SpaceX tried to launch a dragon to the ISS today and NASA Ames put on a special launch event. There were information booths set up in a large conference room where they had the live NASA TV coverage of the launch preparations over in Florida.

After looking at the booths, which were had a cube sat theme, I took a seat and waited for the presentations to begin. In the run up to the launch, Ames had selected some of its researchers to present their work. It was mostly related to Ames projects that have flown on ISS, so the content was pretty cool! 

Ames had 2 experiments due to fly on the SpaceX Dragon capsule that was sat on top of the Falcon 9 that was streaming live to every screen in the room. One of which was an exobiology experiment, designed to look into the different types of bacteria on board the ISS. They talked about the three main types of bacteria, the good, which is intentionally introduced bacteria (e.g. involved in life support). The bad, which can be unwanted but safe contaminants from clean room assembly. And the ugly, contaminants that are hard to clean and kill.  

The other experiment was a rodent research project for assessing bone density in microgravity as well as how the rodents deal with being weightless. We got to see some pretty interesting footage of how they adapt to the new environment over the first few weeks, and a very cute video of how after a while they bundle together with all the food. We also saw Ames’ newly deigned microgravity rodent habitats which include built-in cameras to allow researchers on earth to monitor the rodents in great detail. 

After the presentations, the countdown was getting close and everyone started to watch the screens from about T-5 minutes, until… at T-3 minutes the launch was scrubbed! Sadly due poor weather conditions SpaceX had delayed the launch for 24 hours. There was a sigh of disappointment from the audience watching before one of the organizers walked up to the stage and somewhat awkwardly thanked everyone for attending the event. Even though we didn’t get to see the launch, the event was still pretty interesting as I got to see how research at Ames directly influences space missions that are currently going up to the space station! The launch was successful the following day, the landing however was less successful!

Today we went to a talk by astronaut Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid). Throughout the summer NASA organizes talks from cool speakers; from scientists and engineers working on interesting projects, to astronauts. Wiseman was on the ISS from May 2014 through November 2014 (Expedition 40/41), and was a Navy test pilot prior to becoming an astronaut. 

His talk was focused on the beauty of earth from space, during his time on the ISS he was able to take some fantastic aerial photography (is it even aerial photography if you’re in the vacuum of space, I suppose there is air in the space station…). All the astronauts are trained in advanced photography techniques before they fly and the ISS contains some very high-end camera equipment. This results in a large quantity of amazing photographs from a very unique perspective. 

The talk was great and I was pretty motivated to get straight back in the lab to work my way towards space, but you could tell some of his photos were faked, for example this one of London is clearly photoshopped to remove all of the the clouds!

https://www.twitter.com/astro_reid/status/529625794709319680/photo/1

 Wow… Google is awesome! the first thing that hits you when you walk into the ‘Googleplex’ is how colorful the place is, everything is Red Green Blue and Yellow from the guest name badges to the bikes. We were visiting one of our friends, Cory, (He works on chrome) who checked us in at a computer that printed out name badges for us. We then made a beeline for the cafeteria, which was full of super tasty food! There was food from at least 10 different countries and I genuinely struggled to decide what to try.

After eating we explored the main campus where they have everything from a giant dinosaur to places dedicated to playing guitar hero. There are also loads of micro kitchens full of more tasty food and drinks (there seems to be a running theme here, I guess a well-fed googler is a hard-working googler). The kitchens even have barista style espresso machines! – NASA, take note!

We then grabbed google bikes (which are awesome) and headed to the android garden. This is where they keep all of the different android statues; every time google releases a new version of android they make new logo. All of the android OS’s are named after candy and so the statues consist of an android made of candy (like ice cream sandwich) or holding candy (lollipop). We took pictures with all of them before we headed to one of the other buildings to play time splitters in one of googles free arcades.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any google secrets, but we did get to see how googlers spend the time when they’re not working- I just need to get NASA to put free espresso machines everywhere! Google just became the landlords for the Ames Research Park, so fingers crossed for free google food at NASA.

