DECEMBER 2017 SCHOOL HOLIDAY PROGRAM
Interested in Robotics? Fascinated by ROBOTS? Learn something new this holidays! Register now to discover the World of Robots!! Discover the hidden truth of Curiosity, the rover on Mars!!
*YOU WILL LEARN:🔺
*HOW TO BUILD A MINI ROBOT*
*BASIC PROGRAMMING USING NXT 2.0*
*STABILITY AND STRUCTURE*
*HOW ARDUINO WORKS.*
Last but not least,
*THE ROVER ON MARS, CURIOSITY*
======================
*Robotics Workshop by Young Roboticist (ASM, S'pore & AI, Japan). 10 Years experience in robotics industry*
Register today as only limited seat available. First come first serve basis.
Satisfaction Guaranteed.
Date: 18th December 2017
Time: 9am to 4.30pm
Venue: ITC Intellect Training & Consultancy, 1A, Tingkat 1, Jalan S10-1, Jalan Bukit Kajang, 43300 Kajang, Selangor
Certificate will be provided
Limited Seats
For more details: :
+60126828275 or +60173508821(WhatsApp only)
_Will robot inherit the Earth? Yes!! They will be our children_
*Marvin Minsky*
DECEMBER 2017 SCHOOL HOLIDAY PROGRAM
Interested in Robotics? Fascinated by ROBOTS? Learn something new this holidays! Register now to discover the World of Robots!! Discover the hidden truth of Curiosity, the rover on Mars!!
*YOU WILL LEARN:🔺
*HOW TO BUILD A MINI ROBOT*
*BASIC PROGRAMMING USING NXT 2.0*
*STABILITY AND STRUCTURE*
*HOW ARDUINO WORKS.*
Last but not least,
*THE ROVER ON MARS, CURIOSITY*
======================
*Robotics Workshop by Young Roboticist (ASM, S'pore & AI, Japan). 10 Years experience in robotics industry*
Register today as only limited seat available. First come first serve basis.
Satisfaction Guaranteed.
Date: *16&17th December 2017 (Saturday&Sunday)*
Time: *9am to 5pm*
Venue: PUSAT TUISYEN DIDIK DINAMIK, NO 40A, Japan Utama 45, Taman Mutiara Rini, Skudai, Johor
Certificate will be provided
Limited Seats
For more details: :
_Will robot inherit the Earth? Yes!! They will be our children_
*Marvin Minsky*
Calling all parents for a FREE talk on “Robotics Technology” at Wisdom Point Enterprise (upstairs) on Sunday, October 29th!! “It’s not just about excelling in robotics – it’s about developing the skills students need to perform in the emerging technological society we now live in. Would like to know how artificial intelligence (AI) and robots will radically transform your creative thinking? Ever wanted your child to excel in robotics? Mark your calendar and do contact us ASAP to reserve your seats!!
Interested in Robotics? Fascinated by ROBOTS? And here you go!!
Discover the World of Robots with the Young Robotician, Laveneish!! To
those students who will be taking part in this camp, you will be able to
discover the hidden truth of Curiosity, the rover on Mars!! Learn the
ways to build and program a NXT robot to complete the task given. For
more information, do contact us @ 012-6828275(Mr.Mogan),
*+60173508821(WhatsApp only)*
*HIGHLIGHTS*
*Amazing race using EV3
*Build your NXT robot
*NXT & EV3 Basic Programming
*introductiontolabview
*+60173508821(WhatsApp only)*
*HIGHLIGHTS*
*Amazing race using EV3
*Build your NXT robot
*NXT & EV3 Basic Programming
*introductiontolabview
Venue : Merpati Gemilang Tuition Centre
No.15 Tingkat 1
Pelajaran Merpati 1
Taman Merpati (beside JPJ-Taman Bukit Emas)
(Located on 1st floor beside Aneka Rasa Restaurant)
Date : 27th November 2016 (Sunday)
Time : 9.30am till 4.00pm
Limited seats available!!
Lunch provided.
_Will robot inherit the Earth? Yes!! They will be our children_
*Marvin Minsky*
REGISTRATION CLOSED!!
No.15 Tingkat 1
Pelajaran Merpati 1
Taman Merpati (beside JPJ-Taman Bukit Emas)
(Located on 1st floor beside Aneka Rasa Restaurant)
Date : 27th November 2016 (Sunday)
Time : 9.30am till 4.00pm
Limited seats available!!
