oblivion as some suggest. Moreover, having NASA focus on the technologies and architecture for BEO exploration leverages what the agency does best.

Where I differ from the Administration (and from how I’ve recently been misquoted), I’d prefer to see us garner as much as we can from our investment-to-date in the CxP: possibly launching an Orion-derived capsule on an EELV as one of the commercial options, for example, and accelerating our work on a heavy lift vehicle for BEO. Moreover, we need a milestone- and destination-driven program if it’s to last beyond the attention span of the current Congress. Anything that lacks definitive goals and milestones is by definition discretionary spending, and therefore imminently deferrable/cancelable. NASA has done a great job developing a lunar architecture that one day could form the basis of our life-searching exploration on Mars. I’d like to see us incrementally test these on the moon first, just 3 short days away from home, rather than risk their failure several months away on Mars.

I understand the doom and gloom being expressed by some in the human spaceflight industry, particularly with the way in which the budget was first rolled out, but I see an opportunity for a brilliant American future in space. I believe that if we deliberately move ahead with ambitious stated goals (moon, near earth objects, Mars), realistic milestones (even if many years out) and proper funding (included in the current budget proposal), America can retain its technological leadership in space and inspire our kids to dream of and pursue space as a realistic destination for their talents. This wouldn’t be transient “Cash for Clunkers” spending, but rather an intelligent expenditure on high tech industry and people, with an enormous potential return on investment… 

In closing, I’ll refer you to a couple of amazing videos that capture the essence of why human spaceflight is so important to our collective futures. One is of my friend Lars’ son Adam, observing the recent Space Shuttle launch: http://bit.ly/cWKy5g If we could only find a way for every American family to see a launch, there would be no question as to how motivating human spaceflight is to young people. I vividly remember seeing Apollo IX launch from Cocoa Beach as a young boy, and it obviously had a lasting impact on my life…! The second clip is from the incredibly eloquent Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, explaining why NASA is so vital to our prosperity: http://tinyurl.com/yepv7wp

So there you have it. My opinion comes free, and it’s worth every penny…

P6 Solar Array: 2 years "post-op" and still looking healthy

The crew of STS-129 took this nice photo of the P6 solar array repair the STS-120 Team did way back in November 2007. Exciting to see it hasn’t changed one bit!

Happy New Year to one and all,

Scott

http://spacetweeps.podbean.com/2010/01/01/episode-201-can-you-spotscott-we-did/

WHAT: Retired NASA Astronaut Scott E. Parazynski, the only human to both travel into space and climb Mt. Everest, will speak at the AIAA Space 2009 Conference & Exhibition’s “Education Alley”

Education Alley, AIAA’s innovative aerospace education program, will highlight the world of aerospace engineering and science to over two thousand Pasadena area students in grades K-6 from September 14-17.

WHEN: Tuesday, September 15 at 11:15 a.m.

WHERE: Pasadena Convention Center, Pasadena, Calif.

DETAILS

Tuesday, September 15, 11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Exploring From Earth to the Stars (Pasadena Convention Center Exhibit Hall)

Speaker: Scott Parazynski, retired NASA Astronaut and employee of Wyle, will recount his experiences from his five space shuttle missions and from his May 2009 summit of Mt. Everest. Parazynski will be available for media interviews both before and after his talk.

AIAA SPACE 2009 is co-chaired by NASA and the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, and is sponsored by Orbital Sciences Corporation and Lockheed Martin Corporation. Additional sponsors include The Boeing Company, SpaceX, United Space Alliance, Stellar Solutions, Ball Aerospace Technologies, Harris Corporation, and The Aerospace Corporation. Aerospace America and Space News are the official media sponsors. Additional support will be provided by the California Space Authority, the American Astronautical Society, and the AIAA Technical Activities Committee Space & Missiles Group.

AIAA’s premier annual space conference, AIAA SPACE 2009 serves as a venue for senior government and industry leaders and technologists. Under the theme “Space: New Opportunities for a New Era,” the four-day event will examine the need for increasing America’s commitment to education in the “STEM” subjects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; how best to approach the problems posed by global climate change; how to reduce global fossil fuel consumption; and the role that space exploration and space technologies will play in achieving these goals.

AIAA is the world’s largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession. With more than 35,000 individual members worldwide, and 90 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org.

“Scott brings extensive leadership, technical breadth and depth, and ‘hands on’ flight experience to assist Wyle as we grow our business,” said Bob Ellis, group president of Wyle’s Integrated Science and Engineering Group. “His strong leadership, background and qualifications will be a perfect complement to our highly skilled team. We’re delighted to have him on board.”

Parazynski was selected as a NASA Astronaut in March 1992 and is a veteran of five Space Shuttle flights. He has logged more than 1,381 hours in space including over 47 hours of extra-vehicular activity during seven spacewalks making him one of NASA’s most experienced spacewalkers. He has flown to the Russian space station, Mir, and the International Space Station, and in the aftermath of the Columbia tragedy, he was the Astronaut Office Lead for Space Shuttle Thermal Protection System Inspection and Repair.

In addition to Parazynski’s extensive space flight experience, he is a commercial, multiengine and instrumented-rated pilot, a licensed physician, entrepreneur and mountaineer. He has scaled major mountains in the Alaska Range, the Cascades, the Rockies and the Andes and this spring, Parazynski will return to Everest with the intention of summiting the world’s highest peak.

Parazynski received his medical degree from Stanford University and was selected as a NASA Astronaut during his residency in emergency medicine. He is part of the adjunct faculty at Stanford Medical School, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and Auburn University’s College of Engineering. He has received numerous honors and awards including the Flight Achievement Award from the American Astronomical Association and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.

Wyle is the prime contractor for two premier NASA Johnson Space Center contracts. Under the Bioastronautics Contract, Wyle provides medical operations, ground and flight research, space flight hardware development and fabrication, science and mission integration for flight, and habitability and environmental factors in support of the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, Constellation and Human Research programs. Under the Occupational Medicine and Occupational Health contract, Wyle provides clinical and occupational health care for NASA personnel and the astronaut corps.

Wyle, a privately held company, is a leading provider of high tech aerospace engineering and information technology services to the federal government on long-term outsourcing contracts. The company also provides life sciences services for NASA’s astronaut corps as well as mission critical support services and space simulation; test and evaluation of aircraft, weapon systems, networks, and other government assets; and other engineering services to the aerospace, defense, nuclear power, communications and transportation industries.