Joshua Santora: Making your morning commute across the sea of tranquility. Waking up to a Martian sunrise. Vacationing on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Pure science fiction… Or is it?
Launch Countdown Sequence: EGS Program Chief Engineer, verify no constraints to launch. EGS Chief Engineer team has no constraints.
I copy that. You are clear to launch.
Five, four, three, two, one, and lift-off.
All clear.
Now passing through max q, maximum dynamic pressure.
Welcome to space.
Joshua Santora: While the idea of space travel is a staple of countless science fiction novels and motion pictures, the reality is that you, or someone you know, could very well find themselves walking on the surface of Mars in their lifetime.
You’re listening to the Rocket Ranch and I am your host, Joshua Santora. 2019 is gearing up to be an exciting year for human space travel here at the Kennedy Space Center.
Taking their cues from the Shuttle Program, which captured the imagination of the world through their last launch in 2011, the Commercial Crew Program, or CCP for short, is poised to reignite that passion. Working in cooperation with NASA, Boeing alongside United Launch Alliance, and SpaceX, combine their innovative technology with the heritage forged from previous NASA launches. The overarching goal is to, one day soon, make space travel as common and safe as flying on an airplane, for everyone on planet Earth.
In this episode, I spoke with three members of the Commercial Crew Program during their preparation for SpaceX’s Demo-One Mission, which successfully launched on March 2.
First up is the NASA Mission Manager for Space X’s uncrewed flight test, Demo-1.
Joshua Santora: All right, welcome. I am in the booth today with Mike Lee of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Mike, thanks for being here.
Mike Lee: Yeah, thank you very much.
Joshua Santora: So, give us a little bit of background on what brought you here today and where you came from.
Mike Lee: It had always been my dream to be an astronaut. So that’s what I decided I wanted to do in high school. I wanted to be an astronaut. And I went to college with that in mind. Had an unforeseen incident happen to me in college that basically made it such that I could not qualify to be an astronaut, due to a head injury that I experienced. However, I had already been studying for three years as an aerospace engineer, focusing on space, and so I continued that. And then wound up getting a job here at the Kennedy Space Center right out of college, and so I moved down here right after that.
Joshua Santora: People probably have — I hope they’ve heard about the Commercial Crew Program, but it’s so much different than anything NASA’s ever done before. How is Commercial Crew so different?
Mike Lee: The Commercial Crew Program and the commercialization approach, the individual companies actually own their hardware, they own their designs, and the government is buying rides on their hardware. This, of course, will keep our nation’s ability to stay in space and keep humans in space and expand our capabilities beyond just low Earth orbit from there to going beyond to the moon and to Mars and potentially other locations.
Bob Cabana[soundbite]: This is truly an exciting time for human spaceflight and our nation. And believe me, it’s only going to get better as we charge off into the future.
Mike Lee: It will also allow the advancement and development of science that exists on the Space Station today.
Joshua Santora: And is there some application for — Thinking about people who live across America, so, why is this important for them? Why should they care about this?
Mike Lee: Well, because these commercial providers exist and consist not only of themselves, not only of Boeing and SpaceX, but also of their contractors and their subcontractors and their partners, and so because of that, they engage companies across the United States. So you’re keeping many people employed, returning energy and business back into the United States, keeping people here employed and achieving the goals that the United States has set. So, again, we’re trying to keep all this capability domestically, within the United States, without having to vector our funds to outside countries to be able to achieve the goals of the program.
Bob Cabana [soundbite]: Together we are delivering on the critical task of providing a capability to fly our crews on a U.S. built rocket and spacecraft from U.S. soil on Florida’s Space Coast to the International Space Station so we no longer have to rely on our Russian partners to get our crews to space.
Mike Lee: To be involved in that is inspiring. If I look back on an equivalent time, back in the early 1900s, and think about the people that were involved in the transition of government aircraft to commercialization of aircraft and look at where commercialization of aircraft is today, it is a huge industry. To think that I’m involved in that part of a transition in space is just really cool.
Joshua Santora: Do you see a future where what we know to be true of the commercial-airline market becomes true of the space-traveling market?
Mike Lee: Sure. Why not? I would imagine, in the nearer term, you’re gonna get low-Earth-orbit flights, sub-orbital flights, where people are able to fly from one continent to another in a matter of a few hours. Over time, I think we’re gonna possibly develop hotels in space. I know there’s been some discussion of that in other areas. And, so, in order to be able to do that, you’re gonna have to have a way to get people there. And, so, sure, as that, as an industry, develops, I think that the transportation of people to space is going to develop right along with it.