Lunch provided.
_Will robot inherit the Earth? Yes!! They will be our children_
*Marvin Minsky*
REGISTRATION CLOSED!!
First off, what is the One-Year Crew? Obviously, they’re doing something for a year, but what, and why?
Two
crew members on the International Space Station have just met the
halfway point of their year in space. NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly and
Russian Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are living in space for 342 days and
will help us better understand the effects of microgravity on the human
body.
Why 342 days and not 365? Thought you might ask. Due to
crew rotation schedules, which involve training timelines and dictate
when launches and landings occur, the mission was confined to 342 days.
Plenty of time to conduct great research though!
The studies performed throughout their stay will yield beneficial
knowledge on the medical, psychological and biomedical challenges faced
by astronauts during long-duration spaceflight.
The weightlessness of the space environment has various effects on the human body, including: Fluid shifts that cause changes in vision, rapid bone loss, disturbances to sensorimotor ability, weakened muscles and more.
The goal of the One-Year Mission is to understand and minimize these effects on humans while in space.
The Twins Study
A unique investigation that is being conducted during this year in space is the Twins Study.
NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly’s twin brother Mark Kelly will spend the
year on Earth while Scott is in space. Since their genetic makeup is as
close to identical as we can get, this allows a unique research
perspective. We can now compare all of the results from Scott Kelly in
space to his brother Mark on Earth.
But why are we studying all
of this? If we want to move forward with our journey to Mars and travel
into deep space, astronauts will need to live in microgravity for long
periods of time. In order to mitigate the effects of long duration
spaceflight on the human body, we need to understand the causes. The
One-Year mission hopes to find these answers.
Here are a few fun tidbits on human spaceflight to put things in perspective:
1) Scott Kelly has logged 180 days in space on his three previous flights, two of which were Space Shuttle missions.
2)
The American astronaut with the most cumulative time in space is Mkie
Fincke, with 382 days in space on three flights. Kelly will surpass this
record for most cumulative time in space by a U.S. astronaut on October
16.
3) Kelly will pass Mike Lopez-Alegria’s mark for most time on a single spaceflight (215 days) on October 29.
4) By
the end of this one-year mission, Kelly will have traveled for 342
days, made 5,472 orbits and traveled 141.7 million miles in a single
mission.
Adapted from : http://nasa.tumblr.com/post/129151446854/the-one-year-mission
Interested in Robotics? Fascinated by ROBOTS? Organized by Malaysian
Community Development Organisation (MCEO) , Pahang State in
Collaboration with Community Care Society Of Manipal International
University (MIU Nilai)!! Discover the World of Robots with the Young
Robotician, Laveneishyan Mogan. For those students who will be taking
part in this camp, you will be able to discover the awesomeness of
Curiosity, the rover on Mars!! Learn the ways to build and program a NXT
robot to complete the task given.
For more information:-
016-9319182 (Ms. Akila M.Elan),
017-9293278 (Mr. Punnirshan),
013-5088250 (Mr. Devraj)...
#introductiontolabview
#certificateswillbeprovided
Venue : Manipal International University (MIU NILAI)
Date : 30th January 2016 (Saturday)
Time : 9.30am till 4.00pm
Registration Fee: RM50 per pax
Limited seats available!!
~Will robot inherit the Earth? Yes!! They will be our children~
*Marvin Minsky~
REGISTRATION CLOSED!!
For more information:-
016-9319182 (Ms. Akila M.Elan),
017-9293278 (Mr. Punnirshan),
013-5088250 (Mr. Devraj)...
#introductiontolabview
#certificateswillbeprovided
Venue : Manipal International University (MIU NILAI)
Date : 30th January 2016 (Saturday)
Time : 9.30am till 4.00pm
Registration Fee: RM50 per pax
Limited seats available!!
~Will robot inherit the Earth? Yes!! They will be our children~
*Marvin Minsky~
REGISTRATION CLOSED!!
When NASA engineers look at Mars,
they see a planet-sized Venus flytrap.
It
lures us with the promise of scientific discovery—but the moment we land there,
gravity and a harsh climate will conspire to keep us stuck on the surface.
