Preflight
Interview: Dave Wolf
The
STS-112 Crew Interview with Dave Wolf, mission specialist.
Q: First off, I guess we'll start with a little bit of personal
background. If you would, tell me where you…grew up
and what you call home.
Hi. I'm
from Indianapolis. I'll always call that home. And moved to Texas
to work in the space program when I was twenty-seven years old.
At what point did you have the dream of being an astronaut?
I remember
the moment I wanted to be an astronaut. I was inspired during the
Gemini Program when Ed White did the first U.S. spacewalk. I was
nine years old. It inspired me into technological fields, eventually
medicine and engineering, and I always wanted to work at NASA from
that point.
How
did you get here? At what point were you able to transfer that dream
into a kind of a goal and a reality?
I was always
interested in working at NASA. I became an electrical engineer in
undergraduate. I became a physician. And it was always in the back
of my mind to try to combine these fields to meet NASA's needs.
Eventually it worked out. And, I came here as a researcher initially,
a medical researcher, and ultimately became an astronaut.
Growing
up and possibly even now, who were your role models? What kind of,
who inspired you?
Like all of
us, I had multiple role models. Of course, my father liked electronics.
He built stereos. My mother liked sports. My uncle flew aerobatic
airplanes. And all of these people inspired. But as much as any,
the American space program inspired me to do my best in school and
inspired me to pursue a technical career. And, ultimately, it led
to NASA.
Now
let's start talking about the mission. You're on STS-112. Tell me
a little bit about the major goals of this mission. Give me a brief
summary.
Our mission,
9A, STS-112, has major goals of installing the first starboard truss
on the International Space Station. It's a 28,000-pound piece like
a bridge. It will hold the radiator cooling system for cooling,
the cooling fluids for the space station. And, further outboard,
will then be placed the solar arrays for electrical power generation.
We will install this with the robot arm. We'll activate it with
three spacewalks. And, we will also spend a good deal of time transferring
supplies to the International Space Station for the Expedition Five
astronauts who will, are living there.
Now,
you trained with the Expedition Five crew before they went up. And
you will be, STS-112 will be the first visitors on their increment.
What do you, what's that reunion going to be like?
There's nothing
like a reunion in space. I trained in Russia for Phase I for the
Shuttle-Mir Program, and I knew Sergei and Valery very well during
that training. They helped me a great deal in those days. I've known
Peggy since we were medical researchers together before we were
astronauts. We've now trained together in preparation for this mission.
And my last words to them were, "Let's meet in space in a few
months." So, we're looking greatly forward to getting together,
socializing a little bit, and then getting down to the business
of installing the S1 truss.
Now,
give me a little bit of detail about the S1. Now, you mentioned
it has the radiators. Including the radiators, go ahead and include
that. Tell me a little bit about the S1. What's, what all is included
on it? And, why is it important to the overall scheme of the station?
The S1 truss
is built like a bridge. It weighs 28,000 pounds, and it is the home
of the thermal control system for the space station. At least the
half of it that goes on the right side. It has thermal radiators,
which circulate ammonia through them, and radiate the heat to space.
Then, this cooled ammonia goes back to the space station for air
conditioning and to cool electronics. It also is a structural member
that will hold the solar arrays, which will be the next step to
add further outboard. And, those will generate the electrical power
for the space station. In addition, there's many electrical components
called multiplexers. Essentially delivers computerized commands
to the rest of the truss and receivers data on the behavior and
function of the rest of the truss structure on the space station.
It has cameras. It has antennas to talk to the satellites for communications.
And a great many sensors to understand the behavior of the space
station. The CETA cart is particularly appealing. It reminds me
of the old push railroad car. It's a fairly large car that will
have toolboxes on it, and even a little crane that you can crank
around. And, it will be our work platform for carrying space components,
even large components out so that when we have to replace items
such as electrical power conversion boxes we'll have a place to
store the boxes, carrying them a long way out even to the solar
arrays, and have a work platform for repair work.
Now
this is going to be, the installation of the S1 is going to be the
first time that we'll be using the station arm, which is mounted
on top of the MBS now that it's up there (it's been installed).
Tell me kind of the significance of that, this being the first one.
And then, also why it's necessary because of the location of the
S1.
