Pictures, Pictures, Everywhere

Hello hello. You've seen the official pictures - but now, you'll get the chance to see the behind-the-scenes ones that completely reveal all our secrets! I know this seems too good to be true, and you're wondering how much this is going to cost you. Well, let me tell you - you won't believe your ears when you hear the deal that we've got for you! Only 4 payments of $19.99 will land you an exclusive look at our experience...oh wait...I can't do that? Alright, then nevermind. Here they are for free...



Here, we're loading our support system (milk crates and duct tape) onto the plane.



And this is the box that we used to do all our experiments in...and yes, it's ghetto, but it did the job and it had three levels of containment (the slide flasks, the box, and the vacuum bag).



Dan is floating...isn't this awesome! MicroG is an absolutely otherworldy experience!!


Isaac and Cookie Monster...meet Mr. Ceiling...



John's floating...as well as everybody else on the plane.



These are Mayra and Brian, two of the nicest people in the world! They literally got us on the plane, whether it was in helping us culturing cells, giving us ideas for the box, or even just staying late at lab so that we could finish what we had to do. They deserve massive props.

We'll be including a video of John's somsersaulting later...for some reason, we can't get upload it right now. But stay tuned!

Peace.

Pictures? We've got 'em!

You can find the official photos taken by the NASA photographers during the program at this website: http://zerog.jsc.nasa.gov/2004SummerCollegeCampaign/viewer.cgi

To find us, look up July 23 Chamber Flight 2, July 26 TRR, July 27 Flight, and July 28 Flight Grp A. Definitive proof that our Cookie Monster has gone where no Cookie Monster has gone before.

Not Really Free; But Feelin Good Nonetheless

Long post; so just a warning.

Like Dan said, Isaac did a pretty good job of summing up the microG experience during the flight, but here are a few more comments:

The first parabola is special because you have no idea what's going to happen (really).  You mentally prepare yourself to float upward, but nothing really happens ... until you push on the floor with a finger and you rocket toward the ceiling, during which your body tells you that you aren't quite in Kansas anymore.

The 2xg pull is infinitely more motion-sick causing than microG.  Turning my head just a few degrees caused some definite ... "hmm, that's not going to be quite right" sensation. 

Microgravity on the KC-135 is great, but has its quirks.  You go up ... then you go left and right ... or not at all, depending on how the plane flies down the parabola.   "Hmm, I could have sworn that wall moved into me, not the otherway around ..."

Stunts of varying amusement:  Headstand, handstand, and single finger stand (I swear I thought everyone else was on the wrong side of the aircraft), long jump in lunar / martian gravity, and of course, the infinite somersault (courtesy of flight director John Yaniec). 

The front of the plane is the best.  Why?  You get the assistance and company of the man of hour, Donn Sickorez.

And no, neither Gary nor I had the chance to use our government provided "motion sick" bags.

That anti-nausea medication didn't treat my team members too well, but I felt great afterward.  I felt like I drank 5 Red Bulls, only without the caffeine-high twitching and anxiety.

I know I'm probably missing some stuff, but in summary:  this program was probably the best experience I've had in my life.  If anyone of you are interested in participating in the RGSFOP, please consider getting a group together and writing up a proposal.  Your work, as I have found, will be well worth it, and the Reduced Gravity Office staff are great people to work with.  And believe me, your body remembers.

 
In other news, life on the ground goes on.  We went to lab for a couple hours Thursday and started cleaning up our materials and staining the cells we fixed on the KC-135.  However, our reagents were kind of lost somewhere between the shipping dept and our lab.  Finally got them, but need to come back Friday (yar!) finish up.

Finally, the JSC tour started Thursday afternoon.  I thought it would be the one the tourists got at Space Center Houston (just next door), but I was gladly mistaken.  We first walked around the mockup bay, where astronauts train in full-sized models various components of the Shuttle and ISS.  Just seeing the magnitude of these parts was inspiring.  Next, we visited the old Mission Control room, where the Apollo (and first Shuttle missions I believe) were commanded from.  The sense of history was amazing, and having the chance to sit at a flight controller's station was priceless.  Finally, we viewed the new Mission Control (which was currently vacant) and the space station control room (which buzzed with activity).  Very nice; very nice.

After dinner, we just had to play some Puerto Rico.  After a hard fought battle shipping sugar and corn, I emerged victorious as my harbor granted me victory points.   Definitely, the best board game I have ever played.

We also played a new card game, Bohnanza.  Object:  Plant beans, trade beans, and harvest beans to earn gold.  Sounds simple right?  Yes and no.  You should find out yourselves.