And
that’s not an option. If The Martian holds one lesson for
real-life space exploration, it's that the public won't stand for spending
billions of dollars only to leave astronauts stranded on another world. The
most crucial part of any NASA plan for visiting the red planet, arguably, is
getting off it.
The
spacecraft that NASA would build to get the job done, the Mars Ascent Vehicle
(MAV), represents a formidable engineering challenge. When fully loaded with
fuel, it’s too heavy to launch from Earth and land safely on Mars.
Instead,
the vehicle would need to be pre-assembled and sent to the red planet—years
before the astronauts arrive—where it would make its own propellant by
squeezing it out of the thin Martian atmosphere.
And
after that? The MAV must be built tough enough to remain fully operational
despite being pummeled by massive dust storms and punishing UV radiation.
When the cramped vehicle does finally take off, it needs to sustain the
astronauts for days, as they maneuver to rendezvous with the orbiting vessel
that will finally take them home.
The
Mars Ascent Vehicle will be a mission within a mission: a crewed spacecraft
launched into orbit from the surface of an alien planet.
And
there’s only one chance to get it right.
Hauling All Our Stuff
A
mission to Mars will be humankind’s first deep space caravan. As many as five
separate spacecraft might be needed to ferry the astronauts and their cargo to
the red planet.
Some
of that cargo can be broken down into smaller components and then reassembled
by the astronauts upon their arrival. Not so the MAV. “You don't want to be on
Mars trying to bolt engines on, in your space suit, essentially wearing mittens
in a dusty environment,” says Michelle Rucker, a system engineer at
NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
In
NASA-speak, that makes the MAV the “largest indivisible payload element” on the
mission, weighing an estimated 18 tons. To date, the most massive object that
we’ve sent to the Martian surface is the one-ton Curiosity rover.
Landing
an object on Mars—especially one that that weighs several tons—is not as easy
as landing it on Earth, where a capsule basically falls from the sky, relying
on the atmosphere to reduce the speed of its descent.
On
Mars, where the air is a hundredth the thickness of Earth’s, “there's just
enough atmosphere to be a pain in the butt, but not enough to do anything
useful for you,” says Rucker. Or, put another way, it will burn you up but it
won’t do much to slow you down.
That’s
why NASA is developing technology such as the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator—a
massive, cone-shaped inflatable heat shield that would also act as a braking
system.
The
shield would deploy upon entering the Martian atmosphere, slowing the lander
from hypersonic to merely supersonic speeds. At that point, rocket engines
would kick in for a controlled landing.
Here's
the kind of math astronaut Mark Watney would do to make it work: The landing
will burn up around five to seven tons of propellant. When it comes time to
take off from the Martian surface, the MAV will need 33 tons of propellant to
break free of the red planet’s gravity, push through its atmosphere, and safely
ferry the astronauts and their scientific cargo into orbit, where they can
rendezvous and dock with their Earth Return Vehicle.
And
that's too much to send ahead. The propellant will need to be manufactured on
Mars.
Living off the Land
If
expeditions to the red planet are going to have any chance of succeeding,
they’ll need to live off the land.
By
making fuel on Mars, NASA can shave several tons off the initial payload mass.
And, after the first mission is over, the equipment can be left on Mars to
serve as nascent infrastructure for expanded facilities to process not only
fuel, but also water and air for future explorers.
The
engines of the MAV will be powered by methane and liquid oxygen. All the
ingredients needed to make that fuel—carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen—can be found
on the red planet, if you know where to look.
In
theory, oxygen can be extracted from the Martian atmosphere, which is 95
percent carbon dioxide (CO2), and from liquid and frozen water (H20) buried beneath the surface.
The leftover carbon and hydrogen would be combined to make liquid methane.
Drilling
for water, however, would add an unwelcome element of uncertainty to an already
difficult mission. Excavating and processing is a lot more complex than simply
taking atmosphere from Mars. “The other problem with underground water
propellant production is that it drives you to land where you're pretty sure
there's water,” says Rucker. If you need to dig and “you land somewhere where
it turns out you're on top of bedrock, then all bets are off,” she says.
If
hydrogen won’t be extracted from Martian water, then Plan B would be to send a
payload of hydrogen to Mars as seed stock for making methane. But, for an
initial mission, that idea is also off the table. Although hydrogen isn’t
heavy, it requires large tanks for storage that would take up a lot of precious
space.
