My Tuesday started bright and early with a single systems trainer class at seven in the morning. This training session was an evaluated class on handling malfunctions in the hydraulic systems. Right after the sim session our class had a lesson on malfunctions in the environmental control and life support system during a launch and entry. We covered a lot of material in the class. It is going to be quite a challenge when we meet all these failures in the simulators. The afternoon's class was a hands-on lesson with the tools and equipment used in maintenance activities. We were interrupted once by a fire drill. But, after we came back, we learned how to make various electrical connectors to work around failures in electrical equipment.

On Wednesday we started with a mind bending class on how the Shuttle software manages energy during certain phases of an entry. When the Shuttle comes back into the atmosphere and gets to a certain level, the guidance software begins to do certain things to make sure that the Shuttle makes it to the landing strip at the right speed. Basically, the software is constantly calculating how it should trade off between kinetic and potential energy (i.e., how fast you are going vs. how high you are) to make sure you are where you want to be on the ground. We have to understand all of this so that we know if the software is doing the right thing as we are coming in and, if it is not for whatever reason, the commander and pilot can fly the Shuttle down manually.

In the afternoon a couple of us had a hands-on class on using the laptop computers in the Shuttle. As you know, the Shuttle has five main computers that run its systems. We also fly several laptops that run various auxiliary programs that assist the crew in a variety of operations. There are programs that do everything from provide information to help the crew fly a rendezvous to programs that process e-mail. All of the laptops are set up in an internal network and the network has to be set up just so in order to work properly. We learned the basics on how to get all of these computers up and running.

Our final activity of the day was a fun one. Our class, plus a few extras that we scrounged from the office, played the training folks in a friendly game of soccer. We managed to eek out a win. Although, now that I think about it, I am not sure that beating the training folks was a smart thing to do. It may come back to haunt us later in the sims. . .

I skipped the morning class on Thursday, because I was going to have a late T-38 flight. I had to adhere to the crew duty day length of no more than a certain number of working hours when you are flying late in the day. The class was on malfunctions in the main engines. I will have to watch the video tape later. When I did go to work, I had a single systems training class on the checkout of the flight control system. Before the Shuttle comes back, all the systems used during an entry are operated to make sure they are working before you actually need them. In this class we performed all the checkout procedures and examined various malfunction scenarios.

Finally, I went flying. The reason I had to be so careful about the crew duty day is that I flew to El Paso with one of the pilots that had a late training session in the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA). The pilot's training event started about seven in the evening, and we had to fly back to Houston afterwards. So, we were not going to be back until very late at night. I got to tag along in the plane for the pilot's training and it was very interesting. I may have mentioned that the STA is a modified Gulfstream airplane. The left pilot seat has been modified to look and fly like a Shuttle while the right seat is in the regular plane configuration. There is also a lot of extra avionics in the STA to make it fly like the Shuttle.

When a pilot does this type training, the instructor, who flies in the right seat, first takes the plane up to anywhere from 20,000 to 35,000 feet in regular plane mode. Then the instructor turns the plane over the astronaut pilot who flies an entry profile in Shuttle mode down to one of the landing strips at White Sands. You do not actually land the STA during one of these runs; it is flown down to about 20 feet above the ground, which simulates the cockpit view from the Shuttle during a landing. Once the astronaut pilot has flown the entry, the instructor pilot takes over and takes the plane back up for another run.

It was really informative to see an entry run (several of them, actually). In addition to the instructor pilot, there is a flight engineer instructor that makes all the calls that are made during an entry and landing. So, you got a good feel for what really goes on in the cockpit. In addition, you really get an understanding of how steep a 20 degree glideslope is. It is steep! It looks like you are diving straight into the ground! One of the things I was surprised at was how quickly everything went. An entry seemed to go by a whole lot more quickly than it appears to in the simulators. I wonder why that is. After 10 or so entry runs of simulating various conditions - coming in too fast or too slow or with too much wind - we headed back to the El Paso airport to pick up the T-38s for our trip home. We got in about 11 pm. It was a long day, but a very good one.

I just had not had enough flying for the week, so Friday morning, I did it again. For this flight we went up to Waco and back. It was kind of a crazy flight as we could never figure out what the air traffic controllers wanted us to do. We had a clearance on the ground that had us go one route, then during the flight they gave us a different clearance, then we ended up being routed a third way. If nothing else, it kept us on our toes.

After the flight, I did not have any classes scheduled, so I spent time cleaning up at my desk, organizing for next week's classes and doing some reading.

My week did not end on Friday. On Saturday, JSC held an open house. This is the first one that they have had since 9/11. During the open house, they allowed the public to come in, walk around, and tour the facilities. Normally, the public is not allowed on-site these days. In the past, the open house has always had a very good turn out and this year was no exception. Our class took turns signing autographs for the public. We each had an hour shift and let me tell you, that hour just flew by. I have no idea how many autographs I signed, but it was a ton. In some ways it felt a little odd to have a line of people waiting to get your autograph, but, on the other hand, it was great to see such an interest by the public in what NASA is doing.