Area exploration isn’t nearly experiencing zero gravity or flying so excessive you could view the whole Earth by means of a portal window.
It’s about problem-solving and science, former astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger stated Tuesday. She was not too long ago the featured speaker at a fundraising occasion in Fort Collins for Science, Expertise, Engineering and Arithmetic grants given by the 4 native chapters of Rotary Worldwide to native faculties.
Astronauts have carried out greater than 3,000 experiments on the Worldwide Area Station within the 25 years it has been in orbit above Earth, involving all kinds of subject material, in keeping with the Nationwide Aeronautics and Area Administration. That work has led to enhancements in vaccines, most cancers therapies, mind surgical procedure, agriculture, laptop and digital know-how, battery life and performance, and plenty of different areas, Metcalf-Lindenburger stated.
She spent 15 days on board the Worldwide Area Station in 2010.
Extra:Poudre Faculty District weighs closings, consolidations. How we bought right here and what’s subsequent
Metcalf-Lindenburger is a retired astronaut now, spending her time educating folks in regards to the significance of STEM schooling and area exploration as a featured speaker at occasions all through the nation, just like the one Tuesday, and serving in its place trainer in Washington state, the place she now lives along with her husband and their daughter, who’s in highschool.
Her childhood dream of changing into an astronaut started in 1983, she stated, when she first realized it was attainable after Sally Trip grew to become the primary feminine from the US to go up in area. She was in elementary faculty in Loveland on the time and the kid of oldsters who had each studied STEM topics in faculty. Her mother, Joyce Metcalf, was a math main, and her father, Keith Metcalf an engineering main, she stated, with a store within the storage the place Dottie and her youthful sister generally helped him design and construct issues.
When her household later moved to Fort Collins, her curiosity in science was piqued by a undertaking at Boltz Junior Excessive, the place college students turned meals waste into ethanol to energy a lawnmower. In 1990, Dottie was capable of attend a NASA area camp at its flight heart in Huntsville, Alabama.
“It was superior!” she stated. “We launched rockets, we pretended like we have been astronauts, you pretended such as you have been a part of Mission Management. And, we realized in regards to the Hubble area telescope, as a result of in April of 1990, the car ‘Discovery’ was taking Hubble into area for the primary time.”
When Dottie returned residence, she constructed a mannequin of the area shuttle Discovery to hold in her bed room as “that bodily reminder that that is what I wish to do and now I do know what I have to do, which is I have to proceed pushing myself in math and science in highschool after which on to school.”
She accepted a place within the Peace Corps to show English in Kazakhstan for 2 years after commencement from Whitman School in Walla Walla, Washington, figuring she’s come again to the U.S. afterward “for graduate faculty, do a grasp’s in geology, a Ph.D. after which go work on the (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory” in southern California.
Unrest in Kazakhstan in 1997 triggered the Peace Corps to drag out of that nation earlier than she bought there, she stated, and he or she wound up again in Fort Collins briefly, volunteering as a cross-country coach at Fort Collins Excessive Faculty.
That led her to return to high school to earn a educating license, which she did, at Central Washington College, and a job educating highschool science in Vancouver, Washington. She taught Earth science for 3 years, she stated, however “I nonetheless had area on my thoughts.”
So, she created a brand new class in astronomy.
And a query from a pupil in that class, coupled along with her personal pure curiosity, led her again to NASA. The coed, she stated, requested how astronauts go to the toilet in area. In wanting up the reply on-line, she wound up on the NASA web site and realized that they have been hiring academics to hitch their 2004 class of astronauts.
Dottie utilized, was invited for an interview — snapping an image of space-shuttle rest room whereas there to deliver again for her college students to see — and in the end chosen.
“So, curiosity not solely fueled my dream, however it additionally helped me discover my dream job,” she stated, proudly displaying the image of her testing the bathroom in a slideshow that was a part of her presentation.
Coaching was rigorous, she stated. Outside wilderness coaching in Maine. Water survival coaching in Pensacola, Florida, the place astronaut candidates needed to observe underwater escapes throughout simulated helicopter crashes. And flight coaching. First on small two-engine propeller planes after which T-38 Talon supersonic coaching jets, with cockpits much like these on the area shuttle “Discovery” that finally took her to area six years later, from April 5-20, 2010.
Dottie was certainly one of 5 Mission Specialists on a seven-person crew that delivered science racks to the Worldwide Area Station, in keeping with a NASA mission abstract, and joined a world crew of six who have been already on the area station. With three girls on her flight and one already on the area station, their mission marked the primary time 4 feminine astronauts had been in area collectively on the similar time.
Her main job on the area station, she stated, was to maneuver tools and work carefully with the 2 astronauts assigned to exit in area, tethered to the station, to carry out upkeep, upgrades and repairs. She and the opposite backup “spacewalker,” pilot James Dutton, helped the 2 males, Clayton Anderson and Rick Mastracchio, get into their spacesuits and into the airlock every day, then operated the airlock hatch as they exited and returned every day. She by no means really bought to stroll in area herself, she stated.
Dottie and Dutton would then speak to the astronauts and monitor them for 6-8 hours at a time whereas they have been out in area performing their work. They labored by means of options when issues didn’t go as deliberate, generally bringing in a group again on Earth to assist troubleshoot.
These a number of layers of proficiency and teamwork, she stated, “assist us do nice stuff in area. So, it’s not only one individual in any respect; it’s actually an enormous group.”
And that group, she hopes, would possibly some day embrace one of many 33 center faculty college students who have been within the viewers Tuesday. Somebody rising up in Fort Collins, fascinated with science and area the best way she was. Individuals who not solely wish to discover our universe, but in addition to work with these from different international locations to unravel our most crucial issues.
Throughout question-and-answer session after her presentation, Dottie was requested about continued cooperation with Russia on area initiatives, in mild of the rising tensions on Earth between the 2 international locations. Her response suggests those that have seen the Earth from afar, by means of a port window in outer area, don’t essentially view the world the identical as the remainder of us.
“I believe area makes us higher folks,” Dottie stated. “We as people that care about our cosmonaut mates and our different mates which might be from Europe and Japan and all these totally different international locations. We wish to work collectively. We want one another once we’re in area to remain alive.
“So, I simply suppose we’re our higher selves in area, and I want we may do this right here on Earth.”
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers schooling, breaking information, some sports activities and different subjects of curiosity for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com,x.com/KellyLyell and fb.com/KellyLyell.information.