The mobile
base structure is an amazing part of the space station, also a new
technology for ISS. It's a large platform that has, that will motorize
drive itself along the truss structure to different positions. At
various positions it can stop, plug in to the data and power systems
of the space station, and thus allow operation of the robot arm
that is based on this mobile base structure. The critical feature
of this is that it allows access to the various areas of the space
station, which is so large now that there's no one position to base
a robot arm to access a significant part of the station. So, this
will allow us access of most of the space station from the various
parking spots of the mobile base structure.
How
different is it using the arm now that it's on the mobile base system,
it's mobile, and it's necessary because the S1 is kind of far out
and you can't really reach it where you're installing it and for
future installations as well.
Right.
How
is that different from, say, when the S0 was just installed with
[STS-110]?
Right. The
robot arm has this amazing ability to walk itself to different points
on the space station. It can put its end on an attach point and
then release the other end and essentially swap the useful end.
This is important for installing it in different areas. As an EVA
crewmember, it's important that I, for instance, am able to ride
this arm to do critical assembly tasks and it will be able to reach
the part of the station of interest. In this case, the S1, the starboard
truss. You add up for other missions it will need to operate from
different positions to for instance access the port truss or, in
the last mission, the S0 truss was installed and this arm was based
on the U.S. Laboratory module. So, it's an extremely flexible system.
The operator has to learn to operate in a very general fashion for
many different locations. So in that sense, it can be complicated.
But Sandy has a real grasp of this. And we look real forward to
using this arm.
Let's
go back a little bit and to use some of your experience in '93 you've
flown a science mission, STS-58. And then you were Board Engineer-2
on the Mir for 119 days. Kind of tell me a little bit about your
experience with the Mir, your residence there.
Living long-term
on board a space station as I was lucky enough to do on the Russian
Mir space station for four-and-a-half months has got to be one of
the most amazing experiences in a person's life. You forget completely
about the Earth. It's just voices in a headset after a while. And
it becomes kind of distant and remote. Movies become very intense
when you watch them, because they become your only attachment to
the Earth. It's almost like you're in the movie. The mental attitude
to long-duration spaceflight is more like, "I'm moving to space.
I will live there. And, someday, I'll move back." I felt it
was important not to count the days to the end. The mental space
you go into to do that is fascinating, and it's just as fascinating
to come home. It becomes an immense experience to drive to the corner
and get a cup of coffee. Now, you look so forward to it, it's, when
you come home to Earth, it's amazing that you can just get in a
car and go somewhere, and come back! So, it makes life very exciting
to experience something like that.
How
did your experiences aboard the Mir prepare you for this mission?
Long-duration
spaceflight allows a person to become very accustomed to operating
in space. To know what a human can do accurately, efficiently, what
one cannot do. That's a valuable experience for any mission. I got
to do a spacewalk in a Russian space suit on a space station. And,
of course we will be doing three of those spacewalks on 9A, and
that experience transfers very well. It's helping us in our planning
phases of the mission. And it makes me feel more confident that
the methods we are anticipating using will actually work as we have
them planned.
Kind
of explore with me a little bit about how the progression that you've
seen, both in the technology and the advancements that we've made,
and also in the international cooperation that we've seen, from
the Mir and the cooperation that we had there to now in the space
station and where we are at this point.
It would be
hard to imagine conducting the International Space Station Program
between 16 countries, key partners of which are Russia and the United
States, had we not accomplished the Phase I Shuttle-Mir Program.
The trust is built really person-to-person, working together, not
by documents of agreements that are signed. And, Phase I took us
a long way down the road where the engineers worked together, face-to-face,
learned to mutually respect each other's knowledge and work, and
this has taken us a long way in the solving problems and moving
forward on the International Space Station Program.
Kind
of following up on your EVA on the Mir station, how has that helped
prepare you, you mentioned it a little bit, how has that helped
prepare you and Piers and the rest of the crew for the EVAs that
you're about to do? And then also, what are some of the differences?
Because now when you were in an Orlan suit, and this one, of course,
you're in an EMU. Kind of give me some of those.