So I’ve been at NASA for a few weeks now, so far it’s been great with every day being surprisingly motivational and inspiring. I’m getting to grips with the new lab and I’m slowly learning where everything is kept, I’ve also made it through the intense series of training programs NASA has for everything from working with nanomaterials to general waste disposal. NASA puts everything on a central learning platform called SATURN (by the way, everything has cool spacey names) and there is training for almost every aspect of science. I’ve also been exposed to some of the cooler equipment here. There is a large underground facility (in fact it’s a nuclear bunker) where UCSC (University of California Santa Cruz) have invested in a state of the art SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) and TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy) as well as loads of other analysis equipment, this is one of my favorite areas because I love using SEM, partially because its like playing a video game with all the controls, but mostly because of how powerful it is to be able to see things, so far I’ve managed to look at some of the catalyst I’ve been making at x200,000 magnification to see how big the particles are. For those who have never used SEM before, the whole process of looking at a sample is a lot like using google maps, you can move around the sample and zoom in from a top down point of view, although we can also change the orientation of the sample to look at things from different angles. I’ve also had a chance to put my samples in the TEM. This microscope can look at things at a higher magnification than SEM and when we looked close at the nanoparticles we began to see the lines of atoms appearing on the particles, this always makes me really excited because when I think about it, I’M SEEING ACTUAL ATOMS!

The other cool part about being here is that every time we have a meeting about the project, I keep hearing conversations about things like ‘launch costs’ and ‘gravitational effects’; I’ve never been exposed to an environment like this before so I’m still a little star-stuck by some of the conversations! I’ve also noticed that coffee is a big deal here, there are so many good coffee places, the best I’ve tried so far is at a place called ‘Peets’, which is a chain that started here in the Bay Area. Their coffee is great, and the one local to NASA has been combined with a really good sandwich shop called Specialties so we tend to head there most days for lunch and meetings… and morning coffee… and afternoon coffee…

The project I’m researching on here is extremely cool, we’re developing  a device that  has the function of an artificial leaf- it can potentially replace the current life support systems on board spacecraft like the International Space Station. I’m mostly playing around with the materials on the catalyst, and so I get to do lots of interesting synthesis as well as analysis of the chemical composition (so that I can see why a particular batch of catalyst is working well, or even IF it’s working at all). I’m also getting trained up on techniques like 3D printing to allow me to help with the prototyping of the device into which the catalyst will go. Ames has a facility called the ‘Space Shop’, which is a location containing lots of useful equipment for rapid prototyping. They have advanced 3D printers, laser cutters and lots more prototyping equipment, as well as a wealth of knowledge about how to use everything. The first thing I learned to make was a 3D printed NASA logo and a laser engraved Space Shop membership badge made of Aluminum (haha, only joking, Aluminium). I thought this was a pretty fun idea to train users how to use the machines by making their own membership cards; the range of equipment here is great!

After waking up on my first morning, I was stood looking out of the window (which overlooks most of silicon valley), the first thing that caught my eye, aside from the amazing view, was humming birds bathing in the small waterfall that runs into the Koi pond (I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen humming birds before!). In fact, all the wildlife is amazing here! From eagles soaring high over our house to the families of deer and coyotes that stroll down our driveway.

So far my favorite location is Half Moon Bay, a gorgeous stretch of coastline just south of Mavericks (yeah, until I came to California Mavericks and Yosemite were just versions of OS X), with golden sand, blue sea, huge rolling waves and horses galloping down the coastline… (this actually happened as I was on FaceTime with my family- they were suitably impressed). I’m also torn over what my favorite view has been since I arrived, it’s close between the sunset over the horizon as we were driving down ‘Pacific Highway 1′ and the sunset from Hunters Point (which is the top of a hill in the (apparently mountain lion infested) country park behind our house).