Well, gotta sleep my 4 hours for a full day at the JSC Friday.   Hmm, I thought my work was done ... guess not. 

Free

Isaac (I flew with him) did a great job of summarizing the microgravity experience so I'll just give my 2 cent plug.  The most honest opinion about the experience is that it's so unique that trying to explain it with words simply cannot do it justice.  I used to think that the experience would be much like floating around in a dream - it's not even close.  Yes you do float around, but your head and muscles just feel different.  To be free from the effects of gravity, even for short spans of time, is an incredibly liberating feeling that you'll *never* forget.  I don't want to think of the experience as floating because activities like swimming or parasailing both involve floating - zero g's isn't about floating, it's about freedom :-)

Unpaid Overtime

Newbies
Proposal research and development - 48 hours
Funding proposals - 12 hours
 
At Duke
Spring Semester Laboratory time - 400+ hours
Experimental Box construction after classes ended - 40+ hours
 
Flight Week
Cell culture pre-flight at Johnson Space Center (JSC) - 20+ hours
Cell culture at JSC on flight dates- 8+ hours
Box safety adjustments pre-flight weekend - 20+ hours

Flight
Total Flight Time - 1.9 hours
Total Time in Microgravity ~ 12 minutes
Total Time in Lunar Gravity ~ 23 seconds
Total Time in Martian Gravity ~ 23 seconds

Post-Flight
Clean-up - 5+ hours
Cell staining - 3+ hours
Retaining mental images of seeing the horizon at 45 degrees- Forever

So in short: well worth the price of admission.

Now excuse me while I sleep and let the Scop-Dex wear off ... more details after my head comes down 20 feet. 

The Odyssey Begins ... and Ends!

5:00 AM - Last time I wake up a landbound mammal.

Let these describe the indescribable...

Today was the big day. 

Today, Dan and I rode aboard the KC-135, experiencing microgravity at its fullest.  I would like to preface this entry with the simple fact that nothing I write can describe exactly what I felt.  I can string a list of words together to circle around these feelings, but nothing can precisely convey the experience. 

A little background of the KC-135 for those of you who don't know.  The aircraft runs parabolas to simulate microgravity, lunar gravity, and Martian gravity.  During the ascent, the plane flies nearly straight up and we experience a 2g pull.  Then when the plane reaches the top of the parabola, it levels off, and then nosedives, which simulates the microgravity.  There are approximately 30s of 2g and 25s of microgravity.

So the following adjectives can provide insight into how I felt about my flight: awesome! sweet! totally cool! radical! superb! awe-inspiring! amazing! stunning! mind-blowing! shocking! wonderful! breathtaking! thrilling! uncanny! marvelous! staggering! fantastic!  I end each adjective with an exclamation to show my excitement over blogging.  I cannot underline this enough: microgravity was a tremendous experience.

Seriously, it was one of the best experiences of my life.  Floating in microgravity is nothing like you imagine.  Your brain simply cannot comprehend it.  You can prepare yourself for it.  You can imagine what it will feel like.  You can watch video of people floating around.  But you can't understand how it feels until it happens to you.  The feeling is incredible.  Nothing weighs you down, nothing hinders your movement, nothing is there to stop you.  Your body has total freedom.

Even now, as I'm typing, I can still feel residual effects of microgravity.  My body feels like it is floating, similar to the experience where your body feels like it is rocking back and forth after being on a boat for a while.  The only bad part about the whole thing was that it had to end.  After coming off the plane, everything seemed heavier.  We had 1.9 hours of flight time, and that definitely seemed too short.  I'm hooked; I want more microgravity!

A couple of questions and answers:

Q: Did you or Dan puke while you were aboard the plane?
A: No, we did not puke or feel very sick at all.  In fact, after slight queasiness in my stomach, the entire flight went by very smoothly.  Try not to be too disappointed.

Q: How did your experiments go?
A: Our experiments were pretty successful from a preliminary look.  We will not be able to tell how successful until after we stain them and look at them under a confocal microscope.  Of the 12 slide flasks we used, all of them were punctured except for two: one myoblast and one osteoblast.  We were even able to collect some data during the 2g pull.
 
Q: So now you're done flying, you can just rest and relax while the other two fly, right?
A: Au contraire mes amies.  Unfortunately, our experimental box seems to have a low reusability rating.  Tonight we will have to re-condition our box, meaning we have to suck out all the formaldehyde and redo a lot of the seals.  In fact, some of the needles became dislodged and we will have to reglue those.  Also, the Bouin's solution contained an acid that melted some of the foam sealant we used in the box.  We had to buy new sealant and dispose of all the old ones.  Suffice to say, we spent a lot of time after the flight in the lab working on all of this, and we will undoubtedly spend more time tonight working on the box some more.  Fortunately for John and Gary, they will get a chance to sleep before their flight tomorrow while me and Dan pull the night shift and fix the box.