“We've
got a lander design; it kind of has a flatbed deck on top,” says Tara
Polsgrove, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Marshall
Space Flight Center. “Right now, the MAV is taking up most of
the room on that deck. There's not a whole lot of room there for a hydrogen
tank.”
NASA
engineers could accommodate hydrogen tanks by making the MAV taller instead of
wider. But, increasing the height of the spacecraft is a scenario they’d like
to avoid. They’re concerned that if the vehicle is too tall, there’s a greater
risk of it tipping over after landing.
And,
Rucker says, a taller MAV could place a difficult physical burden on the
astronauts. If one or more of them are incapacitated during the mission, then
climbing a tall ladder is the last thing they’d want. Easy access needs to be a
high priority.
As
such, the current plan envisions sending an ascent vehicle fully loaded with
liquid methane and equipped with a chemical plant that would manufacture liquid
oxygen from the Martian atmosphere.
The
process is expected to take one to two years. When the MAV’s tanks are full,
the human crew will be sent to Mars, secure in the knowledge that they’ll have
a gassed-up vehicle waiting to get them back into space.
But
NASA engineers won’t be ready to hang up any “Mission Accomplished” banners.
“One of the challenges is that we're using cryogenic propellants,” says Rucker.
“Once you make your propellant on Mars, then you've got to keep it cold for a
couple years before you actually use it, without it boiling off.”
“We've
got propellants, and right now we don't have any valves that have zero
leakage,” adds Polsgrove. “You've got to think about that, which is why we're
prioritizing technology development in the area of low-leakage valves.”
More
broadly, engineers are concerned that time is not on their side. The MAV will
require one to two years to manufacture its fuel. Then, the human crew will
spend 200 to 350 days traveling to Mars, followed by their exploration of the
red planet, which could last up to 500 days.
Add
it all up, and that means the MAV must remain operational and ready for takeoff
for as many as four years after its initial landing on Mars. “It's been sitting
in the Mars environment,” says Rucker. “It's sitting in dust. There's intense
UV radiation. How does your patio furniture look after it's been sitting
outside for that long? That's on Earth, where it gets considerably more
protection than there.”
Suit Up!
Among
the many questions that engineers need to consider when designing the MAV, one
of the most important is, “What will the astronauts be wearing?”
The
downside of bringing a tunnel to Mars is that it adds the weight of a piece of
equipment that would be used only once. Rucker, though, thinks the tunnel could
have other uses.
“I
look at it as a cool thing to have,” she says. “Now, instead of a big, single
habitat, you can maybe take smaller habitats and use the tunnel to join them
together….It's never good to add a new element, but if it's an element that
solves a lot of problems, then it might be an advantage.”
Homeward Bound
Finally,
it’s time to go.
The
interior of the MAV will be spartan to minimize weight. This is a one-way space
taxi, not a habitat. In fact, the engineers might not even include seats—in
which case, the astronauts would stand for the duration of the trip.
The
rocket-powered ascent will last seven minutes. But the journey doesn’t end
there. The astronauts will need to burn more fuel to maneuver into an orbit
that will allow them to rendezvous and dock with the Earth Return Vehicle
(ERV).
That
means the astronauts could be aboard the ascent vehicle for up to 43 hours,
assuming that the ERV is parked in a “one sol orbit”—an elliptical orbit
ranging in altitude from 155 to 21,000 miles above the Martian surface. But,
Rucker says, this remains an unresolved issue among Mars mission planners.
“The
in-space propulsion guys, they want to keep that big, fat transit habitat up as
high as they can,” she says. “They don't want to dip down into the Mars gravity
well. They'd really love to stay at five or ten sol and make the ascent vehicle
come up to it.”
The
problem with that, Rucker says, is that a longer stay onboard the MAV will
require additional facilities.
“You
can stay in your spacesuit, and you can do without hot soup and a bathroom for
forty-three hours, probably,” she says. “But you start dragging into three
days, or five days, or seven days, you have to start adding all those things in
and that's going to drive up the size of the ascent vehicle.”
Once
docking is finally achieved—and the crew and cargo are transferred to the
spacecraft that will take them to Earth—the MAV detaches and performs a final
disposal maneuver, placing it into an orbit that won’t interfere with future
Mars missions: an ignoble end for a small spacecraft that will have played a
pivotal role in human history.