Joshua Santora: So, in order to buy that ride, I would assume that we have standards that have to be met for us to be okay putting a human on board. So, what does that process look like? And how do those standards get set? How are they established?
Mike Lee: Yeah, so, we have a set of requirements that were levied on the contractors, or on the providers, both Boeing and SpaceX, for them to build their spacecraft to in order to be able to certify their hardware for carrying humans on board. So, we levied those requirements. They proposed what their designs are. And that’s what the government does. That’s what Commercial Crew Program does. We stay along with them during their design to make sure that they are actually staying compliant with what those requirements are to be able to make sure that humans are able to fly safely on their spacecraft.
Joshua Santora: So, are we dictating things to them as they’re developing?
Mike Lee: So, we identify what the requirements are that they have to meet, but we don’t dictate what their design is to be able to meet those requirements. The requirement, for example, to be able to return humans safely from Earth orbit.
Joshua Santora: Obviously, getting there is half the task. Getting home is the second half, so kind of a big deal.
Mike Lee: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, a big deal. The method by which that return occurs could be a land landing or a water landing or a landing under a parachute or a landing on our wings. So the implementation is different. The objective to get people safely back to Earth is what the common thing is. What does the rocket look like? What does the spacecraft itself look like? What are the capabilities within the spacecraft? Capabilities are fairly requirements-driven, but the providers actually have the ability to vary some of what they can provide. They can go above and beyond what is being required from a government perspective, for example.
Joshua Santora: And, so, thinking about where you guys started and where you are today, can you give us kind of a brief fly-by of the history of the program. How did we get to this point where we’re about to see two people launching — two companies start launching spacecraft?
Mike Lee: So, back in around 2010, we had several Space Act Agreements, called SAAs, with multiple companies across the nation. Those were essentially study contracts, where they came up with initial design ideas. Those initial design ideas were developed to a certain level of maturity, and those were down-selected, ultimately, to the final two, Boeing and SpaceX, in 2014. As we went through the initial parts of those SAAs, we had several different design concepts — capsules, winged vehicles. And, again, the down-select occurred in 2014 for the two primary competitors that had the most successful design implementations to achieve the mission objectives and minimize risk, essentially, to achieve that.
Joshua Santora: So, Mike, you talked about — You mentioned primary, and I want to kind of ping on that for a second. So, are there secondary partners you’re working with?
Mike Lee: So, there are other partners that we’re working with. The original group of competitors under the SAAs — two of them are still continuing on. One of them is Sierra Nevada, and the other one is Blue Origin. So, although neither Sierra, nor Blue actually won the Commercial Crew contract, they do continue on performing operations under their own SAAs. They are actually doing their own internal development to continue the ability for human space flight down their own paths. Although they’re not getting funded by the government at this point in time, they’re continuing to do those study works. They’re also interacting with the government so that we have exchange, data exchange, and engineering types of level of discussions between us and Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada.
Joshua Santora: So, is there a difference in the assistance that we’re providing Boeing and SpaceX, as opposed to Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin?
Mike Lee: Well, with Sierra Nevada and Blue, we don’t have requirements that we have levied on them. So they are no longer designing to the Commercial Crew Program requirements that we have levied. We do provide engineering-level communication with them. So if they have questions regarding design solutions, we can give them what our experience is. We can talk to them about what our experiences is in these similar areas. We can’t, again, levy requirements on them, so we can’t tell them whether or not they’re meeting our requirements, ’cause we haven’t levied any on them. But we do maintain the ongoing engineering discussions with them. They use the data that they gather from those discussions to develop their own designs. With Boeing, with SpaceX, we maintain those interactions, but our communications with them is not intended to drive their designs. So, again, we can look at what their design is, identify whether or not their designs are meeting our requirements or not, but we don’t give them what their design solution needs to be.
Joshua Santora: So, thinking about Commercial Crew from this point forward, obviously, 2019 is an enormous year for Commercial Crew. What’s 2019 look like?
Mike Lee: 2019 is gonna be real busy for us. Every few months, essentially, we’ve got a launch flying for Commercial Crew from Kennedy Space Center to the Space Station.
Joshua Santora: And I understand that you’re kind of helping call the shots here for this first one. Is that true?