Preparation
for spacewalks involves many different components. One of those
is prior experience. In my case, it was in the Orlan Russian space
suit on space station Mir. It involves underwater Neutral Buoyancy
Laboratory training, where we have large components of the space
station and we work through and choreograph our spacewalks. And,
it involves book work and desk training such as we did earlier today,
running through exactly how we will conduct the two or three spacewalks
that have changed recently. Adaptability is important. The requirements
change over the months or year preparing for a mission. And we learned
in space station, in the joint Shuttle-Mir Program that we needed
to be adaptable and learn to make late changes to spacewalks or
other procedures, and go out and get the job done in any case. Our
training is now geared a little more towards skills, basic skills,
as opposed to the exact choreography one might conduct. This lets
the operators become more flexible, adapt to new situations as they
arise. So we're well prepared. And I think they'll go very well.
Let's
talk a little more specifically about the EVAs. You, being EVA-1,
and Piers Sellers, will be EVA-2. Kind of go through, well, first
of all, give me the goal, give me a brief summary of the purpose
for these EVAs.
The three
EVAs that we will conduct on 9A are a teamwork that's choreographed
by essentially four of the crewmembers. Pam, intravehicular; Sandy,
at the controls of the robot arm; Piers and I go outside. The first
and foremost goal on the first EVA is to connect the electrical
connectors that will power the heaters and data systems to keep
the truss alive. After that, we will convert this truss essentially
from a spacecraft that was launched to a spacecraft that will stay
in orbit. Essentially we'll deploy radio antennas, camera groups.
We will activate the cart that runs up and down the truss that a
crewmember gets in and pulls himself and tools and equipment along
to any required point on the truss. We will connect ammonia lines
for the cooling system of the space station. These are like elephant
trunks that carry ammonia from the radiators on the S1 truss to
the rest of the space station to cool equipment. We will be doing
some repair and maintenance work that has been required over the
years as some of the aging components are reaching their life span.
So, it's a very mixed bag of activities that we will conduct. And
in fact, it changes week by week at this point, which shows the
emphasis that we need to place on being flexible and able to do
what the program requires on the day we launch.
Give
me a kind of like a step-by-step of each component. Like you're
plugging in the power and the data, but you can't do it all at once.
So kind of give me a...
Right.
...-a
step-by-step of what's going to happen when you do these particular
elements.
Not only are
the crewmembers in space part of this choreography, but the ground
controllers, particularly in Mission Control, are essential also.
For example, the first critical step of activating the S1 truss
is connecting the electrical and data connectors between the space
station and the truss. In order to do this, the ground controllers
have to send, oh, 20, 30 commands that power down components of
the space station, allow us to then mate these connectors while
they're not hot, then place power through those connectors while
they power down another set of connectors so we can mate those.
Essentially bootstrapping the S1 truss into an active configuration
where it's capable of staying alive.
And,
while you're waiting for them to power down the first set and then
power up the or power up the first set and power down the second
one, you're going to be installing or deploying something else between
you while you're waiting. What's that going to be?
Time in space
is limited. And, we always must operate efficiently. So for example,
while Mission Control is busy sending commands and testing between
various power ups and power downs of components, the EVA crewmembers
will be conducting other activities such as activating the CETA
cart, the little car that goes up and down the truss of the space
station. It has to be very securely attached, of course, to withstand
a shuttle launch. But, essentially floats free on the rails when
it's in its activated position on orbit. You should be able to push
it with one hand. It weighs over a thousand pounds. It's amazing
how strong a person can feel in space, while it's paradoxically
causing your muscles to waste in a medical sense. But we conduct
the spacewalks and design them in a very efficient manner to use
the six to seven hours that we get outside very effectively. The
space suit itself is essentially a small spacecraft. It has all
the key systems of a larger spacecraft. And, we need to manage its
resources carefully. Data is sent to the ground continuously on
the performance and the consumable state of the space suit. We monitor
those through computerized displays ourselves. We're trained to
handle emergencies with the help of the ground and onboard crewmembers.
So we think we're ready to go out and safely conduct these EVAs
and get the S1 truss installed.
Now,
part of the installation as you mentioned before as a main part
of the S1 is the radiator. And my [understanding] is you're going
to actually deploy one of them and I believe there's, are there...
Three.
...talk
about there's three on there. But, you're actually going to deploy
one of them.
That's right.
A key component of the S1 truss are the three radiators that cool
the ammonia before it goes back to the rest of the space station
for air conditioning and cooling electronic systems. These are large
radiators. There are three of them, and they sit on a beam, which
rotates, so that they can aim toward the coldest part of space and
effectively cool the space station. This is a large mechanism with
motors to turn it and one of our key activities will be to remove
the heavy locking components, 18 of them in all, which rigidly hold
this radiator in place for launch. But, it must be very free for
a motor to turn it while it's on orbit. This kind of construction
has never been done before in orbit before the ISS Program. It just
shows how we've progressed in our space technology. There's no question
that our country is a first-class space-faring nation. And, I think
that's exactly what our public expects.