“You've
seen pictures on the space station,” says Rucker. “They're hanging out in
shorts and t-shirts. When you're in stable flight with a big vehicle, you can
get away with that. In the ascent vehicle, there's nowhere else to go. If you
pop a hole in it somewhere, you better have a suit on.”
But,
which suit? The ones that the astronauts will have been wearing while exploring
the surface of Mars—the extravehicular activity suits—are heavy and bulky.
If the astronauts wore those aboard the MAV, engineers would have to increase
the cabin size.
And
then there’s the problem of Martian dust that will be clinging to the suits.
That’s not the type of stuff that astronauts should be bringing home without
proper planetary protection protocols.
Rucker
believes the best solution is to leave the bulky suits on Mars, where a future
mission could salvage them for parts. Instead, the departing astronauts would
don “intra-vehicular activity” (IVA) suits—those puffy, orange outfits that the
shuttle crew wore aboard their spacecraft during launch and reentry.
The
IVA suits weigh less and are slightly more flexible. And they can be kept
dust-free by restricting their exposure to the “outdoor” Martian environment.
The astronauts would leave their habitat and get into a rover by means of a
docking port. While in the rover, they would change into their spiffy clean IVA
suits and drive over to the MAV, which they would enter by means of a specially
designed, pressurized tunnel.
Adapted
from:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151002-mars-mission-nasa-return-space/
"A Mars trip has all the ingredients for falling in love."
For the next 15 years, the astronauts will be honing their skills both on Earth and in outer space—even, likely, flying the Mars mission's small blastoff capsule to an asteroid near the moon as a test run. Once it begins, the actual mission will go something like this: The four crew members selected (potentially from this class and others) will spend two to three weeks in the launch capsule, then rendezvous with a larger spaceship—a.k.a. "home"—for the rest of the months-long journey. Once on Mars, they'll live up to a year in a structure that will have already been built by robots before returning to Earth. That's a long time for four people to be hermetically sealed together. Will they fight? Get romantic? In one series of NASA-funded studies known as HI-SEAS, six men and women spend up to a year in a 1,300-square-foot biodome on the side of a Hawaiian volcano to help answer those questions.
Suzanne Bell, Ph.D., a NASA-funded psychologist researching group dynamics on extended missions: A Mars trip has all the ingredients for falling in love, and researchers have seen the danger of that in simulated environments. In one incident a man made unwanted sexual advances toward a woman in the other group, and they decided to shut the hatch between the two groups. It's something NASA has to think about if they're going to send men and women to space together for three years.
Martha Lenio, Ph.D., 35, a former HI-SEAS volunteer who hopes to become an astronaut for Canada: We did have conflicts, like whose turn it was to vacuum, but nothing we couldn't work out. In general what I most worried about—like getting bored with the food since everything is freeze-dried or dehydrated—wasn't a problem at all. We'd compete on how creative we could get with taco and pizza nights. By the end of the eight months, some of my crew mates were really ready to get out, but I could have stayed longer!
Sheyna Gifford, M.D., 37, a doctor in St. Louis who is currently living in the HI-SEAS dome for a year: The researchers "back on Earth" (we consider ourselves "simulated astronauts" in "simulated space") are giving us tools to deal with the isolation. We have some virtual reality [VR] games that our loved ones at home can play too, so we can leave each other notes and photos or have treasure hunts. Another researcher is going to use VR to "send us to the beach" for a few minutes a week. That may prove very transportive!
"My son's life will change while I'm gone."
For a mission to Mars, crew members may be able to take only two shoe boxes' worth of personal belongings. But the hardest thing to leave behind? Family. Three of the astronauts are married, and two are mothers.
Koch: I'd definitely miss my husband. When I was at the South Pole, I packed boxes of things to take with me and opened one every few months, so I had something to look forward to. For Mars I'd ask my family and friends to make small surprises for me to open on designated dates. A handwritten card when you've been away 15 months can be the best thing imaginable.
McClain: [For a long-term mission today,] I'd want a way to video chat with my three-year-old son and my partner. Leaving them is the only downside to space travel; they are my everything. I'd also bring my son's stuffed monkey. He would dig seeing it floating in space.
Meir: I'd need music—the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I would definitely request mixes from a few specific friends, and I'd try to get access to The New York Times.
Mann: If I get tapped for the mission, I'll talk to my son about what I'll be doing. He's almost four now but will be a teen or in his twenties by then. His life will change while I'm gone. And that's a big sacrifice.