Mike Lee: Yeah. I’m the mission manager for the SpaceX Demo-1 mission. Demo-1 is gonna be the first flight of the SpaceX’s Crewed Dragon vehicle. Although, in this particular flight, it’s a test flight and will not have a crew on board. It will still be flying to the Space Station and still dock to the Space Station, where we plan on transferring cargo off the spacecraft and then, at the end of the mission, transferring cargo back to the spacecraft and bringing it back to the ground.
Joshua Santora: And, so, what exactly is your role as the mission manager? It’s an awesome title. What’s your function?
Mike Lee: So, I’m responsible for coordinating the ground support and ground activities for the launch. Then I am also responsible for being a primary interface to the Space Station program during on-orbit operations. So, we’re engaged as interfacing between the Station program and the provider, SpaceX, to ensure that all the objectives are achieved on the mission. If there are any issues identified during the execution of the mission, we help and resolve any of those problems and make sure we’ve got the right folks engaged to resolve any issues that may come up.
Joshua Santora: Thinking about objectives for the mission, what are — It may be too many to kind of list them all, but what are the main things that we’re really keeping a close eye on before we get to flying crews?
Mike Lee: So, we’re trying to use somewhat of a building-block approach before we fly a crew on the next mission, which is the Demo-2 mission. We want to make sure that the spacecraft operates the way that it’s supposed to and operates safely, such that the crew on board in Demo-2 will survive, of course. So, we do things such as some demonstrations as we’re approaching the Space Station to make sure that the spacecraft is controllable, can be operated in such a way that it can approach the Space Station safely, it can back away, if necessary, under control,
SpaceX Broadcaster Dan Huot [soundbite]: On the board the station, two astronauts Canadian David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain, inside monitoring the vehicle. You’ll hear them refer to the RPOP, which is the Rendezvous Proximity Operations Program. That’s just the name of the program that they’re using on a laptop inside of the station, to actually monitor Dragon. And as they just demonstrated a little while ago, the crew has the ability to send commands to make Dragon hold or retreat or even abort if they see anything that looks a little out of sorts with its approach. But everything going real smoothly so far. We should be just about two minutes away.
Mike Lee: That it can actually perform a successful docking and mating with the Space Station.
SpaceX Mission Control [soundbite]: Capture confirmed.
[cheers]
SpaceX Broadcaster Tom Praderio[soundbite]: You can hear the cheers behind us at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA. We have confirmation of a soft capture of the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.
Mike Lee: Also, while we’re docked to the Space Station, the crew on board the Space Station will be stowing equipment, transferring equipment back and forth to the Space Station, as well as demonstrating some of their operational procedures on orbit. And at the end of the mission, again, we un-birth, or undock, from the Space Station and perform a safe departure and a return.
Joshua Santora: And, so, we know that there’s no people on board this mission, so is somebody on the ground with a joystick, flying this thing, or how does that work?
Mike Lee: So, during the performance of this mission, the great deal of the operations of the spacecraft are automated. So as the spacecraft approaches the Space Station, the docking is an automated function, to a certain degree, although there is override capability from the people that are on the ground. There is also communication with the Space Station so that the folks on board Space Station are able to see and monitor the spacecraft as it approaches, as well as seeing the telemetry that comes from the spacecraft.
Joshua Santora: A lot of people may be thinking, “Cargo Dragon, Crew Dragon — no big deal. You just put a seat in there — right? — and you fly somebody on board.” Is it harder than that?
Mike Lee: It is harder than that, yeah. There are life-support systems that have to fly on the Crew Dragon that aren’t present on the Cargo Dragon. You also have to factor in the sensitivity of the human body to G-forces. And, so, the forces that are exerted on the Crew Dragon is gonna be different than the forces that are exerted on the Cargo Dragon, due to the nature of the flight profile that is followed and also what is capable of the cargo on board, versus people on board.
Joshua Santora: And past 2019 — Obviously, for SpaceX, we mentioned a few missions in there. We know that Demo-1 and Demo-2 are big milestones for certification. But what happens past 2019?
Mike Lee: So, after certification, we start flying what generically is called the post-certification missions. So far, with SpaceX, we have three of them baseline — Crew 1, Crew 2, and Crew 3. They are scheduled to fly on about one-year intervals. Likewise, for Boeing, also, you have two pre-certification missions, the first one being an un-crewed mission, the second one being a crewed mission. Then, after that one, we go into certification. And, so, then you also have post-flight, or post-certification, missions on the Boeing side, as well.
Joshua Santora: Mike, as you think about the day coming up where we’re gonna be launching, what are the things that — Where does your mind go? Is this an exciting time? Is this — Are you nervous? Like, what’s this like, from a human perspective, to know that we’re about to start flying commercial crew?
