August 8, 2007

Sciencedude: NASA spacewalker Danny Olivas to visit Santa Ana

Gary Robbins

Danny Olivas, the astronaut who repaired the heat shield of space shuttle Atlantis during a mission in June, will visit the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana on Thursday to talk with the public. He’ll drop by at 11 a.m., mainly to discuss his recent trip to the International Space Station, which he helped to upgrade and expand during spacewalks.

Olivas, who grew up in North Hollywood, is an interesting and candid figure, as you’ll learn from this interview with The Register’s Alex Baron:

Q:The procedure of stapling down the thermal blankets seemed simple. Was it?

A: I think in general things that are done on the ground are a lot simpler than they are in orbit. The task was originally scheduled for 90 minutes and it probably took us over three hours to do it. The stapler itself was never made EVA (spacewalk) friendly. In other words, having good accessibility and good workability in a spacesuit.

Q: Why did you use surgical staples from the medical supplies? Didn’t you have reserve supplies of equipment specially designed for securing thermal blankets?

A: In the event of a known problem we have tools on board to affect some minor repairs. If we have a scratch or a ding to the reinforced carbon-carbon system which makes up the leading edge of the wing, we’re able to use some of these materials to affect a repair.

In the case of the stapler, (it) is a contingency tool in case someone has a laceration tool in orbit. We had never planned for a repair of the blanket, so there was a lot of scrambling that went on on the ground to come up with a repair that would be suitable and would survive the re-entry. We never looked at this as a potential problem.

The training team exposes all the crew members to the various types of thermal protection systems that are on the shuttle. I had touched these blankets before. I knew what their texture was like. I knew what potential problems might be out there.

Q: Is the new solar array (on space station) generating as much power as expected?

A: As far as I know it is. In fact, the reconfiguration has gone pretty smoothly and we’re ready to do the configuration of P6 to the port side of the space station with (shuttle flight) STS-120.

Q: You spent much of your first spacewalks dealing with unexpected problems — the thermal blanket, the solar array retraction and the computer crash. At any point, did you feel you didn’t have the resources for all of this?

A: No. This was the best of missions to demonstrate why NASA is the organization that it is. It’s really a team organization. We focused on things we could affect. By the same token, ground (control) focused on what they had the best ability to affect: the computer system, the developed contingency procedures for loss of attitude control, developing the power-down scheme, what we needed to do to start shutting down, to conserve power.

Q: Was there a time when you expected the space station to be abandoned due to the computer failure?

A: When we heard word on board that we were working against a 12-hour clock, that if we couldn’t come up with answers in 12 hours. … There was so much that we had already tried. At the end of the day we had a lot of options available to us. That’s why I think this is a really exciting mission because it seemed like every discipline was exercised to their limit.

Typically the training team comes up with these cases that for the most part are unrealistic: They break things that never break, they put the crew into configurations they’ve never seen before. And this mission was like a really bad sim case. The ground control said that it was unrealistic to see all of this on one mission, but we did.

It turned out well. It could have gone really badly. And I think the fact that it turned out well is a testament to what the ground crew and orbit crew were able to accomplish as a team.

Q: Did NASA learned any lessons from this troubled mission?

A: This mission taught us not only about how to deal with on-orbit emergency scenarios, it also provided both the grounds crews and the crews for the space station with a real world experience of how to develop a good game plan on the fly.

Q: Our local astronaut, Cal State Fullerton grad Tracy Caldwell, is about to have her first flight. You two were in the same astronaut class. What can you tell us about her?

A: Tracy is a very sharp individual. She is very detail-oriented. She is very highly regarded in the office. I know that she is in for a treat in her flight, like floating, trying to eat in space, having the freedom to float around, to look out the window, not only at the Earth but also at the heavens.

Q: There are reports of astronauts being drunk within 12 hours of flight on at least two occasions. Do you know which flights those were?

A: No, and to be honest with you I have not had an opportunity to read the report and I have no knowledge about it.

Q: What does it mean when reports say things like “alcohol flows freely” with the astronauts?

A: To be honest with you I can’t really comment on that. I will tell you that the 117 (the flight of Atlantis) crew under the command of C.J. Sturckow did everything by the book and on our flight there were at least two or three of us who don’t drink at all. I will tell you that our office has a high degree of integrity.

Q: Are you one of those crew members who don’t drink?

A: I would be lying if I said I didn’t drink at all, but I can’t remember the last time I had more than I could handle.

Q: Were you left with enough time to step back and look down at the Earth? How did you feel?

A: For me, one of the things I walked away with was an appreciation of how much we have left to do. When you see how much we put into the space station, not only as an agency but as human beings, it represents how much we’ve been able to accomplish from terra firma. And against the backdrop of the universe and even against the Earth itself that very best is such a tiny speck in the sky, and the universe goes on forever and even just within our own solar system we have so much to learn. Even within our own earth. It’s through this continued pursuit of knowledge that we as a race will continue to evolve and grow.

You can’t look at the Earth from that height and see yourself in any level of significance. You could be the richest person on Earth, the best looking, the fastest, the strongest, and all that pales in comparison to the truth of what the universe is. I think as we work towards finding that truth that we’ll grow and we will continue to better understand who we are and why we’re here.