Thinking: May 2006 Archives

The project that I spend 50% of my time on makes me feel like an idiot.

This afternoon, with Gavin back at JPL, I was summoned into action to explain a design process to our new summer co-op. I stumbled over half my words, couldn't answer half his questions, and looked like an idiot as I couldn't get half of the programs to work correctly the first time.

This is my constant problem with this project, and it's plagued me for two years. See, feeling stupid makes me procrastinate, because I'd rather work on things that don't make me feel stupid. Then I get behind and forget how to do even the simple things that I'd managed to understand. Then I want to quit the project entirely because I feel like I am making zero contribution, and hate feeling like an idiot all the time. So I tell myself that I'm thinking irrationally, and promise myself to try harder. I come to work feeling reinspired, only to inevitably hit some roadblock within approximately 15 minutes. I feel like an idiot all over again.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

This is why I don't think I'm meant to be an engineer for much longer.

On a less depressing note, my brother continues his travels in Europe with this amusing tale (and apparently his typing sucks):

"Dublin was miserably cold, rainy, and sort of depressing; but the Guiness ,useu, was cool and included free fresh Guiness in a bar overlooking the city. I stayed up there a while since the weather was bad, and found some other Americans to talk to. From Dublin I flew yesterday to Eindhove. I took the train from there to Maastrict and then to Belgium. I had poorly planned and aound up at a train station at 2 in the morning, surrounded by unsavory characters and no other trains for over two hours. Luckily a guy who turned out to be Irish and from Kilkenny spotted me and realized I was in a bad situation. He let me stay the night on his couch to catch a few hours sleep before heading out in the morning. He told me how he could tell I wasnt sure what to do and wanted to help because a lot of people there and in the rest of Europe wouldnt in a similar situation. Thankfully Irish people are very friendly and he tunred out to be in the right place at the right time for me. I wont make the mistake of being in a train station witout somewhere to go again."

While I was busy flying on the Vomit Comet yesterday, my brother was busy graduating from Carolina with his Masters of Accounting! Congratulations Brian! (Photos courtesy of muh sustah Katie.)

Jose took me to the symphony last Friday night to hear them perform Holst's "The Planets" while they showed imagery from Voyager and the Hubble on two big screens above the orchestra. It was very cool to hear "Mars" while flying through Valles Marineris, and "Jupiter" while watching the Great Red Spot whirl and swirl.

It was also very cool to get dressed up and go out on the town, even if my Vomit Comet physiological training and the fact that I wasn't done until after 5:30 meant that our "romantic dinner" consisted of stopping at Whataburger on the way home and eating it on my coffee table. ;)

This was the first time I've seen the Houston Symphony and they did not disappoint. What did disappoint me, however, was the imagery used in the slideshow. It didn't appear to be something the Symphony itself put together, and so perhaps the responsibility doesn't lie with them, but the photos were quite out of date. Stunning, yes, but dated -- I estimate that it must have been made about 10 years ago. There were a few photos from Mars Pathfinder (1996), but the images of the outer planets were all from Voyager and Pioneer. There were none of Galileo's amazing images of Jupiter and its moons (or Venus, which it flew by) from the late 1990s. There were none of Cassini's stunning photos of Saturn and Titan from its past two years in orbit there. And there were none of Spirit and Opportunity's awesome pictures of the surface of Mars.

I doubt most of the audience even noticed. But that, combined with Space Day on Saturday, has had me thinking about NASA's public image lately.

Space Day was held Saturday at the George Observatory, a small observatory about an hour away from Clear Lake in Brazos Bend State Park. I went to take photos, but I listened to a lot of the presentations as well. First up was "Mad Science" from the Houston Museum of Natural Science, with an hour-long session led by the very engaging Dr. Molecule. He lit things on fire! He made fog! He sucked an egg into a flask! It was fun, it was entertaining, and the kids loved it.

A little later, an astronaut spoke. He stood at the front of the room and showed some Powerpoint slides with neat photos of training and his mission. He used big words and long sentences. He called it a "manipulator" instead of a robot arm. He said the shuttle has "very poor aerodynamic performance" on entry instead of saying it drops like a brick. He didn't invite interaction from the kids.

