Kim Hubbard/NASA Ames: . . . . Mon, Oct 21, 7:57AM PDT (-0700 GMT). . . Good Morning! Hi! We are five fifth and sixth grade girls at Hunters Woods Elementary and we are just arriving in our Science Room for this chat. We live in Virginia...about 20 minutes outside of Washington DC. Did you send your experimrntal project up on the last space shuttle? We were watching that from our computers! Our experiment was conducted on STS-76 at the end of March. It was run on both the Space Shuttle and the Mir Space Station. It worked as we expected and was the first wireless computer LAN to opererate in space. We are wondering what you did in the air force. In the Air Force, I managed the developement of computer systems used tocommand satellites in space. What were you doing in the Air Force that made you interested in computers? As a manager/project engineer I became interested in how to devlelop applications that were easy for the users, other Air Force people to use and wanted to learn more about them What kind of computers did they use on Mir - how did what you designed fit into those computers? Are you talking about the computers we used for our experiment? Yes, we are confused about if it was really an experiment or if they really used it. Was this wireless remote as "experiment" or were they really using it? Our wireless experiment was performed by Space Shuttle astronauts to get some idea if a wireless network could work ina shuttle or station environment. We also wanted to find out if the astronauts liked using small handheld computing devices such as subnotebook computers and PDA's. PDA stands for Personal Digital Assistant. We used an HP Omnibook computer as the subnotebook and a Norand PEN*KEY as the PDA which uses a pen for input instead of a keypad. Did the MIr astronauts like the hand held device - have you had feedback from them? Will you talk with them about it? The astronauts liked the hand held device. We has a post-mission briefing with them after STS-76. We're trying to develop follow-on projects that will run on the Space Station when it's finished. In college, did you find that your math and science classes had more boys than girls in them? There were more boys than girls, about 2/3 rds were boys Would you...now that you have young children yourself....be interested in consturcting computer technologies for younger kids? We think we need a computer program and computers for people who have never used them before so that can learn about computers faster. Would you ever be interested in designing something like that? I think it would be a lot of fun to develop programs to help people learn computers faster or better.I'd like to develop educational programs for any age group if I had the opportunity and the time. I'm pretty busy at NASA right now I read in another chat that sometimes NASA people can work from home sometimes, do you get to do this? Working from home...I have an older computer at home so I'm mostly limted to reading e-mail from home right now but Ames does allow you to work from home sometimes. Have you done any work on the Mars Global Satellite taht is going to be launched in two weeks? No I'm not working on the Mars global satellite project Jessica has been telling us about some situations where men and women do the same jobs but thewomen don't get paid as much. Have you ever had an experience like that or have any of your female friends had an experience like that? WE don't want to have that happen to us! Has you mother and all of those who encouraged you been able to celebrate your successes? We hope they have.Now...how will you encourage your daughters? I think my mother, grandma, etc are pretty proud of me. I want to encourage my daughters to take advantage of any opportunities they get and to pursue whatever they are interested in whether it's science, art, or history or medicine. Do you think you will stay working full time now that you have children. Do you want to work part ime so you can be with your twins more? I'd like to continue to work full time. We are thinking that your daughters will each have computers at their classroom desks when they get to elementary school becuase of the research done in Space Exploration! Your grandchildren will probably have to go to a museum to see paper! I hope my kids will have whatever access to computers they need at school when they start in a couple of years. In fact, I hope you all get better access right now! Better access??? We wish that you could use CU-SeeME so that we could really see you! We have that here at our school! Do you know what that is? You can chat this way if you don't have the camera but if you do have the camera we can actually see you and you can actually see us. The software is free and the camera costs $99. Well sometimes it takes awhile for the gov't to buy things even if they are cheap. Also for these Web chats we have to remember that everyone doesn't have a high bandwith link; it's much quicker to send text only. Tish Krieg/NASA: . . . . Mon, Oct 21, 8:38AM PDT (-0700 GMT). . . [895 ] We are hoping to incorporate some CU-SeeME next Spring. Unfortuneately, not many school have access to that. But I'll try to set a chat up for those that do. Thanks for the suggestion. What do you work on in the way of telerobotics? We didn't see our answer about telerobotics - did you answer it? Jessica, I'm not working on any telerobotics projects now. Exactly what is a telerobotics project? IS it when you control something from a distance....like a remote control? You have the right idea. Telerobotics incvolves controlling a robot via remote control from your computer and communications links. We read about another women at NASA in another chat that used robotics test things in the Arizona dessert. Do you test things here on earth as well. Yes we run out experiments in our lab at Ames first. We also do heat, humidity and vibration tests on our equipment so that we know if can survive a launch and operate in space. Have you personally known anyone who has been in space? Jessica G. thinks that talking to them would give you new ides about what is needed to be invented for future space crafts! Hunter Woods: I've met a few astronauts but haven't personally spent much time talking with them. What kind of education would you recommend for students wanting to pursue a career such as yours. Did the Air Force career help you? I'd recommend computer science courses and getting a well-rounded education in general, and developing good communication skills. My Air Force experience helped in that I got to work on "real" projects and really learned to work with different kinds of people who always didn't agree on how to achieve a goal. As a ten and eleven year old...did you have any favorite science books that we might like to read? I can't think right now if I have any favorite science books. I used to enjoy just reading my text books from class, sciece fiction/fantasy by Issac Asimov and Roger Zelazny, and biographies of famous scientists such as Marie Curie. What kinds of things do you read to keep current with all the technology that you have to know? Do you read things online or in print? It's interesting that so many of your outside activites - cooking, working out, and hiking - are all science related. Working with patterns in sewing is pretty scientific too! Sara is saying that you are a lot like Marie Curie because you are both discovering new things! Sara, gee thanks, but I'd like to think of myself who likes to use computing tool in fun and interesting ways Is that different in the Air Force that people have different views on things or do you find that at NASA as well? Nancy, yes, people have lots of different views here at NASA too. But this is mostly a good thing since, it would be pretty boring if everyone thought the same way. You'd never get any new ideas. Do you work in a group at NASA or is a lot of your work by yourself? Who tells you what you work on? Jessica: I work with a small group of people on a project. We all have a specific role to perform but we help each other out if we need to. What advice would you give to kids who want to work with NASA? I want to work at NASA but I don't think I want to go into space. This chat shows me that there are those kinds of jobs avaliable. Most jobs in NASA don't require you to go into space. To get a NASA job, you generally need a computer science, engineering, science degree (biology, physics, etc) for technical jobs. Have you ever met enyone who is jealous of your job? How did you handle that? ? I don't think I've met anyone who is jealous of my job. They haven't told me anyway. From the voice and style of your writing we think that you are a very friendly person. We wonder how frustrating it must be to answer our questions for a whole hour! This is lots of fun and a great way to begin my work week. I do wish I was a better typist though. What kinds of things do you read to keep current with all the technology that you have to know? Do you read things online or in print? Have I answered all you questions? Thanks so much from the Hunters Woods Lunch Bunch! We have gotten many new and intereing ideas to think about! We hope to see you in a Spring Chat? Good-bye for now! Well, I'm going to sign off now. Hope to talk with you again. Great chatting with you! Tish Krieg/NASA: . . . . Mon, Oct 21, 9:03AM PDT (-0700 GMT). . . [924 ] Kim- thanks so much.