[NASA logo]

[Video of NASA Space Program history including John Glenn's orbiting the Earth, moon landing, and building of the International Space Station]

[Sherri Jurls speaking on screen]

Sherri: Good morning, all of you out there in world-wide Web land. My name is Sherri Jurls and I am your host today for a very special Web cast being broadcast live from Johnson Space Center here in Houston, Texas, on behalf of the Distance Learning Outpost and NASA Ames Quest.

Our guest today is engineer, Ralph Anderson.

[Sherri and Ralph Anderson on screen]

Now this Web cast is in support of National Engineers Week, and we are spotlighting Ralph Anderson as part of Black History Month as well.

[Ralph shown on screen]

Now Ralph is responsible for crew member equipment from food and clothing to communications and video equipment in the Center Director's office in the Systems Management Office. So it's a new department and he's going to talk with us about that today.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Ralph also has his bachelor of science in electronics, and he has a masters degree in Business and Public Administration. So he has quite a well-rounded history behind him.

But first let's take a few moments and ask Ralph to tell us a little bit about himself. Ralph.

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Okay. Thank you, Sherri. Good morning. I come from a small town over in Southern Mississippi. I went to Franklin High School and then on to Alcorn State University.

I got interested in NASA actually in elementary school. There was a guy from NASA that came out and did an educational demonstration, and in that he showed some things using liquid nitrogen where he froze a banana and drove a nail down like a hammer, and he froze a rose and it crushed like little pebbles of glass. I thought, boy, that's what I want to do.

Of course during that time we were going to the Moon and that was on television every day so I got interested in NASA. I went on to Alcorn and got the electronics degree that you had mentioned. After that I came to work out here for a company called Lockheed Electronics. At the time it was Lockheed Electronics, and I got to do some hands on engineering work. We designed and built some panels for the space shuttle. They're called a standard switch panel, manual plumbing controller and a jettison pointing panel.

These are control switches to operate things in the payload bay. Those boxes still fly today. Sherri, they still use them on all shuttle flights.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Then over the years I progressed in ever increasing responsibilities and

[Ralph speaking on screen]

eventually became Manager of the Flight Crew Equipment Office in the shuttle program, and that led me to the office that I am in now where I work for the Center Director, and we do investigative work for the Center Director and assessments of other programs.

So that's in a nutshell my 23 years of being out here and how I came to be where I am.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: Wonderful. So you had aspirations from elementary school on, and you obviously chose a career path from that early age on. What kind of classes did you take in junior high school, high school, so on, to prepare?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: I'm glad you asked that because I tell kids all the time that it's a journey that begins in elementary school, junior high for some. Math and science are essential. You almost have to have a burning desire for math and science. They are cornerstones in this field. So I had classes from algebra all the way up through calculus and trig in high school, and then of course those classes became more difficult and more depth in college.

So I would say a good math background is very important and as well as a science and chemistry background.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: I know you've worked on several projects out here at Johnson Space Center and I'm sure all of us out there would be interested to hear, I know one of them's the SAFER Project, and any other parts of your job that you want to tell us about.

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: The SAFER was probably one of the most fun things that I did. I headed a team that built the device and a lot of people refer to it as the jet pack. It flew on STS64, astronauts Carl Meade and Mark Lee test flew it, and they were untethered and at the time that was a pretty big thing.

They were untethered. That means that they were not attached to any part of the structure on the shuttle, and they flew around and tested the device.

You see in space, if you become separated from the vehicle, you're going to float away forever, and you'll never be able to get back.

[Video showing crew member flying with SAFER on his back]

There is some video on the monitor now. It shows a crew member flying, in fact, with the SAFER on his back.

It's, yes, you can see at the bottom of the EMU suit, it's the small rectangular container, and the tires up each side of the portable life support, that's the big back pack, are where the thrusters are. A gas called nitrogen is gaseous nitrogen that's used to propel the crew member around.

Now you don't need a lot of pressure to move around in space. Very small, very light amounts is all you need because you don't need to move fast. The thing we say in space is, you move slow, slow is good. There's no need in getting in a hurry. It's not like TV where you jet around. So jet pack is kind of a misnomer, but you want to move small and precise steps, and that's what the SAFER device is for.

If you fall overboard as I was saying, if you fall overboard and you can't get back, you turn the SAFER on, point yourself back toward the structure and slowly propel yourself back.

[Video showing the crew members training the SAFER under water]

Here's some video showing the crew members training on the SAFER under water. That's up at INBF facility. You see we practice and rehearse every event and every scenario on the ground before we go EVA.

These crew members, they were practicing a maneuver they were going to do in space at a later time and of course the SAFER is there because it's there in case they become separated while doing their work.

Sherri: I believe this is live video we're watching so it's fascinating to watch astronauts actually training in the neutral buoyancy laboratory right now.

