Transcripts For CSPAN2 Kathryn Sullivan Handprints On Hubble

Scientists. Regularcience club our hangout, our main layer is in brooklyn but at secret science club north we are back your tonight in manhattan as part of our fifth miniseries here at symphony space. So we really like to thank all the people at symphony space, the staff, particularly kathy landau, joanna thompson, rebecca whites, james and zack and wiki for helping us to expand our universe and wehe hope yours al. [applause] bighand for them. A very big thank you to the bar. The bars to the back into the left. They have concocted our cocktail to your or however you say it, its called thehe atlantis. Its a fabulous blue glowing drink. Its thing for the Space Shuttle which our speaker was a crew member and its very tasty. We highly recommend it. To expand your universe further. Also thanks to cspan who is coming us here tonight. Want to give a shout out to dinner if you like to find more about the secret science club and Upcoming Events here in brooklyn or anywhere in the universe, sometimes out there please visit our charmingly retro website, yes, we are a blogspot. You can also sign up for our mailing list and we love having new members. Are a member just by being here. But you can sign up and youll know about all our goingson. So on to the evenings event. Are right. Tonight we are thrilled to present astronaut, scientists, and author Kathryn Sullivan. As a nasa astronaut Kathryn Sullivan spent over 500 hours in space, but b before that she trained as a scientist receiving a phd in geology and she actually went from studying the ocean floor on the nasa to train some more and become the First American woman to walk in space. Shes a better of three Nasa Space Missions and she was on the crew of the discovery shuttle that launched the amazing Hubble Space Telescope, which has so radically revolutionized our views of the universe. But she did not stop when she left the Astronaut Corps. Afterwards, Kathryn Sullivan serve as the administrator of the u. S. National oceanic and atmospheric administration, no, forcing a network of satellites, ships and airplanes that look back at earth monitoring the health of our oceans and atmosphere. And now after 2017 shes written a book book. Its called handprints on hubble an astronauts story of invention and that is the subject of her talk tonight. The lovelyy folks at books on call nycrr booksellers tonight and Kathryn Sullivan would be signing copies after her talk and after the q a. So were going to have come shes going to come and talk followed by q a with you, a wonderful audience, and then we will have the book signing. Please welcome doctor Kathryn Sullivan. [applause] april 24, 1990, found us right back where we had been 14 dayse earlier. Suitedrl up, strapped in, and ready to go with a countdown clock stopped at t minus 31. Again. This time the Launch Control Center Computers had halted the countdown because of an indication that a a valve on oe of the pipes used to fill the extra fuel tanks had failed to close. On the other side of the atlantic ocean. Once would be scrubbed rather than take that risk but if it was long think of the tire Pressure Sensor on your the system was fine and was the reason to scratch. Which was it . Series problem or faulty indicator . Scrub . This highstakes call phil to those responsible for the main propulsion system. I still only know him by his call sign in time was not on his side. The shuttle unit said a strict limit how much longer we can hold it just 12 minutes from the cockpit we listened intently as the Launch Controller worked out the problem. What is your status . The propulsion engineer talked calmly. The pressure readings were not consistent with it being open fundamental physics says it is closed he proposed to send a manual command that worked but the control Center Computer still had a lock on the clock. What is your call the launch director pressed . I prepared to manually override the best soldier would envy he gave him the go and told Launch Controllers to get ready to resume the countdown then he advised the National Technical director the launch team was a go the call we were waiting for was a split second later. The countdown clock will resume on my mark. Three, two, one. The whole episode took less than three minutes. Thirty seconds letter we launched off the launchpad where my adventure really launch into the phase that matters but the early status of the story goes back several years before that. In fact it starts here in 1978 and february when introduced to the world nasa picked those astronauts to fly and the shuttle in the Research Vessel the group of 35 people known as the 35 new guys if you come from the military theres another phrase where the f doesnt stand for fives there was a double entendre. But we had strange people amongst us. Twentyfive military test pilot types and every other group that astronauts had had three africanamericans one Asian American man and by the end of the first day it became clear to all of us the simple way to describe our group was ten interesting people and 25 standard white guys. [laughter] the 25 standard white guys were off to the gym or the beach or whatever they wanted to do about half an hour after the introductions ended us were besieged and barraged with interviews through the news hour and beyond it was like none of us had ever expected. Me and sally ride. We had only just turned 26. Just out of graduate school, just finished our phd the astronaut interview was her first interview it was her first ever fulltime job which is just beyond crazy. [applause] so what happens if you are a baby astronaut . You go back to school and learn more things which one year of going through a highly compressed