Mike Lee: It’s all of those things. It’s a little bit of nerves. It’s very exciting. As we watch, again, the first mission of this design, of this crewed capability, it’s very exciting because we’re on the front end of a big step forward for us as a nation. It’s nerve-racking a little bit because it is the first flight of something new. Fortunately, most of this has been demonstrated — or a lot of this technology has been demonstrated previously by SpaceX. So, there are new modifications that are flying in this design, but a lot of it is being demonstrated before it actually reaches the point of launching. So we have fairly high confidence of the success of this mission. But it’s still a little bit nerve-racking.
Joshua Santora: And, so, Mike, I don’t want to dig into your personal life too much, but, obviously, like, a little bit of heartburn, probably, over missing out on an opportunity to be an astronaut, but you’re here today helping to enable astronauts and space flight. Thinking about the people who may be listening who either have a dream or have missed out on a dream or lost a dream, what would you encourage them with, as far as their pursuit of working for NASA or other things of that nature?
Mike Lee: I would totally encourage anyone who has a dream or a goal to pursue that goal as far as you can. The only thing that will stop you from achieving that kind of a goal is closing doors on yourself, really. And if a door closes, then you look for another open door. Go down a path of advancing your education so that you can achieve greatness.
Joshua Santora: Mike, I want to just say “thank you.” Appreciate you being here today. And good luck this coming year. It’s a big year for you. I know you’re gonna do great.
Mike Lee: Thank you so much.
Joshua Santora:We wanted to make sure you knew, we had a lot of successful milestones during that mission, including docking, testing while attached to station, undocking, reentry and splashdown. We’re looking forward to seeing their future successes as they continue working alongside the Commercial Crew Program.
Next up is Carol Scott, who serves as the Deputy Manager at the Launch Vehicle Office for CCP. As one of the original members of the program, she gives us a firsthand account of how Commercial Crew has grown and adapted since its inception.
Joshua Santora (Host): All right, I am joined now by Carol Scott. Carol thank you so much for joining me. We are in the throes of getting ready for a rocket launch. So tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do here.
Carol Scott:All right, so I am the deputy for the Launch Vehicle System Office here within the Commercial Crew program. And it’s my job to be able to help this incredible team that I have, that’s loaded with engineers and safety personnel, to be able to certify our two partners, SpaceX and Boeing, certify their Rockets so that they’ll be ready to take crew members up to Space Station and be able to do future missions for so long as they’re associated with Space Station.
Joshua Santora (Host): Carol, so tell me about yourself and kind of how you got here. I know it’s an interesting story that’s related to aeronautics, which is that definitely near to NASA’s heart but definitely a non-traditional path to get here.
Carol Scott:I grew up in Warner Robins, Georgia.
Joshua Santora (Host): Were you, were you a NASA kid growing up?
Carol Scott:No, I was not a NASA kid but I was an aviation kid. My dad is a pilot, not a, he’s a private pilot my dad built his own airplane. He’s built two. We had her own plane while I was growing up, nothing fancy or anything, but you know to get you from point A to point B. We would go to Oshkosh and every year that was our family vacation and I’ve even like slept under the wing, okay. I have pictures of that. So I grew up in this aviation world, all you know, all my life and all. So I will tell you, I am a third generation engineering graduate at Mississippi State University and my, so my grandfather went there he was a mechanical engineer, my great-uncle went there he’s electrical engineer. My dad was an aeronautical, they didn’t have aerospace at that time and then myself, a chemical engineer.
So one of my really good friends that I co-opted with, her sister worked here, and so it was right after Challenger so she was getting on with NASA. She was also a chemical engineer from USF and she was able to get me a job interview here, which was a phone interview right. And so you know, I’m talking to my potential supervisor and he’s offered me a job right over the phone, and I was like well, can I come see the place, right? So I come out here for a tour. I’m crawling around inside of Columbia at the time. We went inside Atlantis, inside the VAB. And I remember coming out of Atlantis and just going oh my god, where do I sign up? And you get paid to do this, too, right? It was pretty incredible.
Joshua Santora (Host): So he definitely gave you the sell on the tour there.
Carol Scott:I don’t think there was any sell and I think the orbiter kind of sold itself. And then you know, we’re sitting down at the dinner table and just talking about stuff. My parents, they had no idea you know that I’d been out here, or you know they knew I was looking for something else, but and I told my dad. I said, “hey, I was crawling around you know inside the Space Shuttle this past week and I’m gonna go work for NASA.” And I’m telling you, that literally my dad, he had like his fork you know here in the mouth – literally fell to the floor. So I’ve never ever surprised my family or my dad like that before.