Q: Was all the work worth it?
A: The answer to that question is an emphatic YES - most definitely.

We took lots and lots of pictures and we will post them as soon as we figure out how to/overcome our laziness to upload our pictures.  The NASA people also took pictures for us and as soon as they post them, we'll put up a link to let you guys see how silly we look in hypoxia states and floating around in microgravity.

Alright, I gotta go work on the box.  Gary and John fly tomorrow.  Good luck to them.

Duke Crew, you are cleared for liftoff...

It has been a very busy two days...
 
...after a day off Saturday, we definitely made up for it Sunday and today.  We woke up bright and early Sunday to go to Eugene's church, and then we had lunch with our advisor here, Mayra Nelman.  She's been extremely helpful to us and we can't express our gratitude in words.  After a great lunch at this Thai place with amazing service, the real work began.  We went to lab and passaged our cells.  The osteoblasts started growing.  For some odd reason, our cells grow much faster in Houston than at Duke.  I guess everything in Texas is bigger and faster...
 
Although passaging was time consuming, the real fun part came last night, where we stayed up till 5AM working on our box, improving our technique and thinking of ways to show the word "D-U-K-E" in microgravity.  What took us incredibly long was hammering out our protocol and fixing all the leaks in our box.  We deciding on using a Cookie Monster to represent the true Duke spirit. 
 
"C is for cookie and cookie is for me"
C also stands for "crashing" which is what we all feel like doing after 1.5 hours of sleep last night.  Today, we got up bright and early at 6:30 to make our morning briefing.  Then came what we spent all night prepping for: the TRR or Test Readiness Review.  Basically, a bunch of qualified NASA people come around and determine whether or not your experimental design is safe enough to fly.  But like every test at Duke, we passed with flying colors.  They liked our design and our attention to detail.  We made sure that our box had the appropriate levels of containment and tried to be as meticulous as possible.
 
After the TRR, we loaded our box on the KC-135.  For those of you who don't know, the entire KC-135 interior is padded with white padding all around.  On the floors are areas where we can attach straps to keep our box down.  Also it is hot up there and promises to get even hotter tomorrow.
 
Then we received the best part of the program so far, our flight suits.  I look like a fighter pilot in one of these.  So cool.
 
We spent the afternoon in the lab and just got back not too long ago.  It was just one of those days.
 
But tomorrow could very well be even busier...
 
...because Dan and I actually fly tomorrow morning.  We will have to go to lab at 6:45 to prep our cells and get ready for a 10:30 flight.  Our flight will last 2 hours.  Only 12 hours before we fly and I am experiencing a mix of feelings such as anxiety and excitement.  But a good night's rest will get rid of all of those feelings.  I guess it'll hit me more when I actually step on the plane.  But for now, I'm heading to bed to make sure I get some quality sleep in.
 
We'll post pictures when we get the chance.
 

Comments

Hey everybody!  Several of you have commented on our posts with questions.  When we've had time, we've replied to them by commenting on the same post.  So if you want to see our responses, just go to the post that you commented on, and hopefully you'll find the answer to you questions!

Peace!

FL 250 and Puerto Rico

There are long days and LONG days.  Yesterday was one of the latter.

Waking up bright and early at  5:30 AM after a good 4 hours of sleep, we headed out to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) for physiological training required of all persons flying on the KC-135.  So from 7:30 to 11:30, we had four hour-long sessions where we reviewed gas laws, decompression sickness, optical illusions, and other vital info we should know while floating in the air.

So after a (too) hearty lunch, we headed over to the NBL (Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory), where NASA's 400x200x80 ft training pool and hypobaric chamber are located.  After another hour and a half of lectures on how to survive explosive decompression and use the valsalva (the official name for pinching your nose and blowing), we got to use their supplemental oxygen equipment (like the ones pilots use in F-16's) in the Hypobaric Chamber for our "flight" to Flight Level 250 (FL250) or 25000 feet.  Gas expands at higher altitudes as you well know, so that meant the gas in our GI tract would expand as well.  Good thing the NASA people fed us lots of pizza the night before.  A couple people made good use of the "right cheek roll" technique to relieve themselves of any discomfort.  I'll let your imagination figure out what that was.  After breathing for 30 minutes on 100% oxygen to rid ourselves of the Bends-causing nitrogen in our blood, we ascended to FL250 at 5000 feet per minute.  Even clouds appeared in the chamber as the water vapor condensed.  Bodacious.