Living in Silicon valley is full of techey surprises; a group of us from the mansion were planning on heading out for some drinks at a rock & roll bar, but because this is America and everything is really far apart, someone has to drive. When determining who was to be designated driver, rather than resorting to rock paper scissors, someone grabs their phone and quickly codes a random number generator in python to select the driver!

It’s also great going running here, apart from the heat- the streets at the bottom of the hill are all really nice to run along and the gardens all seem to have plants that I’m not used to seeing. I also found an eccentric fountain that’s about half way through my run, which always seems to be beckoning me to jump in and cool down. Of course the first thing you have to do after running is swing by chipotle (this completely lived up to my expectations having never tried it before). The post-run food here always feels extremely well-earned; we basically live up a mountain so the last 300 meters are pretty intense, so I feel I definitely deserve something deliciously unhealthy!

The one benefit of jet lag is that when you travel west it’s really easy to get up in the morning, I actually woke up before my alarm which gave me lots of time to explore my vast new residence. My primary objective was to work out where the coffee was located, after a good 15 minutes of exploring the kitchen I found a french press and after a further 10 I’d located a bag of columbian coffee.

The first excitement of the day was seeing all of the Apple signs as we drove towards NASA. I’m living in Cupertino and so the commute involves driving though one of the smaller apple campuses. The other thing I noticed on my way to NASA was the palm trees, usually palm trees are only allowed in nice places, where you go on holiday, not where you live!

As we approached The Ames Research Park (a former Navy Base which is now a world-class, shared-use research and development campus with partners such as Google), the first thing that caught my eye was the space shuttle perched behind the security gates. It instantly added gravity to the situation! I suddenly realized that I would be spending the next year as a research associate at NASA!

I met with my sponsor company to go through more paperwork and to meet some of the other research associates. Ravi also gave me a tour of the research park, though I can’t go into the actual research centre until I get my security clearance, which is supposed to take another week. It’s really interesting walking around the base: there are old jets and planes on display as well as the famous ‘Hangar 1’ of course, which is staggeringly big!

I’ve just landed at San Francisco International after a great flight, I was almost first off the plane and managed to get right at the front of the immigration queue. I was then surprised by an extremely warm greeting from the immigration officer, all my previous experience of entering the US has always been a little scary. One time in Florida we were actually told that the officers had been sent to Disney for ‘friendliness training’ (I’m not sure how true this is but it makes for an interesting anecdote). This time however, I was extremely pleased with the way I was welcomed into the USA, I even recieved a short motivational talk from the immigration officer about working really hard so I can become an astronaut one day!

After collecting my bags I was welcomed by Ravi from my sponsor company ‘STC’. He dropped me off at my accommodation, a place called ‘The Rainbow Mansion’, which is an intentional community of driven, international, passionate, and socially conscious people trying to change the world (http://www.rainbowmansion.com). As we arrived at the mansion a big communal dinner was being brought out to the table and I got the chance to hear what everyone was working on. Everyone living here is doing something really cool, with jobs ranging from asteroid mining to working with Virtual Reality, there are even a few people who work at NASA living here.

And so it begins! I’m on my way to NASA.

So far, today has been one of the most emotional days of my life. I’m currently sat on a jumbo jet, 10363m over Greenland, flying away from my entire life at 890 km/h (I definitely didn’t read this off the inflight map)! This morning I said goodbye to both my parents and my girlfriend and last night was the last time I’ll see my best friend for half a year. I’ve done this all before when I left for university but now that I’m moving 6000 miles away everything feels… further away.

But I’m also increadibly excited! The crew on the flight are taking fantastic care of me (they were very interested in talking to me once they found out I was going to NASA), and I cannot wait to experience a new way of life. I’ve been on holiday to Florida and Boston before but I’m really looking forward to experiencing life in California. That said, my day to day life will involve performing research on a project at a NASA research center and the house Mansion I’m going to be living in resembles the show “The Big Bang Theory”. It’s safe to say I am very much looking forward to arriving in San Francisco.