Amazing Monday TRR, Hypobaric Chamber and NBL

What an amazing day, our team was on the go all day. We started our morning bright and early as usual. We got to the hangar on Ellington Field by 7:00 am. We had a brief to let us know about the schedule for the day and changes that have occurred for the rest of the week. One of those changes is the plane. Mrs. Houlihan will fly on the Zero Gravity 727 plane on Thursday. Ms. Prows will fly on the NASA C-9 plane on Friday. The NASA C-9 plane is the same plane Mrs. Houihan, Mr. Knapp, Mrs. Kollar, and Mrs. Groty flew on in 2008 and 2006.
Next, we proceeded to set-up the experiment exactly as it will be set up on the plane. This was in preparation for the TRR that I spoke about yesterday, the safety review. The 20+ member safety team made up of NASA engeneers went to each RGO Team to hear about each schools experiment and what we have done to the equipment to make it safe. For example, in our tornado tube we put silicone sealant around the threads of the tube to ensure that water would not escape the lexan bottles during flight. We got the O.K. and the experiment is safe to fly!
Next, we left Ellington Field (EF) and headed to another part of town to the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL). Our time was so packed today that we skyped with our kinders while driving in the car to the NBL! Wow, it was SO neat. The boys and girls had some amazing questions.
At the NBL we had hypobaric chamber training which completed our NASA Physiological Training. We learned how to put on really cool green gas masks for oxygen and flight helmets. We went into the chamber for about an hour. While in the chamber all of the air is sucked out to simulate flight to 25,000 feet. This is how high our planes will fly us and the experiment. At 25, 000 we had to remove our masks for 5 minutes to see how our bodies would react to lack of oxygen or "hypoxia". Some symptoms of this are hot, dizzy, light headed, dull vision, or getting silly or nasty. We needed to learn our symptoms and how we would react in the event of a real emergency. Our team did a fabulous job.
After the chamber, we had an incredible tour of the NBL. This is a 6.2 million gallon pool . This is where astronauts train to do space walks. They also get to simulate fixing the International Space Station (ISS) since they have mock-up modules in the pool. In fact, we got to see real astronauts training in the pool via a TV screen. It was so exciting!
Remember, state testing starts tomorrow. Everyone make sure you get plenty of rest so you are prepared to Soar To Six for North Ridge.