Ralph: Yes, and it's good to see hardware that you've worked on still being used. This is turned over to production now, as I did a test flight project and now it's standard practice. The SAFER is onboard the space station now and it's used every time a crew member goes EVA.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: You say, SAFER. Is that an acronym? Can you tell us what it stands for?

Ralph: Yes, I say it like everybody should know what that is, and that's a fault for being at NASA for so long. SAFER stands for Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue.

Sherri: What's EVA?

Ralph: It's like an acronym in an acronym. EVA is Extra Vehicular Activity. That means when you go outside the vehicle, you're outside. You're in your own spacecraft and that's EVA. A lot of folks have seen people in movies that suit up to go outside. You have to take your environment with you.

Well, if you get out there and can't get back, you need a motorized vehicle to get you back, and that's where the SAFER comes in.

[Ralph speaking on screen]

The acronym is, it makes you safer to do the EVA. That's how the acronym came to be. It's kind of like having a spare tire and a jack if you will, in case you have a flat, in case something happens.

[Back to Sherri and Ralph]

Sherri: Well, very interesting. Well, Ralph, we've already had a bunch of questions start coming in and students we're going to start taking your questions now. Let's go ahead and look at the first question.

Mrs. Jackson's 5^th grade class writes in, and they want you to please explain the quote on your biography. They read that before the event today. Let me just for everyone out there who maybe hasn't had an opportunity to read Ralph's biography, let me read that quote and then Ralph, we're going to have you explain it to us.

Ralph: Okay.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Sherri: You say, "the same side of the moon always faces the Earth all the time no matter where you are on the Earth, or at what time you look up. Do you know why? I do and I can explain it to you." So let's have the answer, Ralph.

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Okay. I can do that by demonstration. I have a model of the Earth, and I'll use a little piece of Styrofoam ball for the moon. First of all you have to understand a little bit about celestial bodies and how they orbit.

The Earth orbits around the Sun and it takes a full year to do that. You've learned that in school, and that's a 365 day trip to get around the Sun. Well, as the Earth orbits the Sun it spins on its own axis, and we'll show you that now.

[Ralph is demonstrating with a globe the Earth spinning on its axis]

So the Earth is spinning on its own axis like this as it travels around the Sun. Okay. So keep that in mind.

Sherri and Ralph on screen with Ralph demonstrating with a Styrofoam ball the moon orbiting around the Earth]

The moon, which I'll use as an example here for the moon a Styrofoam ball, it moves around the Earth and it matches the orbit around the Earth, but it's in such a position that the same side of the moon faces the Earth as it goes around its orbit around the Earth. Another way to say that is that the moon is far enough away from the Earth that as it turns it stays in the exact same position as the Earth spins. That's why everyone on the Earth eventually sees the moon because the Earth is spinning at a faster rate.

[Picture of the full moon]

So that picture on the monitor is what everyone, everywhere on the Earth sees. We never have seen the back side of the moon. That's why people say, go to the dark side of the moon. You'll never see it.

[Ralph demonstrating with the ball and globe]

So as the Earth spins wherever you are on it, you're gong to eventually see the moon, and when you do see it, though, you're going to see the same side that someone in the United States or Africa or Russia or wherever saw.

It takes the moon 29-1/2 days to make its complete trip around the Earth. So that's why the moon has those 29-1/2 day phases which we call the phases of the moon. So that's why we always see the same side of the moon wherever we see it, wherever we are on Earth.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: Ralph, how interesting. I learned something new today. I wasn't even aware of that. I thought that whenever I looked up in the sky and saw the moon that I might be seeing the back side or the front side. So I'm always looking at the same side.

Ralph: Let me explain that, a little bit about that. The moon is said in some ways, to be geo-synchronous to the Earth

[Ralph speaking on screen]

although that's a little different from geo-synchronous orbit. Our satellites that we get cable TV on and they're in geo-synchronous orbit. What that means is these satellites face the same spot on the Earth all the time and no matter where the Earth rotates the satellites are still there.

So the moon in some ways is geo-synchronous with respect to the Earth and its own orbit. So that's good to explain that to people and now they can explain it to others whenever they talk about the moon.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Sherri: Well, Mrs. Jackson's class, you guys can now go explain to all of your classmates that they're always seeing the same side of the moon and you know why. You can explain it to them.

Well, the next question we have is from Stephanie. She's a 6^th grade student and she writes in, Ralph, of all the jobs you've performed, which one was your favorite?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: That's an easy. SAFER, hands down. That was a case where we were doing something that was risky, it had a high pay-off, it was fun, but we were building a new device, we had new features that we put in. We had a low budget, we had a short time to do it, and we had the freedom to explore. So for me that was the high point.

Now I've done many other jobs too, preparing hardware for shuttle flights for those years that I was in the shuttle program was very gratifying too because each and every flight that we prepared hardware for was for a new crew and a new set of jobs. Seeing the guys go into space and come back successfully, complete their mission, was gratifying every time. So we got a chance to like have a new adventure with every shuttle flight.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: Did you work on a team on this project or was it more an individual project, the SAFER project for you?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: The SAFER was made up of about 15 key engineers, I would say, or lead engineers. We had a specialist for electronics, some for the propulsion system. Some different ones who did the design, the mechanical design. We had an electrical lead, and we had a person over in MOD that orchestrated the training and the things that the crew members would do when they were on orbit. So it was a team effort.

