Outside the Spacecraft Social: 50 Years of EVA

Today is Outside the Spacecraft Social!!!

After arriving and signing in I was giving an official schedule and badge!

10:00 Check-in and introductions in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall
10:30 Welcome by General Dailey in Outside the Spacecraft
10:35 Speakers: Dr. Jennifer Levasseur, Lisa Young, and Richard Bentham
11:50 Speaker: James H. Ragan
12:10 Free time to explore the exhibition
12:30 Speaker: NASA Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria
12:55 Group Photo
1:00 Program concludes

We were welcomed by General John R. Dailey, the Director of the Air and Space Museum. He told us that there are more than 60,000 items in the Air and Space Museum, but many items are ‘big’ ones (his favorite item is a Boeing F4B-4 like his father flew in WWII)! General Dailey also mentioned the importance of education, science, STEM, social media, and Twitter! Then we did introductions: the 15 people were selected to attend the social (out of the 100+ that applied) and others that either helped create the exhibit or were from the Smithsonian, and then Dr Jennifer Levasseur- the Curator of the exhibit, and Lisa Young- the Conservator, took us around the exhibit and discussed the objects. Its amazing all that they do to protect and preserve the objects for future generations, while at the same time wanting to show and display them and make them accessible to the public. Its a fine line between trying to preserve them and keeping their history and context intact. For example a few objects have lunar dust on them and they want to keep the ‘moon dirt’ on the boots, gloves, and bags and yet at the same time present them in a nice way to the public.

Some fun space facts I learned today:

-Russian Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov was the first human to do a spacewalk on March 18, 1965
-Ed White was the first American to do a spacewalk, from the Gemini IV capsule on June 3, 1965
-Ed White’s spacesuit is too badly degraded to be displayed
-Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria holds the NASA record for longest spacewalk time, at 67 hours and 40 minutes
-Kathy Sullivan was the first American woman to walk in space. Her space glove had a Kevlar palm which could stop a bullet, but not the friction of movement & space!
-Spacesuits expand outside the capsule and getting them back in was tricky
-Some objects from space still have moon dust on them and some in the museum have not been opened since they came back to Earth in the 1970s
-Spacesuits are uncomfortable. Period. Many astronauts have shoulder issues and some need surgery later on
-A lot of astronauts get black fingernails after an EVA (spacewalk) due to friction inside glove when moving their hands
-The human body is not designed to be in space
-There are 400 spacesuit gloves in the Air and Space Museum collection
-The blue tips you see on the tips of space gloves are thermal heaters
-Eugene Cernan’s space boots were the last boots on the moon to make footprints and they came back with space dust on them
-Hamilton & Rolex watches failed NASA’s testing, but OMEGA watches worked and 96 were purchased by NASA (where they were assigned to a specific astronauts, who had to give them back before they went home for the day, as they were government property) and they kept recycling them. One and only one person was contracted to clean and fix them. Also astronaut watches are water-proof, shock-proof, anti-magnetic, do temps 0-200°F & 12 g
-The difference between Russian & US spacesuits are that Russian design leans toward natural materials and the US design leans toward synthetic
-Every astronaut wears four gloves: a comfort glove, pressure bladder, restraint, and protective cover
-Spacesuits smell (apparently you can smell them as soon as you enter their storage area) because of off-gassing of polymers in the suit and the gasses also affect aluminum that are in the suits
-Space gloves are designed so that astronauts have enough tactile response so that they could work with the smallest screws. Originally NASA created molds of astronaut hands, but today they are adjustable and can be used by many astronauts
-The 1st spacesuits didn’t have cooling system, that came later
-When the seamstresses were sewing the original spacesuits one layer was made of a special metallic fabric (like chain mail) and it was $60 a yard! The fabric was locked up when not in use.
-The Air and Space Museum has over 2,500 pieces of space artwork
-The Air and Space Museum is the world’s leading expert on spacesuit conservation
-The Smithsonian did not think Air and Space Museum would work (General Dailey mentioned this)

I asked a few questions along the way. The first one was to Conservator Lisa Young and I asked were: “Do spacesuits smell?” Yes they do. The next questions was to James H. Ragan, former NASA engineer (and the first person to select music for the astronauts) and now with OMEGA watches “If you had to put the exploded watches back together how long would it take?.” Ragan asked Petros Protopapas from the OMEGA Museum and who said that if he had his best watchmaker working on it, and he was not interrupted, it would take about a week. My last question was to retired NASA Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria (holder of the NASA record of the most time on spacewalks) and I asked “Well I know no one can hear you scream in space, but you probably get that question a lot” and he just looks at me and said no. Ok. Silence. And then I start to babble and talk really fast (as I do when I get nervous) “You know its the sci-fi movie reference no one can hear you scream in space” and then I launch into my question “Well, my question is did you sing or talk when you were on a spacewalk or did you hear command or is it just silent?” Lopez-Alegria replied that the microphone is really close to the mouth and picks up every little thing (and no signing or humming) and then he went on to talk about a few microphone oops. So it ended up being a good question after all, despite my sci-fi joke that no one got. Next it was time for a photo in-front of the Glove Helix display and then Lopez-Alegria signed photos for us. He did not have time to take personal photos, so many of us did selfies! I thought that the social would be longer, but it was only officially until 1pm, but there was so much information thrown at you that it seemed much longer. It was an incredible event showcasing a fantastic exhibit which combines the art, beauty, technology, and science of 50 years of spacewalking.

Here is the website for the exhibit http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/outside-the-spacecraft/online/ and a YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ-lwySPEiI&feature=youtu.be