"From space you can't see borders."
If chosen for the expedition, these women and their fellow astronauts will make many big sacrifices. But they will also go on what could be humankind's greatest exploration to date—an experience those who came before them can only begin to imagine.
Richard Garriott de Cayeux, 54, a private astronaut who has traveled to the international space station: When you're floating in a slightly stale-smelling, noisy tin can, you have this experience astronauts call the overview effect: From space you can see how weather forms and moves, you can see Earth's tectonic plates' seams and deserts and oceans. And suddenly this place you've always thought of as vast looks small and fragile. It's impossible not to feel an urge to protect our environment and our planet.
Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Ph.D., 46, an astronaut who lived at the space station for almost six months: Every night I'd spend 90 minutes watching as we orbited Earth. You're passing it at 17,500 miles per hour, so you have only a moment to soak in the view before you're looking at something else. The most intense experience? My first spacewalk to repair a cooling pump that had failed. I understood how enormous and potentially dangerous it was to be stepping out into the vacuum of space [in nothing but a space suit]. I'm thrilled for the women who are coming after me. I can't wait to see where they go and what they do.
McClain: If we go to Mars, we'll be representing our entire species in a place we've never been before. To me it's the highest thing a human being can achieve.
Meir: What are people capable of? That idea of exploration has always been a part of the human experience. Trying to understand our place in the universe is what drives me more than anything.
McClain: Also, from space, you can't see borders. What you see is this lonely planet. Here we all are on it, so angry at one another. I wish more people could step back and see how small Earth is and how reliant we are on one another.
Mann: Just thinking about it gives me chills.
Adapted from : http://www.glamour.com/inspired/2016/01/nasa-women-astronauts-first-trip-to-mars
For the next 15 years, the astronauts will be honing their skills both on Earth and in outer space—even, likely, flying the Mars mission's small blastoff capsule to an asteroid near the moon as a test run. Once it begins, the actual mission will go something like this: The four crew members selected (potentially from this class and others) will spend two to three weeks in the launch capsule, then rendezvous with a larger spaceship—a.k.a. "home"—for the rest of the months-long journey. Once on Mars, they'll live up to a year in a structure that will have already been built by robots before returning to Earth. That's a long time for four people to be hermetically sealed together. Will they fight? Get romantic? In one series of NASA-funded studies known as HI-SEAS, six men and women spend up to a year in a 1,300-square-foot biodome on the side of a Hawaiian volcano to help answer those questions.
Suzanne Bell, Ph.D., a NASA-funded psychologist researching group dynamics on extended missions: A Mars trip has all the ingredients for falling in love, and researchers have seen the danger of that in simulated environments. In one incident a man made unwanted sexual advances toward a woman in the other group, and they decided to shut the hatch between the two groups. It's something NASA has to think about if they're going to send men and women to space together for three years.
Martha Lenio, Ph.D., 35, a former HI-SEAS volunteer who hopes to become an astronaut for Canada: We did have conflicts, like whose turn it was to vacuum, but nothing we couldn't work out. In general what I most worried about—like getting bored with the food since everything is freeze-dried or dehydrated—wasn't a problem at all. We'd compete on how creative we could get with taco and pizza nights. By the end of the eight months, some of my crew mates were really ready to get out, but I could have stayed longer!
Sheyna Gifford, M.D., 37, a doctor in St. Louis who is currently living in the HI-SEAS dome for a year: The researchers "back on Earth" (we consider ourselves "simulated astronauts" in "simulated space") are giving us tools to deal with the isolation. We have some virtual reality [VR] games that our loved ones at home can play too, so we can leave each other notes and photos or have treasure hunts. Another researcher is going to use VR to "send us to the beach" for a few minutes a week. That may prove very transportive!
"My son's life will change while I'm gone."
For a mission to Mars, crew members may be able to take only two shoe boxes' worth of personal belongings. But the hardest thing to leave behind? Family. Three of the astronauts are married, and two are mothers.
Koch: I'd definitely miss my husband. When I was at the South Pole, I packed boxes of things to take with me and opened one every few months, so I had something to look forward to. For Mars I'd ask my family and friends to make small surprises for me to open on designated dates. A handwritten card when you've been away 15 months can be the best thing imaginable.