I led the whole team as project manager. I was responsible for budget, overall guidance of the project, when enough was enough for a design. Our engineers will design a thing until it, they could add features forever, and at some point someone has to, if you will, be the coach and say that's good enough and let's wrap it up and deliver a product.

So that was my job, to keep those guys together and they were good people to begin with and so it was not a hard job at all. Not an easy thing but not a difficult job, and like I said, it was the most fun thing that I've done.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Well, we've got another question from Jamal, who's a 10^th grade home schooling student out of Mississippi. Jamal wants to know, now that you're a manager, do you miss the hands on stuff like building the shuttle instrumentation panels and those sorts of things?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, first off, hi, Jamal, you're from my hometown and it's good to see someone from back over in Mississippi there paying attention. Do I miss the hands on stuff? Yes, some, but I do a lot of that on hobbies at home. I'm into woodworking which I did mention when we were talking about the bio (inaudible). I do build kits and I still tinker with electronics and every now and then I'll try to fix something around the house. So I miss the hands on work that I did early on in my career, but I still meet that need with the hobbies that I do at home.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen.

Sherri: So you are a multi-talented man.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Next question is from Marie. She is a 6^th grade student. She wants to know what kinds of courses do you teach?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Over at San Jacinto you can imagine it's going to be in the field of engineering and there is my specialty area. I teach a course called, Digital Fundamentals. It teaches the inner workings of a computer, logic circuits, how (an and nan) gates work.

I also teach a class called DC circuits. It teaches the, it's the introductory course for electronics in the understanding of direct current. I also teach alternating current and it is a follow-on course for that. These are some very basic courses in the field of electronics.

Students usually at that point decide whether or not they're going to pursue the field because if their interest is not there or the difficulty is one that they aren't up to, they opt out of the programs.

So these are what I think pivotal courses in determining whether you're going to be an engineer or not.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: All right. We've got a great question from Nathan. He says, in your bio you say you were hooked after that NASA person's visit, but he wants to know what made you decide engineering as opposed to other options like being an astronaut or scientist or anything else like that?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Engineering was an end, not the direct object, I wanted to work in the aerospace program. In fact, on those early days I envisioned working in one of the Mission Control rooms and what I saw was those guys sitting at the monitors, monitoring what the crews did, and that's how I started out. As I progressed I realized that those jobs in the control rooms are just one part of what we do.

In fact, those jobs are limited to just mission coverage. The work that goes behind the scenes for designing and building equipment is much more interesting, and to me personally, more rewarding. So that's how I eventually led to that and not necessarily the mission or control room work.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: All right. Ann's a 4^th grade student and writes in, what kinds of things do your teams work on?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Now we're in the Director's office and the work is not, we're not building hardware anymore. The group that I'm in now, we come in and evaluate other programs performance, how they've done, if they've had problems we go in and try to help them find ways to fix the things that have gone wrong, learn from what they've done so their future projects will not make the same mistakes again.

We do have failures here in our program and we try to learn from that ways to improve and not repeat those. So that's the kind of work I'm about now and it helps us watch our money too because we're under close scrutiny for how we spend our money and so we find ways not to have failures which are very closely when we have to go back and repeat things. So that's the kind of work I am in now and it's a work that's a progressive work because you have to have had done the things that we're reviewing before you can evaluate them.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Sherri: Tommy wants to know, what kinds of equipment does the crew need?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: That's good, Tommy, you're, I'll be a good straight man for you. We just happen to have some props here of some of the things that the crew members use on orbit.

Say a crew member gets tired and he wants to go to sleep. Well, in space since everything's floating you just can't lay in a bed and cover up.

[Ralph demonstrating sleeping bag]

We have these sleeping bags and they are zipped open and they have little hooks and I don't know if you guys can see out on the monitor there,

[Picture of sleeping bag]

they've got these little hooks that are pre-determined places in the vehicle where they snap them in place. Yes, there's one there on the monitor if you can look and see it.

Sherri: Inside of the sleeping bag?

Ralph: They get inside the sleeping bag, zip it shut, and it holds them in place, and it's usually just like the picture shows, it's fastened to the wall which would be vertical and of course if we're on the ground you'd be feeling like you're hanging off the side of the wall.

But in space since you're in zero G, you're always floating and so gravity is not a factor.

[Video of crew member getting out of a sleeping bag]

Yes, if you can see the monitor there's a person getting in, well getting in or out, that's Eileen Collins one of our crew members getting out of the sleeping bag.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Sherri: Okay, what other kinds of equipment besides just sleeping bags? I know you've said you've got lots of props here. Anything else you want to talk about the crew members need.