graduate school for astronauts if any aspect of science or engineering Earth Science or physiology and then we got a crash course from the best experts equivalent to the coursework that was done we started to get plugged into supportive roles to help the preparations and the planning and those Shuttle Missions before our turn comes along. So then by learning by rotating around from one part of a company to another with all bits and pieces of how that enterprise works we did that for a number of years before we started to get our group slotted for those opportunities. In october 1984 my colleague in class meet sally ride had the First American woman to fly in space year before in late 83 with a new mission with the fancy acronym and captain solomon would be aboard for the first spaceflight. Now i have to tell you there is excitement and congratulations that swept across the Johnson Space center theyll be the ever first woman to fly twice or do a spacewalk we said they have not been paying attention to the history. Our flight was announced late 83 for a launch date we knew that ten months was plenty of time for the soviet Space Program to let her do a spacewalk if you ask she owes us her second flight and her spacewalk. So what do you think is happening . This is on the launchpad octobeh 1984 getting ready to board the Space Shuttle challenger and shouted out the retiree whats really happening. The seating arrangements in the cabin dictated we board last we wait our turn in a Small Chamber known it as the white room we are keenly aware the cameras above our heads meant every move was being monitored and broadcast on National Television as well after idle chitchat we decided we should be doing more than waiting around. [laughter] watches are always synchronized we pretended. [laughter] happily there were no white room one microphones to say what you think the news anchors are saying right now . I am delighted to say after all the coverage we received all of the articles to synchronize their watches. So that was a great mission. For several hours and then to have some specialized tools and then important to life extension and then there is schizophrenic when you fly in space you go several weeks to be the center of universe you are next in line, prime crew, everything you need is at your disposal. If you have to get in the doctor and see it. Another hour in the simulator, got it. Cut in line for every resource. We need to get you ready for flight. Then than a magical way what you dont know the moment your Space Shuttle clears the launch shower on your way orbit off of earth the first four seconds of your mission another crew in the Conference Room and says you are now first in line when you land you are nobody read the back of the long people trying to get back in the cycle and its really a disappointing and lonely walk of the deer in the headlights look and reminding yourself that you did the stuff that you are trying to remember that you did. This. Did not last too long for me after my first flight and by early the next year my boss called me into his office and said i would fly a mission coming up soon for the Hubble Space Telescope. He said that big large telescope a load in the manifest is supposed to be maintainable and space bar astronauts and last 15 years. But the tools and equipment that and by the time you take it into orbit to fulfill that promise is 17500 Miles Per Hour over 15 years. So this is all i had ever seen. This is an artist concept of 1982 vintage they had not even yet been named it was still called the space telescope. But to work on the president ial commission working on the United States Space Program to capture the vision of the past month my boss tom paine went back to the illustration made many many years earlier appeared in the issue of call years magazine and in the middle of 1985 and there are scientists working there for her destinations there is a craft to go back and forth that is tailored back and forth is the first 200 miles step this is a vehicle that will just do that repeatedly and it is put into the atmosphere and then that guy there and then he is fixing and upgrading it and made this illustration the year i was bor born. In my early thirties i looked at the picture and i had flown on this thing and it turned out to be white with a different shape of a wing but there is one. And it doesnt look like that but the idea is there the vision to the mid forties and fifties when the time to have the skills to do it. It also didnt look like the space station but the erector set and that was on the drawing board to turn that from a conceptual sketch into a reality into a house larger than a football field. And have People Living on it continually for almost 20 years. So i was just stunned by this picture on how long it takes but also how vivid and powerful in the year that i was born where my life would go. This is where hubbell started where it came from so the timeline it was like we were born at the same time and those went to have Financial Support and that definition and began to become a reality. And in 1978 to be on the Astronaut Corps that is when Congress Finally supported a budget and putting hubbell on the road to space as well. Not long after being assigned to that mission i found myself out seeing the real Hubble Space Telescope that was packaged and shipped down to florida for its launch. The size of the school bus about 15 feet diameter that fits very snugly into the payload bay of the shuttle. If you tried to put your fist between the telescope in the side of the shuttle there is not a lot more room. That is how tightly squeezed it was. And then one of the remarkable things with hubble getting into the history that was hinted at the sketch on the right