McClain: [For a long-term mission today,] I'd want a way to video chat with my three-year-old son and my partner. Leaving them is the only downside to space travel; they are my everything. I'd also bring my son's stuffed monkey. He would dig seeing it floating in space.
Meir: I'd need music—the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I would definitely request mixes from a few specific friends, and I'd try to get access to The New York Times.
Mann: If I get tapped for the mission, I'll talk to my son about what I'll be doing. He's almost four now but will be a teen or in his twenties by then. His life will change while I'm gone. And that's a big sacrifice.
"From space you can't see borders."
If chosen for the expedition, these women and their fellow astronauts will make many big sacrifices. But they will also go on what could be humankind's greatest exploration to date—an experience those who came before them can only begin to imagine.
Richard Garriott de Cayeux, 54, a private astronaut who has traveled to the international space station: When you're floating in a slightly stale-smelling, noisy tin can, you have this experience astronauts call the overview effect: From space you can see how weather forms and moves, you can see Earth's tectonic plates' seams and deserts and oceans. And suddenly this place you've always thought of as vast looks small and fragile. It's impossible not to feel an urge to protect our environment and our planet.
Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Ph.D., 46, an astronaut who lived at the space station for almost six months: Every night I'd spend 90 minutes watching as we orbited Earth. You're passing it at 17,500 miles per hour, so you have only a moment to soak in the view before you're looking at something else. The most intense experience? My first spacewalk to repair a cooling pump that had failed. I understood how enormous and potentially dangerous it was to be stepping out into the vacuum of space [in nothing but a space suit]. I'm thrilled for the women who are coming after me. I can't wait to see where they go and what they do.
McClain: If we go to Mars, we'll be representing our entire species in a place we've never been before. To me it's the highest thing a human being can achieve.
Meir: What are people capable of? That idea of exploration has always been a part of the human experience. Trying to understand our place in the universe is what drives me more than anything.
McClain: Also, from space, you can't see borders. What you see is this lonely planet. Here we all are on it, so angry at one another. I wish more people could step back and see how small Earth is and how reliant we are on one another.
Mann: Just thinking about it gives me chills.
Adapted from : http://www.glamour.com/inspired/2016/01/nasa-women-astronauts-first-trip-to-mars
In first grade Jessica Meir made a drawing of herself standing on the
moon. Turns out she underestimated her own ambition: Today, at 38, Meir
could become the first human to touch down on an even farther
destination: Mars. A next step for man? Yes, and a giant leap for
womankind.
The mission itself is at least 15 years away—it will take that long
to build and test every last piece of equipment. But it's already the
most hotly anticipated space-exploration effort ever. Governments around
the world—in China, Europe, and Russia—have plans in the works to at
least land robots on Mars, while in the U.S., private companies like
SpaceX are partnering with NASA on a human mission and plotting their
own commercial trips. And unlike the 1960s race to the moon, this time
women are playing pivotal roles—building rockets, designing space suits,
and controlling the remote rovers that are already sending momentous
insights back from Mars.
A human landing will not, to put it mildly, be easy. The shortest
route to our planetary neighbor is 35 million miles. Just getting there
will take six to nine months; a round-trip, two to three years. "This
will be the longest, farthest, and most ambitious space-exploration
mission in history," says Dava Newman, Ph.D., NASA's deputy
administrator. Once they've landed, the astronauts will have to navigate
giant dust storms, temperatures that can plummet to minus 284 degrees
Fahrenheit in winter, and an atmosphere filled with cancer-causing
galactic radiation. If their equipment fails? NASA won't hear an SOS for
10 minutes. And there's no turning back. "It's not like the moon;
that's a three-day trip," says Jason Crusan, director of advanced
exploration systems at the agency. "When you go to Mars, you're going.
You can't abort."
And yet the pull is irresistible: The rovers have revealed a land of
swooping red dunes and craters. Evidence of water—not just ice, but
actual flowing water—has surfaced, and water is often
considered a sign of possible life. "Mars can teach us so much about the
past, present, and future of our own planet," says Meir. "That's a
phenomenal thing."
Also phenomenal? For the first time NASA's latest class of astronauts
is 50 percent female. A fearless group, Meir and her colleagues Anne
McClain, 36, Christina Hammock Koch, 37, and Nicole Aunapu Mann, 38,
have already flown combat missions in Iraq, braved the South Pole, and
dived under thick layers of ice in Antarctica. Last fall they gave Glamour exclusive access to watch them train at NASA's facilities in Houston—and talked about their epic adventure.