[Ralph demonstrating a tether]

Ralph: Yes, this is a tether, and what is a tether? Well, in space or in the cabin you want to put these down, they don't stay put, and so you need a bungy cord or something to snap things down so they can stay where you leave them. So what we came up with is a thing, it's like a bungy cord, it's a flexible cord, and it's got these little hooks on them. There's an interesting story about the hooks themselves.

These used to be, look like coat hangers and you just hooked them around something to stay put. Well, I interviewed the flight crews after each flight on how the equipment worked. Well, after one flight an astronaut, his name was Jim Newman, he came back and reported that one of these form of hooks that looked like coat hangers came loose and it came by his face with whizzing by as the spring pulled back and it barely missed his face. We launched a safety investigation and we determined that we need to put a little safety hook on that so that when we bend this back to hook it in place it stays back and we keep them from coming loose.

You might ask, well, what's this white cloth around it? That's a gortex material that prevents the tether from catching fire. This is a flame retardant material.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: I know we have some very interesting video footage of the tether and inside I know that the tether can be used for all sorts of things and you were explaining what it's made of, but when you move around inside of the station you can't just swim around, you're not going to get anywhere very fast. I know that one of the things that they can use the tethers for, they can hook these hooks up

[Sherri demonstrating the tether]

and then they can sort of pull themselves along like a lifeline and cruise long distances around inside of the station.

I know they also use them outside. You're saying that things don't stay hooked and stay in place inside the space station because of micro-gravity, but the same holds true for outside as well. All the tools that they're using when they're putting together the space station projects, putting together all the pieces. They hook all their tools to the station as well and they just tether them to their space suits. What a simple thing, just little bungy cords.

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Right. Okay. There are a couple other things that we've got here that we could show. In space you have a suit that you put on and we call that the launch entry suit or crew escape suit, and you've seen the orange suits before on television I'm sure, but that suit's crew member has to wear that for something like 4-1/2 hours before a flight and the first few minutes of a space flight.

So during that time if they had to go, they would have to relieve themselves some way, and getting out of the suit is not an option.

[Ralph demonstrating diaper]

So we've employed something pretty simple, it's just a regular diaper and it's capable of holding about 32 oz. of fluid. The crew members can use this if they have to go. Kids always find that interesting and that's how we do that in EVA as well, because some EVAs last up to 6-1/2 to 7 hours. A crew member has to drink water to stay hydrated and keep themselves fit and not dehydrate. So it's very important that this water is contained because water inside a space suit is a bad deal.

[Back to Sherri]

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Well, there are lots of opportunities with engineering-type degrees here at Johnson Space Center, and one of those is a flight controller. I want to share with all of you, we have a very special short presentation from flight controller Elizabeth Keith about what she does and what kind of opportunities you can consider in engineering out here at Johnson Space Center.

[Video of Lori Keith]

Lori: Hi, I'm Lori Keith with NASA Quest. I work at the Johnson Space Center here in Houston, Texas. Today I want to share with you an area of careers for engineering you might not know about, NASA Flight Controllers.

Now we all know that scientists and astronauts are important, their jobs, but the flight controllers are the backbone of every mission. It's their job to monitor and maintain what they call the health of the vehicle, whether that vehicle is the ISS or one of the shuttles, and if a problem arises it is their job to figure out how to fix it or how to work around it.

Their jobs are crucial to the success of every NASA space flight mission. On that note, I would like to introduce you to…

[Video of Elizabeth King]

Elizabeth: Hi, my name is Elizabeth King and I am a nuclear engineer. I work here at NASA's Johnson Space Center as a Flight Controller for the International Space Station. I'm a member of the Electrical (inaudible) Assistance Team and our call sign is FALCON. FALCON stands for power, heating, articulation and lighting control officer. We are responsible for all power provided to the International Space Station. It is necessary for all the equipment on the station. Without power there would be no lights or heaters.

Behind me is a mock-up of a flight control console. We use this console to train our flight controllers. We enter in malfunctions so that our flight controllers can recognize things when they break and learn how to fix them.

These simulators help prepare us for missions. We practice to be perfect so when a mission occurs we are ready. This is only a small part of the many things we do to train as electrical power systems flight controllers for the International Space Station.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: We enjoyed that. Elizabeth, thank you for sharing with us your job and maybe inspiring some of us out there across the nation and across the world who might be tuning in today.

Well, we're going back to your questions now and the next question is from Laura, who's an 8^th grade student in Dickinson. Ralph, she wants to know what do you like working best about NASA?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Okay, Dickinson, that's close by. This is a fun job. It's the only place where you can do the kind of work that we do, working and doing things in space. There's no other work like that in the whole world. I truly enjoy getting up to go and do that every day and I urge all of the children as you pursue careers, find a job, a career or something that you like because once you start working you're going to work a long time, and it will be horrible to get up every day and not want to go to work. You find a job that you enjoy, you'll excel at it.