Well,
you are a scientist. You're an inventor, a physician astronaut,
spacewalker. Talk about the significance of the space station and
this assembly, you know, you're mission 9A in the assembly process.
Talk about the significance of this, not only to the space program,
but also, I mean, to science, to medicine and life here on Earth
basically.
We, as a nation,
insist on being a first-class space-faring country. We, along with
16 other countries, we are building the International Space Station.
It will progress the field of science by being a full-time operating
zero-gravity laboratory, where all our experiments can float. This
opens up new perspectives and new potential in science. It is also
critical for exploration. We will go to Mars. We will go other planets.
We need to learn to live in space and build long-duration space
structures and components. The space station will also look down
at the Earth, and give us rational, good data on how we are managing
our resources, how humans are impacting the Earth, and allow us
to take rational countermeasures using firm data. Probably harder
to [quantify] but perhaps most important is the inspiration that
it gives our country. Our young people look at the space program
and they want to pursue science careers. They want to do excellent
work. We as a country expect to be first class in space. And, I
don't think any of us would want to look back at our lives without
a space program. So, it is really a combination of benefits we get
out of the space program. Our vision is that the quality of life
20 years from now will be based on the products, knowledge, data
that are produced on the space station. This is a lot like right
now, where our current quality of life is in large part the result
of NASA of the prior 20 to 30 years.
Before
we get too far away from EVA I was going to ask you about your IV
crewmember, Pam. Kind of give me a little more your thoughts on
what, first of all, what the IV does for you as an EV member and
then also a little bit about Pam.
Pam Melroy
is our IV crewmember. And, I'm glad. She is an amazing person. She
can keep the hundreds if not thousands of details straight. It would
be like trying to have an orchestra with no conductor for us to
attempt to go outside and do this on our own. She's a critical component
of the EVA team. She's present at all our planning meetings. She
creates as many good ideas or perhaps more than any of us in how
to conduct these critical spacewalks. So we see her as a key, the
key component of the spacewalk team.
Tell
me a little bit about, you're taking two camera groups out. Tell
me about why do you have to do them on separate EVAs?
It would seem
easy to carry out two camera groups with associated lights. But,
there's limited room in the airlock. And, these camera groups are
big. Each one is bigger than you or I. So, when you put Piers and
myself in the airlock in bulky space suits, there's only room, and
barely that, for the addition of a camera group. We take one out
on two different occasions, and we install one on the new S1 truss
and the other one will be installed on a different EVA on the Laboratory
module. These different places give us a good vantage point of different
areas of the space station.
Now,
when you're not, your time isn't totally occupied by EVAs. You'll
be doing a lot of transfer operations. Kind of give me an overview
briefly [of] some of the main components. You know, what are you
taking up and some of the things that you're bringing down.
One of the
beauties of having a space station and a space shuttle is how complementary
they work together. The shuttle can take supplies up, scientific
raw materials up, bring back products and data and used materials.
So, re-stowing and bringing back used items is a key function of
many space shuttle missions to the ISS. For example in the EVA area,
we will be taking a new SAFER. SAFER is a simplified aid for EVA
rescue. It's the jetpack that we wear on the back of our space suit
so if we would become detached, we can fly back within limited range
to the space station. This is critical because the shuttle cannot
quickly undock and come get you from the space station. Another
example is the space suit itself. It only has limited lifetime.
And, we will be taking up a new space suit and bringing back the
old one. And, so on. There's many components that need [to be] replaced.
Can
you tell me a little bit about the secondary payload, which is the
SHIMMER?
We will be
operating a payload called SHIMMER. Its goal is to examine the upper
atmosphere for various gas components. It's part of the mission
to planet Earth, to help us understand human impact on the environment
so that we can rationally develop countermeasures. It will look
out of a window of the space shuttle. We will precisely align the
space shuttle so that we look at different areas of the atmosphere.
The great speed of the shuttle allows us to scan large areas of
the atmosphere. It has very sensitive detectors, interferometers
inside which allow us to analyze the components of the upper atmosphere
as part of the full understanding of the human impact on our environment.
