| Tara
Ruttley |  | | NEEMO
6 Mission Specialist Tara Ruttley | | RELATED
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NEEMO
6 Journals
NEEMO
6, Tara Ruttley
Day 10, Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Well, here
we are already at the final day of our mission. Apologies to you
all for not having written in my journal until just now. My thoughts
throughout the mission were recorded in a hand-written journal almost
every night, and now I'll transpose some of them for you. I certainly
owe you all some experiences of the NEEMO 6 mission from the female
engineer perspective…
Nick once asked
me toward the end of the mission if I could sum up my thoughts about
our experience with NEEMO in one word, and I replied, "Learning."
Back at the
office, we work so hard in this hectic world of flight hardware
to ensure that quality processes are being met so that hardware
is safe and reliable for the crew. But we as engineers will never
fully know what it is like to be the end user of equipment (and
in my case, life-critical equipment) while being hundreds of miles
above the earth from the engineering team that knows its ins-and-outs
so well. This NEEMO mission has given me the most unique perspective
of how flight hardware should be handled in a way that no other
engineering training, academic course work or flight hardware laboratory
could provide. In this way, I will never look at my system the same
way again. Words on JSC Engineering documents, minutes at meetings,
crew debriefs, hardware part numbers, schematics, drawings, and
procedures will now have a different meaning to me. The Engineering
Directorate has made an investment in my career that will never
be matched, and I am honored to have been trusted with a project
of this magnitude.
Not a single
Engineering experiment on this mission went off flawlessly, which,
in my opinion was one of the best things about being here. I witnessed
my three crewmates take full responsibility for the success of these
experiments because they knew there were hard-working folks back
home who were eagerly awaiting some data from this once-and-a-lifetime
opportunity. Even the hardware that performed so beautifully in
the lab had its own personality in the Aquarius habitat: some due
to the unique environment (humidity, pressure, etc.), some due to
computer hiccups, and some due to random other things that we could
have never even anticipated in such immature prototypes. It's the
beauty of using this environment and this particular mix of crew
to adequately evaluate such hardware in its early prototype stages
as a potential for spaceflight. It's the closest end-to-end testing
you'll ever get before spaceflight development. And after the troubleshooting
sessions during the mission, when these experiments worked, they
ROCKED! SUCCESS! Thanks to the teams back home who kept up with
us and were always on standby should we need them.
 | | NEEMO
6 Aquanaut Tara Ruttley |
Now that was
my professional perspective. Here's my personal perspective. The
physical and mental challenge for me was the best of my life. Operating
in an environment during the dives (our EVAs) where buoyancy control
in the water was a constant safety reminder for you and your team,
paying attention to details so as not to risk the team's EVA objectives,
and performing in a way that meets your own expectations are just
a few of the daily challenges while in the water. Add to that for
this rookie things like learning the proper techniques for on-camera
interviews, fully answering questions for inquisitive students over
live teleconferences, meticulously capturing every minute on photo
or camera so as to appropriately tell the full story to the teams
back home, and sneaking in an occasional e-mail to friends and family
from under the ocean so they know you're thinking of them, too.
As for being
the only "girl" on this mission, yes, I looked forward
to emails from the women topside, if for nothing else, the occasional
"girlie" giggle. But the increased pressure on the Aquarius
made the guys' voices appropriately high-pitched in a way that made
up for the lack of estrogen! Besides, there's something to be said
for getting your own personal changing space in such a small living
arrangement.
Finally now
that I'm back, I just hope that each of you knows how thankful I
am for all of your investments: friends, family, co-workers, and
my management. I will never be the same, both professionally and
personally.
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