Now I enjoy what I'm doing and it's led to success because I enjoy my work. You'll ask anyone that's successful, they enjoy what they're doing. You will not be successful doing work that you don't enjoy. So find the thing that you like to do most, and there are so many different careers that you can pursue here at NASA.

There's people who cook, there's people who prepare food, there's doctors, there's engineers, there's scientists, there's research people, there are astronauts, there are pilots, there are technicians, there are mechanics that fix the cars out here, fix the equipment on the shuttle. There's every discipline, we have accountants, people who handle our money, so there's managers like myself. So there's every kind of opportunity for anything that you might want to imagine that you'd want to do right here within the aerospace community. So it's not all just space.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: Ralph, what do you think makes NASA so special then?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, it's the risk, it's doing the space work. It's to take the chance of doing something that's not done ordinarily.

If you ever get an opportunity to watch a shuttle lift off and see the awesome power that's there and see how much thrust is behind that vehicle and how powerful that is, and then see how in space see the person that you worked with and helped train and prepare for a job, go ahead and do a job and come back and then that's so thrilling it's just hard to describe, but it is truly a rewarding thing to be a part of a mission so great as what we're doing and see it come to a reality.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Well, speaking of shuttle lift-off, we have one scheduled for tomorrow, so if any of you are interested and have never seen one before or you've seen one and you just want to watch another one, we have one scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center tomorrow, you can check the details and even watch it online if you don't have NASA TV on your television or if your news doesn't cover it, but that Web site is spaceflight.NASA.gov, and you can get the exact time that it will be scheduled to lift off tomorrow morning in your time zone, and watch it on the computer.

So there will be your next opportunity to watch a space shuttle launching from Kennedy Space Center. Let's take your next question. Aaron writes in from Louisiana. He's a 5^th grader and wants to know what were your favorite subjects in school?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Aaron I'm, math, I'd have to say math. I guess at about 6^th through 8^th grades I really got to clicking in math and that and geometry. Later in high school physics, and when I got in college I really excelled in physics. In fact I ended up with a job in the physics lab and I worked for the instructor, so I guess math first, geometry, and then physics. Those were my favorite subjects in school.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Okay. Well, Tina's a 4^th grade student and she wants to know, did you ever want to be an astronaut?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Tina, no, that was never an aspiration of mine to fly in the vehicle. That certainly might have been a possibility but I never envisioned flying in the vehicle or going into space as an astronaut. I always got the thrills in my career from doing the work that I do and that is the support work, building the equipment, seeing it work.

The astronaut's job is a very different one. It's a demanding job. There's so much training and preparation for it, but it's a very short job. Our typical flights last about 8-10 days, and even if you stayed on the space station, you're only there for 3, 4 months and maybe 6 at the most months, and then that's it for a while.

However, the work I get to do happens every single day, and so that's one of the reasons why I chose the field that I did.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: If you didn't want to be an astronaut, Adam is a 5^th grader here in Texas, and he wants to know, do you get to work with any astronauts?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Yes, Adam, I've had the privilege of interviewing every flight crew from the time I became the Manager in the Flight Crew Equipment Office up until I left that office, and one of the high points of that was astronaut John Glenn. He was, as you know, he flew, the first astronaut, but he came back and flew on the shuttle a few years ago, and after that flight he like all the other astronauts come in and we interview them, and I lead the team that interviews them about how the equipment we prepared for them worked during their flight.

Astronaut Glenn answered those questions, and he was just as humble a person,

[Picture of John Glenn drinking from a drink bag]

in fact there he is on the monitor now showing him using the drink bag. He was a senator too so I referred to him as Senator Glenn, but it was very humbling to interview someone who is a pioneer, a true hero, and here I am, I was just a child like you when he first flew interviewing, and asking him questions about his experience in space. It's certainly something I'll never forget and another one of the high points being able to be in a position to get a chance to do something like that.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: All right, Julian, thanks for your question. Julian's an 8^th grade student and wants to know if you want your kids to follow in hour footsteps by working at NASA or being an engineer or both?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: I believe children should pursue their own heart. It would be nice and certainly any father would be proud to see their kids follow his footsteps, but as they choose fields I think it's more to do work that you really have a burning desire to do, and if aerospace or engineering is not in their heart, then they should not do it to please me.

So you or any other child, you should pursue the thing that you do best, the thing that you enjoy most, and if that's something different from what your parents do, then so be it. That's what I think because you'll ultimately succeed and be much more adjusted and a happier person if you do work that you enjoy.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Clark is a 6^th grade student from Panama City and he wants to know what exactly does an engineer do?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, Clark, an engineer does a lot of different things. It just depends. You have engineers who do design work, who think things up, and draw them up on paper and turn them over to another group to build.

You have engineers who repair systems, who can go and look at hardware and tell what went wrong with it and how to repair it.

You have other engineers who review entire systems of hardware and make recommendations on how to build in corrections or improvements.

Then you've got engineers who are in what we call reliability or safety, and those people review the possibilities of things that might go wrong with hardware as its used and how long it might last.