We took off our oxygen masks and personally experienced the effects of hypoxia for about 5 minutes (taking turns so that we could watch each other).  Unfortunately, we all acted like sad, depressed drunks while completing the worksheet they gave us to test our time of useable consciousness.  We descended at 2k / 3k feet per minute, but Gary had some trouble depressurizing his middle ear (this contraption that blew air into his nose helped take care of that problem).  It turned out that one of the blood vessels in his right ear burst and filled his middle ear with blood (ouch).  He was a trooper and we were back at sea level. 

Afterward, we toured the NBL and took a look at the biggest swimming pool in the world.  At the moment, they have a mockup of the shuttle payload bay and one of the arms of the International Space Station (ISS).  We also heard about a new arm they are working on that can detach and reattach to move across the ISS.  They have a huge loading dock as well next to the pool with various different mockups of various shuttle and ISS components not currently used in the pool; plus a giant crane to throw the stuff into the pool when needed.  Gnarly stuff.

After rushing to the JSC afterward to passage and feed our cells, we ate and came back home at around 11 PM.  If we were smart we would have gone to sleep immediately.  Too bad we, in our infinite wisdom, decided to play more Puerto Rico till 3 AM.  Except Gary, who took the initiative and got some 4 more units of Z's than us. 

We'll see what else Houston has to offer today other than NASA, Outback, and 103 degree heat index.

Growing Pains

Quick update from our end. 
 
Orientation was long but mesmerizing today, especially on 4 hours of sleep.  We found out we would be the last student group and one of the last groups in the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD to use the KC-135.  They are retiring the KC-135 in October and switching over to a DC-9 airplane.
 
Today our experimetal box went from 3 levels of containment to 0 levels of containment back to 3 levels of containment.  A hazardous material such as our fixative (Bouin's solution) requires 3 levels of containment (i.e. the syringe the contains the Bouin's, the experimental box, and another box around that).  The combined genius of our group astounds me on a daily basis.
 
However, we are still working to improve our box.  Today we picked up materials at a local hardware store to buff up the shape of the box.  We plan to use foam to stabilize the syringes on the sides, while they are attached during microgravity.  The experimental box will be placed on top of milk crates.  Also we will use a heating pad to keep our cells comfortable while they are taking up residence in our box.
 
Weather strips have turned out to be our best friends.  They fill up the gaps and leaks in our box.
 
In other exciting, breathtaking news, we plan to use an membrane/cytoskeleton stain, in addition to using our Sytox Green nucleus stain.  This is a deviation from our previous usage of fluorescent beads to determine the position of the nucleus as it moves in microgravity.

On the sightseeing front, the lab that we went to in the Johnson Space Center is the actual lab where all the moon rocks were kept!  That's totally sweet!  We also saw the loading dock where they loaded the space capsule when it came back down to Earth.  Talk about a Kodak moment.  Too bad we didn't take any pictures. 
 
Ok I'm going to bed.  Tomorrow is a full day of physiological training.

Let the battle for our ... uh... destiny begin!

Ok, well begin when I set foot upon the glorious city that is Houston, home of NASA's Johnson Space Center, and more importantly, home of the future NBA champions: the Houston Rockets and Yao Ming.

Just Kidding.

After taking care of some business yesterday and sending out the remainder of our equipment, I fly out today under clear skies and warm weather.

I look foward to a full day in Houston of cells and Puerto Rico :)

The Fellowship of the Flask

So yesterday marked the first day Dan and Gary had ever set foot in the grand state of Texas. Consider them honored. Nothing of much consequence happened other than retrieving these lost souls from the vacuous confines of Bush Intercontinental and setting them on the path of righteous glory to Ellington Field where our destiny awaits. Well, I guess we have to wait for Isaac before the real battles begin.

Also, a change of plans: we will not be going to Rice University, but to a molecular biology lab in the Johnson Space Center (only 10 minutes away), courtesy of the very nice Mayra Nelman, who agreed to set us up in this hip locale after hearing about our trouble transporting our little guys (the cells). Obviously, transporting the cells for an hour in rush hour traffic would not make them very happy (obviously, this did not excite us either), and this reduces the chance something will happen to them on route to the KC-135.

Anyway, our goals for Wednesday:

1. Unfreeze and culture the cells
2. Receive our experimental box and prepare it for the Test Readiness Review (TRR) next Monday.
3. Pick up the last member of our fateful crew from IAH. Hopefully without any harm to animals.
4. Play a 5 player game of "Puerto Rico," which I highly recommend.

Lets hope it doesn't hit 100 today.
On a side note: The KC-135 is NOT air-conditioned. Fun times over the Gulf next week.