But anyway, so yeah, and it’s been awesome ever since. I have never, you know I’ve always loved working out here. This has been, working at KSC is super incredible between all the you know the rocket stuff that goes on here, all the wildlife – coolest part is the people, right.
Joshua Santora (Host): Sure.
Carol Scott:The people are awesome.
Joshua Santora (Host): Sure. And so for Commercial Crew, has your role evolved?
Carol Scott:Yes.
Joshua Santora (Host): Since you’ve been a part of the program?
Carol Scott:Yeah, so when I first came in, I was kind of more on I would say, like the program side. So like one of my jobs to start off with, focused on strategic communications.
Coming up with a logo, coming up with you know how to interface with the partners, how to go have the meetings that we needed to have you know with the partners. How to tell our story to Congress so that they would understand that this is the next logical step, you know, and a very vital step not only just for NASA, but this is what you know, the United States should go do next.
Bob Cabana[soundbite]: Kennedy Space Center has made an amazing transformation. Transitioning from a single government program funded installation to a true multi-user spaceport of the future.
Carol Scott:I did that for a year, and then it was time for me to go back and do some more technical work. So I went back to what was the Ground Systems, I said Ground and Launch Systems, and started working with the planning and that interface to the commercial partners.
Basically to answer your question, I went from working the Ground and Launch Systems to coming over and becoming the deputy manager for the Launch Vehicle Office.
Joshua Santora (Host): So are you working with Boeing and SpaceX or one more heavily than the other?
Carol Scott:So no, I would say it’s pretty even. We do try, so I know I am, my area of emphasis is with Boeing and ULA right, and then we have Steve Gaddis who works on the SpaceX side. But we find out, we got to help each other out right there. Let me tell you, when you get really close to being ready to launch there’s a lot of work to be done. So our office had started off with trying to work both partners but not be assigned specifically just to one. It takes all of us to do this. This one definitely takes a village to go make this work.
Joshua Santora (Host): Yeah so what does that work look like day to day? Are you reviewing documents, are you talking to the partners? What are you doing?
Carol Scott:So I would say more doing a lot of strategic planning, talking with the partners, interfacing with them a lot. Interfacing with our office to make sure that the work that we need to have done, you know, we have a plan or schedule. It’s really hard to get it out beyond about 60 days at this point, because the work comes in, you know the works got to come in, and then you’re gonna have issues or questions and all about you know the work that’s coming in. So you have a lot of dialogue with the partners.
Joshua Santora (Host): So is it fair to say, you’re kind of shepherding the process? Helping make sure that like all the people play their role and all the people get everything done that needs to get done.
Carol Scott: I would say that, yeah. And I would say guiding too, right. Guiding and then I try to stay out ahead of them, so that I keep them working toward you know the strategic plan that’s out here right and trying to keep ahead of them with the goals so that you know we’re actually getting to where we need to be. So yeah, a little bit of that.
Joshua Santora (Host): Yeah, you mentioned kind of planning out ahead. Obviously we’re right here on top of Demo-1, our first Commercial Crew launch, which is great. So are you still kind of planning out, because obviously the mission isn’t done…
Carol Scott:…Oh my gosh…
Joshua Santora (Host): When you fly Demo-1.
Carol Scott: Okay, so yes, I’ve got a real intense team going on right now with Demo-1, trying to make sure you get through all the reviews to say yes we can go fly. So and then at the same time, I’ve got another team working on OFT and that’s the Boeing ULA launch. So you know, I’m trying to get them to start their engineering assessments of how is this rocket getting ready to fly and so, and then at the same time we have another team that’s working on Demo-2 that’s doing all the planning for Demo-2. And the work that we need to do for Demo-2 has got to be one of the things we’re seeing is, let’s put a little more logic into what we work first.
And I know that sounds easy, but you know when you’ve got a lot of data coming in, you kind of gotta sort through and go hey I need to do this chunk first, chunk A before I go do chunk B. So we’re doing a little bit more planning of that way to be able to go manage it. And then with all of that, you got to go de-conflict right. Make sure your resources aren’t, you know you’re not stretching them too thin and then that they can actually go do this work, because there’s a lot of, obviously the launch vehicle has a lot of propulsion. There’s a lot of work on the prop side and so that’s the group we got to make sure is able to get it done and not have them on top of each other.