So there are a lot of different types of jobs for engineers to pursue, and they are not limited to just design work. So engineering does a lot of things.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Wow, it's a wide open field isn't it?

Ralph: Yes.

Sherri: Tanya writes in with a great question. She wants to know if you have ever felt discriminated against in your career?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, you know, I have to say no. I don't look for that but it's a pertinent question and I guess as professional ranks go I believe as you move up in your career and as people are more educated and more comfortable with themselves, you see less of that phenomenon happen. Early in your career when people are fighting for positions and they're all insecure about their own work, then you might see age discrimination, you might even see race discrimination, and you might even see gender discrimination, but that usually comes from those who are just insecure with themselves, but as you progress and as I've progressed through the years, I've rarely, rarely ever encountered any of that at all.

So I'd have to say it's not been an encumbrance. I've moved along at a pretty good clip as far as promotions go here at NASA, and I've been pretty successful. So no, I haven't seen any overt racism, no.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Sherri: All right. We've got a 7^th grade student named Shelly from Washington, who wants to know that she read where the shuttles are being overhauled but wants to know are they still using the panels that you worked on?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Yes, yes they do. The standard switch panel is on L10 and L11, and the aft and mid deck. L means on the left side, 10 is the location of that panel. It's a deck where you can oversee the payload bay looking out the back windows of the shuttle, and you can see the reactions to what you're turning on and off in the payload bay.

Those panels are the main controls for devices releasing satellites and controlling devices that are out in the payload bay. Yes, they still fly, and they're still almost identically designed to the way they were back when we designed them back in 1979.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: Ralph, I know that you worked on supporting some of the food components for the crew, all different kinds of equipment. We're going to, if we can have you talk about food here in just a minute.

One thing, we do have a quick video clip that we would like to share with all of you out in world wide Web land. You can imagine that eating in space can be quite challenging in that micro-gravity environment your food floating all over the place. Well, our astronauts have had a little bit of fun with this fact, and they have taken a video camera up on a couple of occasions and taped themselves playing with their food, and we want to share that quick funny video clip with you. Let's watch.

[Video of astronauts eating and playing with food]

[Back to Sherri]

Well, I hope that you enjoyed that. I don't know about all of you out there but I sure would like to try to chase my apple around inside the space station. It looks like a lot of fun.

Well, Ralph, will you talk to us a little bit about the space food.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Ralph: Sure, that was fun looking at that and seeing some of those crew members I know and work with some of those guys over the years.

[Ralph demonstrating food tray]

In space this is something we use called a food tray and like you said, Sherri, things don't stay in place. The tray is covered with little Velcro tabs.

Sherri: Is that what these white dots are?

Ralph: Yes, those are Velcro tabs. NASA did not invent Velcro but Velcro is used so extensively people associate us with Velcro, although we did not invent it here in NASA.

These are pile and then we have a system for this. The pile pieces are always put against the wall and the hook pieces are the things that hook to the pile. So that's where the hook and pile are used, and they're standard that way so that you don't have two pieces of pile and they never stick. So that's how we know to do that.

Sherri: So your food has Velcro on it too?

Ralph: On the back, yes, that's what called a hook, and so you can, see the hook is on the back and so the hook and the little small blue circular piece and it puts like that and it stays in place.

Sherri: You can turn it upside down and it won't fall off. All right.

Ralph: That's right. In fact there are some little places in the back so you can hold the tray in your hand and it won't fall off your hand either.

Sherri: Oh, neat.

[Ralph is on screen demonstrating dehydrated food preparation]

Ralph: So what the crew member does, say this piece of nice tasty sausage pattie, it's been dehydrated and that means all of the moisture has been removed. What they will do, we have a device called a galley and we insert a needle in re-hydrate it with hot water and it reconstitutes the food, and then a crew member can tear this open and consume the food and it'll taste a lot more palatable than it would dried like this.

The same thing can be said for this, and this is scrambled eggs.

Sherri: Most of the scrambled eggs they would go with that sausage.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Ralph: Scrambled eggs and sausage, and you put water back in that and you can stick them here.

Sherri: How does that food taste?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: It does not taste like it does in mama's kitchen, but when you're in space and this is all you got, this is pretty good. We do get back some food that's not eaten, but the crew's eat about 60% of the food that they take.

And if they lose a few pounds while they're in space, it's a bonus for going into space travel.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Sherri: I'll be darned. All right, well let's go back to the questions from the Web page and our next question is from Tasha and she's a 6^th grade student. They're doing a project in their class to name their three favorite black Americans for Black History Month, and they'd like to know what are your three favorite black Americans?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, let's see. I should have thought about that, but let's see, I would, certainly Dr. King. I grew up in a time when what the things that he did and the principles that he believed in were very important and pivotal for my growing up, his principles about being non-violent and speaking up for the cause of black Americans.