-John

First Night in Houston!

Hello All,

 

I’m (Dan) sitting on John’s bed, and we’re trying to figure out what needs to get done tomorrow.  Our cells arrived at Johnson Space Center and are being held safely in liquid nitrogen – haha that sounds funny.  Tomorrow we go in, unfreeze them, plate them so they can grow, and let them grow.  If our experiment box gets in tomorrow, we can continue working on that to complete all the equipment we’re going to take up in the plane.  Isaac also flies in tomorrow, so it should be a pretty full day.

As for today…

 

I flew in to Houston at around 1:45pm.  Played cards with this girl sitting next to me on the plane who’s going to a health care camp (I know, have you ever heard of a health care camp?) for 10 days.  Pretty fun, made the flight go by quicker.  Once we got to John’s house, we played cards for a bit and then went to go eat dinner at Outback.  That prime rib was so good.  Man.  So good.  After my awesome dinner, I rode unconscious in the car to the airport where we picked up Gary.  After a little grocery shopping, we headed back to John’s house to watch Gary eat (since he hadn’t eaten yet), followed by a game of Puerto Rico (fun game, you should try it).  Now it’s time to head to bed.  Later!

 

-Dan

Shipping the Cells :-)

So it’s Monday…Isaac and I will be packing up the cells and shipping them out today.  They should be good until they get to Houston.  Gotta pack tonight, then me and Gary leave tomorrow.  Exciting stuff.  I wonder what it’ll be like living with these guys for almost two weeks.  Should be interesting.  More to come after we ship the goods.

About the Project

NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program (RGSFOP)

Our Study:
Change in myocytic and osteoblastic cellular shapes due to response of nuclear movement in microgravity conditions

Current Agenda:

• Fly our experiment!

Abstract:
The mechanisms of cellular responses directly due to microgravity conditions have not been concretely identified in previous research. Knowledge of such cellular responses to microgravity is crucial to the greater understanding of the present concerns of muscle atrophy and loss of bone density during extended exposure to microgravity conditions. Through our study, we will investigate one possible mechanism in which gravity directly affects cellular machinery through a shift in the position of the cell nucleus. Loss of gravitational forces in the cell would cause a shift in the positions of the cellular organelles, including the nucleus, to a more energetically favorable state than with gravity. We predict that the cell nucleus in myocytes and osteoblasts will move in response to microgravity conditions and that this movement will change the overall shape of the cell via direct connections between the nucleus and the cytoskeleton. Such changes in cell shape may have ramifications in the overall function or behavior of the cell. Overall, the results of this experiment will enhance our understanding of possible mechanisms through which gravity may act to directly affect cellular behavior.

Test Objectives:
The aim of this study is to detect and observe a possible mechanism through which gravity may have a direct and relatively macroscopic effect on cellular morphology after minimal exposure to microgravity. Experimental evidence has shown that cell shape is responsible for influencing factors such as cell proliferation, gene expression (Vico et al, Bone. 22(5) May 1998 Supplement:95S-98S), and general cellular metabolism (Tairbekov, Doklady Biological Sciences. 375 2000:660-62), suggesting the importance of such a direct effect of gravity on cell structure. Specifically, we hypothesize that a minimal time spent in microgravity conditions would directly cause noticeable movement and deformation of the cell nucleus and thus cause a change in overall cell shape through its connections with the cytoskeleton.

Overview:
The NASA RGSFOP provides students with the chance to design and perform a study on the effects of microgravity (nearly zero-g) on a subject of their own choosing. Flights aboard the KC-135A (the famous NASA "Vomit Comet") will simulate approximately thirty seconds of nearly zero-gravity conditions, allowing for unique tests and insights on the effects of microgravity.

Thie purpose of this website is to provide information about our research and activities in this program, as well as inform the public of the valuable educational opportunities and services provided by NASA.

Introduction:
Our team consists of four Juniors from Duke University: John Fang, Isaac Chan, Dan Choi, and Gary Sing. We are advised by Dr. George Truskey of the Biomedical Engineering Department.

Future updates to this site will reflect our progress in both the experimental and outreach portions of our project.

Experimental
We have developed our methods for fixing cells while spinning in a centrifuge and are currently measuring the distance from the slide to the nucleus with a confocal microscope. Our primary piece of equipment is an open air centrifuge. Using fluorescent dye, we are able to obtain very clear images of our cell samples.

Outreach
Lakewood Elementary: We presented an activity emphasizing scientific curiosity and emphasized the necessity of NASA in exploring science.

E.K. Powe: We presented our experimental instruments (centrifuge) and displayed the RGSFOP video for viewing during a "Science Night" for K-6 students.