Everything he said was entirely precise and technically accurate. And everything he said sounded boring.

The kids looked around. They poked their friend next to them. The shifted in the chairs and shuffled their feet on the floor. The adults asked some questions, but the kids were gone. Their attention was elsewhere. They wanted to know when they could get out of that stuffy classroom and go pet the snake outside in the lobby, or make a balloon rocket.

Why is it that astronauts are selected based solely on their technical merit? Is it because we think that the space shuttle can only be flown by the country's smartest people? (News flash: any of you reading this could probably fly it too with the proper training.) I do not by any means intend to slight or belittle the astronauts here; they are incredibly intelligent people and have done amazing things. But fact is, astronauts are the public face of NASA, and sometimes I think they could be doing a better job.

NASA gets applications from thousands of technically qualified people who want to be astronauts. Instead of choosing one over the other because one has a Ph.D. versus a "mere" Bachelor's degree, can you imagine what things might be like if a happy and outgoing personality was just as big a factor in selection? If public speaking skills were required? If educational outreach experience was a consideration?

Just imagine what could happen if the most public faces of NASA were never boring!

When we flew on the Vomit Comet in 1999, my pre-flight training ride in the hypobaric chamber was interesting -- after a couple minutes of breathing air at a simulated 25,000 feet, I put down my pencil, looked up, and completely zoned out. I have a hazy memory of the test conductors helping me put my mask back on, and regaining my senses on the 100% oxygen it provided. I expected a similar reaction yesterday. So imagine my surprise when my hypoxia symptoms this time around were totally different!

After pre-breathing 100% oxygen for half an hour to rid our bodies of some nitrogen and lower the risk of getting the bends (yep, just like a scuba diver), we went from sea level to 25,000 feet in a mere five minutes. This is accomplished, of course, by sucking air out of the chamber with a big vacuum pump. The percentage of oxygen doesn't change, but the partial pressure does. Your body can't get as much oxygen and you start to feel, well, drunk. Yep, breathing the air at 25,000 feet has about the same effect as drinking a six pack!

The people on the other side of the chamber took off their masks first, so I got to laugh and point at Becca, who was sitting across from me and exhibits the classic symptom -- euphoria. It was fun egging her on in her hypoxic state. Mwa ha ha.

After that it was my turn to drop my mask and instantly go to the level of Mt. Everest. I expected to feel dizzy quickly, and then start to zone out. Instead, and surprisingly, I can honestly say that I never really lost track of where I was or what was going on. I was breathing more deeply, a little dizzy, a little happy, and a little slow, but I stayed coherant for the entire five minutes. I lost some awareness -- for instance, I didn't notice that the teacher next to me was totally cheating by looking at my worksheet (which has simple math problems and questions to test your reasoning as you get more and more hypoxic). And at three minutes, I wrote down that my symptom was "hot cheeks," which amused everyone later on as we descended back to sea level.

It took me a little while to realize that my difference in symptoms is probably due to the fact that between 1999 and 2006, I became a runner. I raised my level of fitness. I am in far better shape now than I was seven years ago, and I think it showed in the hypobaric chamber.

It's funny that it took a hypobaric chamber run to make me realize that even when I'm berating myself for having been a lazy bum over the past few months, I'm still so much farther ahead than I once was.

Letters to the Editor, Stanford Magazine, May/June 2006:

I am writing as a proud alumnus of Stanford and a proud faculty member at Georgia Tech. The article "Turning the Tide" (November/December) describes an Indonesian student who wanted to study industrial engineering at Georgia Tech. The student was urged "to raise his sights and think about Stanford." Raise his sights? The engineering programs at both Georgia Tech and Stanford are typically considered among the top five nationally. In fact, Georgia Tech's industrial engineering program has been ranked No. 1 in the nation every year for more than a decade. In the future, please refrain from publishing disparaging comments about peer institutions.

Mark Prausnitz, '88
Atlanta, Georgia

And as a proud alumnus of both Georgia Tech and Stanford, I'd have to say: Right on, Mark. Hear, hear.