Shirley Chism who was from our state of Texas. A great orator. If you ever get a chance to listen to something that Shirley Chism said, you really would like to hear that, and Dr. Barbara Jordan. Those would probably be the three. They were both great orators and people who had a discerning vision of the whole global world that we live in and I think they all were way ahead of their time. They were bigger than life to me, and so I would say Shirley Chism, Barbara Jordan, and Dr. King.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Great. Ann writes in and wants to know if you can be an engineer if you don't enjoy math but absolutely love science?

Ralph: Then you'd want to be a scientist. Engineering is definitely math oriented. So I would say stay with scientific method, study biology, and try to be a scientist. That type of research may lead you into medicine, and it may lead you into discovering some cell studies or something in the DNA world that may be helpful to society.

So maybe engineering might not be your calling but a scientist might just be.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Randy writes in, thanks Randy for your question, wants to know, Ralph, if you didn't work for NASA what do you think you'd be doing right now?

[Ralph speaking on the screen]

Ralph: Well, you know, I never thought about that. I'd probably work in a company that did engineering work building computers, maybe, or designing high end computers. I may have ended up working in an aerospace company that builds airplanes, say like Boeing or something like that, or I may end up teaching. So that's what I intend to do one day when I retire from NASA is teach, so that may have been what I chose as a career profession because I enjoy teaching too.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Well, that ties in with Julio's question. Julio wants to know, where do you see yourself in 5-10 years from now?

Ralph: About that time would be when I would retire. I've been with NASA 23 years, 10 more would be 33 and that would put me at the point where you have earned all you're going to earn and your time will come to an end. At that point I won't be very old, so I'll probably teach, and teaching is rewarding. I still enjoy watching the eyes light up in a classroom when a student learns something for the first time.

So I'll probably teach at one of the local colleges. I do that now part time so I'll probably go into doing that on a full time basis.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: Well, I have to say, Ralph, that I enjoy education as much as you do and that's the profession that I have chosen and that's what I work in here at NASA Johnson Space Center.

Okay. We've got another question from Ryan and Amy. They want to know, are you working on any projects on the space station right now?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Yes, I am. We're working on a project called the External Carrier Assessment. What is an external carrier? Those are the devices, say you wanted to put something in the back of a pickup truck and drive it to Montana. Well, you couldn't just lay it in the back of the truck, you'd have to have some bracket or structure to bolt it to so it wouldn't roll around, kind of like a bike rack or a ski rack to hold skis.

In space it's the same way. In the back of the space shuttle if you were going to take a big box into space and install it you'd have to have a bracket or a rack to bolt it to. Those carriers, we've got many of them, and they're all over the United States and different companies manage them for us.

I'm heading up a team that's going to look at those and decide do we have some that duplicate each other's function. Do we have some that we can eliminate? Do we have some of those companies that we can combine? I'm going to make recommendations to our program of how to go about doing that.

There's also the work of analytically deciding how strong those brackets have to be. That team is (inaudible) in Marshall. Some of that work is done up at Goddard. We have to decide if we want to continue doing that work at two different places or not.

So that work will be a direct result in helping save money for our space station. So, yes, that's what I'm doing now in particular towards supporting the space station.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Amy, that's for writing in for your question. Amy wants to know, have you ever been a part of Mission Control?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: No, I haven't. I've worked with people who worked in Mission Control. As you can see on the monitor those, I've never been inside the room except on a tour much like you might do if you came here, but I've worked directly with the folks who are there. I have had to answer questions for them when hardware failed. Astronauts talk to these folks and they in turn talk to us and ask for repair solutions and why hardware might have failed. We go off in our labs and try to duplicate what they are seeing on orbit and get it fixed for them and get the hardware back working and get them on with their job.

So, no, I have never worked in that room. I must tell you that that work is highly specialized, it's high pressure. It looks boring and dull because they're just sitting there, but they rehearse for a mission for months and months and months before that flight comes up so that they go over almost every scenario that might happen.

So they are very focused and very trained individuals and very good at what they do.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Ann, you want to know how you get a NASA volunteer to visit your classroom? Maybe you have in mind, Ralph.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Now Ralph, do you go out and actually talk with local schools or do you find that your time is already pretty booked working full time and teaching at the college level?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, I have. I've gone out to schools before. I don't have as much time as I used to to do that but I do try to get out to one school a year. So, yes, I go out to 6^th grade, 8^th grade. I've done junior high, high school kids, and that's rewarding too because being in the classroom with the kids you can interact with them. I take props out like some of the things that we've shown here today, and yes, I do do that.

We have a speakers bureau and a group here at NASA in our Public Affairs Office that handles those bookings, and we can get that information for you on our Web site. Sherri, you might tell them how to go about doing that.

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Sherri: Yes, thanks, Ralph. Actually, Ann, if you are interested in doing that you can visit the education Web page. We have an Education Outreach Program and that Web site is education.jsc.NASA.gov and that is up on your screen right now. Please note there is no www in front of that, and this will list all of the educational opportunities available to you, including this education outreach and how you can get NASA scientists or engineers or whatever specific type of topic matter you want discussed to come out and talk directly into your classroom.