the diagram all the doors that are open that get a access into the operating electronics all of the stuff that makes hubbell work that runs the data to process the onboard observation for the camera and spectrometer. But again back in the late sixties and early seventies hubbles engineers had the foresight drawn largely from their experience on cars to let the spacesuited astronauts work on that is 17500 Miles Per Hour. So imagine putting on two fullbody snowmobile suits with a bucket on your head hefty gloves under mittens and though and then go change spark plugs in your car and then if not buckle down can float away it is and incredible working environment so how do i make a wrench that somebody can hold on to it is not found on il4 at home depot there are a few things are that you can modify you can get a hatchet wrench and modify that for a handle the space glove can hold it or at the pivot point for you cannot closure hand this tight in space but a lot of other stuff just doesnt exist and needed to be invented and that word work out largely underwater this is not deep enough so we would break the models of mounted in the shuttle in the front and off the side. Thats me on the left here is a rough model so for this type of choreographed but think about how hard it is to pull your hand through the water so there is just a screen door mesh that we may not be able to see around this thing can i see around it . Precisely trying to insert that. That took dozens and dozens of tests for just the two of us to have good familiarity with the telescope and then to work on hubble. It with another discovery that i made working on the book i thought because of what my boss said it was always the plan but anything that need to be repaired was from space walking astronauts it was not true the original idea was big scientific instruments and to be abreast of technology that is the short list of things for space walking astronauts all the other electronics because the first ideas we will bring it back to earth every five years or so so it was to be sort of easy and doable but the hard stuff we will just bring it home and then the other specialized Maintenance Facility to do that that idea did not die until late 1984. And with a whole list and realize that can fail we actually have to find a way to modify that stuff. You cant take it apart somehow we have to make those pieces maintainable so that drove another wave of innovation. It is easy here because of fiction we dont have that. And put the slap the last part of your heel to hear and then to pitch forward and back and then pivot left to right to then all the other places you can increase this around for just where you need to be this did not exist when we started on hubble and the choreography of the water tank so what happens inside this gizmo making it possible for the foot restraint. For the use of the International Space station but we had a particular problem for a flight in 1990 coming in at 35 pounds and then to plug into the telescope and then to fix on the deployment mission it would be busy so we would have to move hand over hand to whatever point and tether it. And then to bang into the telescope. 35pound widget that will end your career so we realized we needed tether. We have to attach it to ourselves. We had to get it out behind me because i need all the space to use my hands to maneuver here we need to a tether that a stiff, rigid. But that i can also make bendable so i can get this thing off. We created a gadget called the semi rigid tether. Anybody ever work with those monkey tripods for your camera or go pro you can bend around . That sort of principle but larger. We created one to use with this foot restrain. Like the foot restraint itself its still in use. The u scene where singer from te opening moments of the spacewalk that Christina Koch and jessica meir did a couple of weeks ago and are going to draw your attention to this is jessica. Im going to draw your attention to this right to purchase also to transport this repair, this new unit and also needed it to stay out of her way but be controllable. This bit connecting the package to her is that same semi rigid tether still in use on the International Space station today. Those boxes that suddenly we realize we would have to be able to work on, they were a problem in thehe own right. You can see the electrical connectors. No one put those on the box thinking a fat spacesuit hand would have to get that the. They are imagining some nice slender finger from a ground technician. This is an odd set of pliers that actually doesnt jaws that go this way so you can reach down around these connectors and unto them without damaging the cable on the box they are attached to. Here you see me and this is bruce with one of our british engineers. This is that crazy modified ratchet wrench we had to create the we are testing it on the actual telescope on the actual solar rate, this is actually the sole array the jammed on the day we were deploying hubble and that i almost ended up, i was in telecom in my spacesuit half of the air was dumped out of the airlock. I was going to go out and actually crank the solar array open, except that sadly some snarky Software Enter on the ground figure out a way to solve that without letting us go outside. I was conflicted. I sort of really was ready for thiss and new, you know you know your stuff but suddenly light of the Hubble Space Telescope is in your hands before ever starts. No pressure. On the other hand, it is a spacewalk. It does create a little tension there. So we come file to wear hubble is that the payload bay. We are all trained up, created the entire toolkit. We take it every single tool, y single one of over 100 tools weve taken taken out to hubble