"I can't recall not wanting to be an astronaut."
NASA inducts a new class of prospective astronauts every four or five years, and competition is fierce. From application to acceptance, the process takes a year and a half and includes intensive psychological and medical testing. When these women were chosen for the class of 2013, NASA announced that they could be selected for an inaugural trip to Mars.
Anne McClain: There were more than 6,100 other
applicants for our class of eight, and I'd made my peace with not
getting in. I still remember getting the call that I'd been selected. I
couldn't breathe, I couldn't talk. I started crying. I grew up in
Spokane, Washington, and I can't recall ever not wanting to be
an astronaut. I learned a lot [serving 15 months] in Iraq, flying attack
helicopters at the front of the front lines. I joined the Army out of a
deep sense of duty, but wanting to be an astronaut feels more like my
destiny. With so much conflict in the world, space exploration can be a
beacon of hope. No one cares about race or religion or nationality in
space travel. We're all just part of Team Human.
Jessica Meir, Ph.D.: I had a fantastic view of the
stars from the teeny town in Maine where I grew up. Maybe that's why I
wanted to be an astronaut from such a young age. I've always been drawn
to remote places—and extreme challenges. While doing research on emperor
penguins for my Ph.D. in marine biology, I lived and worked in
Antarctica, where I also went scuba diving under several feet of ice.
Christina Hammock Koch: My bedroom wall in
Jacksonville, North Carolina, was covered in posters of the space
shuttle alongside ones of New Kids on the Block. I had always set my
sights on working with NASA, but I didn't want to get there by checking
the usual boxes, like learning to fly and scuba dive. I wanted to get
there because I was passionate about science and the next frontier. When
the opportunity to spend a year at the South Pole came up, I took it.
There I was in charge of more than 10,000 gallons of liquid helium to
keep the telescopes supercool. Our motto was "When the South Pole isn't
cold enough, call us."
Nicole Aunapu Mann: I'm probably one of the few astronauts who didn't
know that's what I wanted to do as a kid. "Astronaut" seemed like a
far-fetched dream. I'm from Penngrove, California, and it wasn't until
my first tour in Iraq flying fighter jets with the Marine Corps that I
realized one day I might actually be a good candidate. Going into space
will be the absolute coolest thing in the world.
"You never forget the first time you're weightless."
During their two years of training, astronaut candidates learn space skills: flying T-38 supersonic jets that can go 20 miles per minute to practice operating a spacecraft; mastering tasks under 40 feet of water in a massive pool called the Neutral Buoyancy Lab to get used to weightlessness; and surviving what they call the vomit comet.
Koch: The most exciting part for me has been the
T-38. As an engineer I'm used to going into my office to think through a
problem. But in a supersonic jet, you don't have that luxury!
Meir: For me one of the most rewarding things has
been spacewalk training. When you put on the suit, you weigh around 400
pounds. Two people help you into it, and a crane lowers you into the
pool. The whole six-hour session is incredibly physically challenging.
Your arms stand out at awkward angles because you're inflated; your
gloves are bulky and pressurized. Each motion, even just making a fist,
requires so much effort. You learn pretty quickly that trying to rush
really gets you nowhere. (As they always say, in the suit "slow is
fast.") At one point I saw a classmate in a space suit, and I thought,
Oh my God, he's really an astronaut. And then it hit me: After 30 years
of wanting this so badly, I'm an astronaut too.
Mann: The vomit comet totally blew my mind.
Meir: It's a large plane that's hollowed out. When
the pilot is at the top of the parabola and free-falls back down toward
the ground, you're weightless for about 25 seconds. You repeat that
cycle 30 or 40 times. A lot of people get sick, hence the name. You
never forget the first time you're weightless. I loved it.
McClain: We try to prepare [for everything]. Let's
say you get a toothache—will someone on the crew be trained as a
dentist? When you get there [after nine months], how sure on your feet
will you be? But I have no doubt NASA will find solutions. Walking out
to the launch pad, would there be that fear? Absolutely. But if you
don't face your fears, the only thing you'll ever see is what's in your
comfort zone.
Adapted from : http://www.glamour.com/inspired/2016/01/nasa-women-astronauts-first-trip-to-mars
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