For those of you who are not close by Houston so that our volunteers can go out and visit your schools, there is a Distance Learning Department, the Distance Learning Outpost, and they can come into your classroom and bring subject matter experts via video teleconferencing, and that program is also available on the education.jsc Web page. So thanks for asking that, Ann.

[Sherri speaking on screen]

Next question is from Stephanie who's a 6^th grade student. She said that you've already answered the what was your favorite project to work on, but what was your most challenging project ever to work on? Was it the SAFER?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Let me think. Challenging. Yes, I guess I would say that was the most challenging and the, and a lot of times you'll find that in your careers too. The most challenging, the hardest things you do will be the most rewarding when they're successful, and you'll learn the most from them. Even if they are not successful you'll learn more from them because you'll spend more energy and time in it.

So, yes, the most challenging thing I did was probably the SAFER Project, and you can understand why that would be the most rewarding because it was the hardest thing that I had ever done.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Clark, you're a 6^th grade student from Panama City, thanks for writing in. Clark wants to know, Ralph, why did you choose engineering instead of electronics?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, electronics is one of the fields of engineering. I suppose you mean electronics versus mechanical engineering or chemical engineering. It's a personal story too.

When I was a very young child, I guess about your age, I had a battery, a little wooden stick and a light bulb, and my Dad showed me how to make the light bulb light up with that battery. And he explained to me that that was a complete circuit, that the batteries served as a power supply, the wire was a resistor of the means of traveling current to the bulb, and the bulb's resistance is what made it light up.

I learned what a complete circuit was, you know, as a 7 or 8 year old kid, and that's some basic electronics theory information right there. That launched me toward a path to follow electronics. It was just a fascinating thing for me to learn how things work in the world of electronics.

So it's as a childhood curiosity that led me into electronics engineering.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Okay. JoAnn, thanks for your question. You want to know if Ralph started work at NASA as a coop?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: No, I didn't. I came out of college working for a company called Lockheed Electronics and I began there after graduating. However, when I was in college I had two jobs that were related to NASA. I worked at a satellite tracking station. It was a weather satellite and we tracked data from that that we gave to this weather company and they used it to predict weather patterns in the southern United States. That was while I was in college, and then as my work in the physics lab was related to my own field then I ended up in electronics. So that's the kind of work that I did, but no, I did not start as a coop.

[Back to Sherri]

[Sherri and Ralph on screen]

Ralph, I do want to ask you, do you have any words of encouragement or advice for the students who may be watching today interested in an engineering career?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, yes. The field's wide open. You will find work anywhere, not just at NASA. Any business, any large organization will need engineers. Good ones are needed more than the average ones. So it's a field that I would pursue. There's always going to be jobs, and as anything that's hard there aren't going to be many people that successfully complete the course curriculum, so you'll find yourself in elite company.

So prepare to work hard but also prepare to be rewarded.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Theo writes in and this is kind of a fun question. We'll see if either of us happen to know the answer. He wants to know, have any astronauts ever gotten into any scary positions getting loose in space like so many TV shows and movies like to show?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Well, that's interesting. We've had crew members' tether come undone. Astronaut Ross' tether did come loose, and it's happened on two occasions that I recall, but in neither case did the crew member float away. They were close enough to gather themselves back and there was no event. These happened before the days of the SAFER which is in part why we built the SAFER device. To my knowledge there's never been a crew member that came undone and floated away in space and had to be rescued or got lost or anything like that.

Now we have dropped overboard some hardware items that came untethered and floated away and eventually re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and were destroyed, but no crew member's ever had that fate.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: I think we have time for about one more question and we're going to take that question from Jackie, and she wants to know what are the different types of engineering jobs available at NASA?

[Ralph speaking on screen]

Ralph: Almost any engineering job that you can think of. A majority of the engineering jobs here are electrical and mechanical engineers, but we have positions for chemical engineers. There's positions for civil engineers in our facilities, people who build hardware, build buildings, design improvements for our facilities and plant facilities. So every discipline of engineering is represented here, but I will say that the majority of the jobs are for either electrical engineers or mechanical engineers.

[Back to Sherri]

Sherri: Well, Ralph, thank you so much for the time that you have spent with us today and answering all of our questions. We want to thank all of you out there in world wide Web land for watching and joining us today and asking all of these wonderful questions. We got through as many as we could. We hope we were able to get yours answered. If you have an opportunity later on today at 1 o'clock central time there will be another Web cast with engineer Anthony Bruins and you can perhaps take an opportunity to tune in and ask your questions of Tony at that time as well.

Well, on behalf of the Distance Learning Outpost in NASA Ames Quest, we want to thank you for joining us today. Thank you for participating in this National Engineers Week Program and support for the Black History Month Program as well. We encourage you to watch the archive if you want to follow up and see more details if you think that you missed some on the Quest Web site.

Again, have a great day and so long from Johnson Space Center.