Gunfire at Nasa!!

[samssugarmomma]

Dude - http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/20/nasa.g ... index.html!


I called my old co-workers and everyone that I used to work with is fine thankfully! I'm trying to remember where building 44 is in the center.

Scary!

Kate

[Ravenclaw]

Wow - I hope no one was hurt. Do they have metal detectors upon entry?

Oh my gosh, things seem to be nuts lately....
Everyone be safe!

[DCJenn]

Nope, it was a NASA Contractor and one person was killed and the gunman killed himself.

Jenn

[Deebs]

Maybe we need to start adding Prozac or something to the water supply. Oh no, I guess that won't work, we're not sure if it causes this kind of behavior. This is all so bizarre!

[samssugarmomma]

Do they have metal detectors upon entry?

Nope - JSC is set up like a college campus - there are several main entryways and then there are a bunch of buildings spread over the campus. You drive in to a main entrance and have your badge checked and that is it. After 9/11, and maybe even before, every now and then you could get stopped and your car could get checked. But I think they were mostly checking for explosives. I know that KSC in FL is set up the same way - and it is located on a military base. I've never been to any of the other centers but I'd guess that they are set up like college campuses as well.

I'm not even sure how practical metal detectors would be. In all of my jobs there, I was contantly carting hardware or tools around for demos or crew training or to have on console with us so we could troubleshoot an inflight problem realtime with the crew, or taking it to different building to get help with a build, or to test it out. It would have been a huge PITA to have to stop everytime and explain why I had tools or a piece of hardware or whatnot in my stuff. Plus, then every building would need the equipment and a guard - and us taxpayers would have to foot the bill for that.

I'm sure they will put a safeguard in place though.

Kate

off topic ...

Kate - this SO makes me want to know about your job there ... how interesting.

[samssugarmomma]

Jenn,

It was pretty cool work! I basically worked on three different projects when I was there and I got to do a lot of cool stuff! The first project was in Biotechnology and basically our goal was to grow mammalian cells - mostly cancer cells - in space. We did everything from design and build the hardware to training the crew how to use it to working in mission control while the crew was doing the experiment either on the space shuttle or on the station. It was cool to see the cells grow into 3D cultures in space.

The second project was a bed rest project where we put test subjects “to bed” for either 60 days or 90 days with their heads 6 degrees head down. The goal was to simulate space flight and study what was happening to their different systems (muscle, cardio, psych, etc) with the eventual goal of developing countermeasures to counteract the problems that occurred and keep the astronauts healthy during long missions. I use the term “problems” loosely as we didn’t experience a lot of adverse events – just when you are in space ….stuff happens. The subjects were not allowed to get out of bed for any reason – not to eat, shower, etc. We also had a short radius centrifuge that people spun on every day that was used during our studies. I think that the centrifuge people only went to bed for six weeks.

The last project that I worked on was a virtual reality study where we had a large dome and had subjects undergo a virtual reality experience and then we tested to see what happened to their coordination. The goal was to figure out why astronauts get space motion sickness and develop a countermeasure to combat that. It is hard to do your job when you have nausea for days on end! That was a fun study!

Here are some links –
An article about the bioreactors that we used to grow cells in space - http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/br/bioreactor.htm

Pictures of some of our hardware – the experiments I worked on used the BSTC and BTR - http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/br/tools.htm


An article about the bed rest project - http://hacd.jsc.nasa.gov/projects/flight_analogs.cfm

Pictures of the centrifuge - http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/prepar ... mages.html

Article and picture about the dome and VR study - http://hacd.jsc.nasa.gov/labs/neurosciences_pavrt.cfm

Kate - that is fascinating!!! I had no idea you (or anyone here) had a job like that.

How on earth did you get people to volunteer for the 60 or 90 day bed thing?? Wow.

Thanks for sharing.