Let's
talk a little bit about the international, we talked a little bit
about it before, the international cooperation. You, of course,
worked, you were resident on the Russian Mir in the Shuttle-Mir
Program, and now we have Fyodor Yurchikhin on your crew flying on
the shuttle. And then of course, obviously the space station. What
are your thoughts on the multinational, the crews, the Expedition
Five crew is multinational. What are your thoughts on the crews
that are multinational?
Our space
program is now composed of 16 countries. We're joined together to
build the International Space Station. America conducts the shuttle
component of this. Most of our crews are international in character.
The approach is different in different countries. And, it usually
turns out that the right answer is in between. And, it's helped
us unlock our perhaps rigid ways of thought for doing planning of
missions, the kind of training we do, how we schedule crew time
on orbit. And, as we've looked and been broadened by other countries'
perspectives and in many cases we've been surprised to realize that
maybe our answer wasn't exactly the best. It's a great advantage
to have these different viewpoints. Our international partners are
extremely talented, both the engineering communities and the crewmember
communities. It's a great privilege to work with these people. Fyodor
is a great example. He's a very talented cosmonaut. He's an excellent
crewmember on our mission. It would be hard to imagine conducting
the mission without him.
Let's
transition into the other crewmembers. There are six on your flight.
And you just spoke about Fyodor. Tell me a little bit about your
Commander and your other crewmembers.
Jeff Ashby
is a Navy-trained pilot. One of the most technically [competent]
pilots in the world. But, his strength is really his grasp of interpersonal
relationships. He is a master of leadership and motivation on a
team. It never stops to, fails to amaze me the things he thinks
of on how to resolve situations, how to make the whole crew feel
important and good about what they're doing. He's a master. He's
a leader, and he should be careful where he goes because I'll follow
him anywhere.
How
about your Pilot?
Pam Melroy
is a master Pilot. And, she's a master astronaut. Nobody grasps
the big picture of planning better than Pam. She has a knack for
assimilating a huge number of details. When we're going uphill with
5 million pounds or so of thrust, there's nobody I'd rather have
at the controls of the main propulsion system than Pam Melroy.
How
about Sandy Magnus?
Sandy Magnus
is our Flight Engineer. What a capacity to keep track of the whole
vehicle, all the systems at once. When we are in simulations and
multiple systems are failing, she seems to go straight at the solution
where the different failures will interact and cause larger problems.
She's a master Flight Engineer. She works beautifully with Jeff
and Piers and Pam. There's no better team to handle this vehicle,
particularly during dynamic phases of flight than Sandy and the
rest.
And,
Piers, your fellow EV crewmember.
Piers is an
absolutely technically competent astronaut. Piers has total technical
competence. His strength, however, lies in his personality. He's
funny, appropriately. He is personable. He'll be a great friend
forever. I can think of no one I'd rather share the experience of
him doing his first spaceflight and conducting three spacewalks.
I can't wait to hear what he has to say about that.
What
are you most looking forward to on this flight?
Ten months
of training. Thousands of details. Plans. It involves Mission Control,
the flight crew, engineering communities. I look forward to seeing
this plan come together, to just see how accurately we can pull
it off, as well as how adaptable we can all be when things don't
occur as they are expected. It's beautiful to watch this system
work. It's one of NASA's great strengths, is to put together teams
that can accomplish more than what one might think possible.
I
wanted to ask you one more about the crew. Fyodor equated it to
being like a family. How do you look at your crew as a whole? As
the crew of STS-112, how, what would you characterize it as?
A spaceflight
crew develops an amazing relationship. Some ways like a family;
some ways like best friends; some ways like a club member with a
difficult initiation. When we work this hard for this long together
and conduct such an amazing adventure as a spaceflight, it bonds
us together forever. We'll be friends forever. We've experienced
emotions and difficulty and lows and highs that are very powerful
when it comes to human relationships.
Okay.
Actually before we conclude, I was going to ask if you had any other
thoughts that you wanted to share with anyone who, you know, a viewing
audience. Any thoughts that you wanted to share with them.
The public
I hope realizes that this is their space program. And, we work hard
to communicate what it's like to live in space, the kind of research
science, exploration we do in space. And, they should be very proud
that we are a first-rate space-faring country and live our successes,
live our failures and problems, with us because it, it is the public's
space program.
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