Joshua Santora (Host): So I’m asking you now to kind of imagine the future a little bit, because obviously we don’t know until we fly, but how much do you think that the data from Demo-1 will really impact that process? Because I could see that, things could go like swimmingly…
Carol Scott: Every day…
Joshua Santora (Host):…And it’s perfect and it’s great, or it’s like kind of, there are issues and you gotta kind of take steps back to deal with those.
Carol Scott: Josh I’m gonna tell you, every week we learn something. Right? And that’s…
Joshua Santora (Host):Only every week?
Carol Scott: Well yeah, really, it’s not until the end of the week that you realize, all right you start off with this plan on Monday and by Thursday you’re doing some adjustment. But you know, that’s when you have test flight, what’s the cool thing about test flight? You find stuff, right?
Joshua Santora (Host):Exactly.
Carol Scott: So you all know, you don’t know exactly what that issue is but you know there’s gonna be something, and it’s gonna be fun to work on, it’s gonna be something exciting, it’s gonna drive you crazy, but you gotta go fix that, you know. And I’m so, you just kind of put a little block in your plan to, all right whatever this unknown is I gotta go do that.
Joshua Santora (Host):Do you build in a block for unknown things like that or do you just like subconsciously do that knowing like it’s gonna happen?
Carol Scott: I kind of do it more subconsciously.
Joshua Santora (Host):Okay.
Carol Scott: It’s hard to put on paper, the block of unknown unknown. When the program manager wants to go, “You can’t do that. What is that? Why don’t you know that?” You know, so, but I know from experience right, I know experience from shuttle from doing Ares I-X, you always have those unknown unknowns. That’s what part of test flight is. That’s what’s the fun part of it. Yeah there’s constant learning all the time. The partner is doing what we did in shuttle. They’re the ones that are, you know, loading it up and you know, make flipping switches or, you know, or making sure it’s gonna be able to go launch. Our role is more of an advisory, making sure that the requirements set that we set up for, that they are working within that, you know, box for lack of a better word, in that it is safe to go fly that day.
So that’s what our job is. My role is more of the management side, you know leading up to like L Minus four hours. And if there’s any kind of issues that’s got to be resolved, you know, I’ve got to make sure the team can go do that, but after — when the Launch Support Team starts up, and that’s that real small-scoped engineering team that’s under the direction of Steve Stich of our program, and that’s when that gets invoked. I’ll tell you what I’m doing right now is because in case the unknown unknown happens, right, and that cool problem is going to sneak out, so I’m working on contingency planning, making sure I’ve got Group “B” ready to come in. So when the “A” Team is off, ’cause they’ve been working all night, I’ve got “B” Team set up to go work the issues, and so –
Joshua Santora (Host):And “B” Team not the lesser team, just the next team.
Carol Scott: No, just the next team. Right.
[ Laughs ]
Carol Scott: The next team. I know. I was trying to figure out what else to kind of call them there, but have them ready to go so they can make sure the issue’s getting resolved while folks that worked the night before are able to sleep, and we can get ready for the next attempt. So, like I said — always that constant planning kind of going on.
Joshua Santora (Host):And we know we talked about this very different role that NASA’s playing in these launches.
Carol Scott: Mm-hmm.
Joshua Santora (Host):How do you characterize, in summary, this mission? Is it a NASA mission?
Carol Scott: So, I would say it is all of it, okay?
[ Laughs ]
Carol Scott: So it’s a NASA mission. This one is a SpaceX mission. But, more importantly, this is a mission for United States of America. This is for all of us.
Astronaut Josh A. Cassada[soundbite]: I’ll tell you. Being able to launch to the International Space Station from U.S. soil – I can’t imagine a better honor. And we’re ready.
Carol Scott: So, it is an introduction test flight to be able to go get crews to I.S.S., right? So, initially, from the NASA standpoint, and that’s what it is. For SpaceX, this is probably proving out that eventually they can go have their tourists to go whether it’s to Mars or the Moon — wherever SpaceX wants to go take people, this is providing that avenue for them. And then I’m going to tell you, from the bigger, all-of-us, picture standpoint, this is the only way we’re going to get our grandkids or, you know, whatever have the ability to be able to go into space, and so that’s why I say this is — It’s more than just NASA, it’s more than just SpaceX. It’s for all of us so that, eventually, we’re getting space flight as common as air travel is today.
Joshua Santora (Host):Awesome. Well, Carol, I appreciate you being with me today. Good luck to you and your entire team.
Carol Scott: Oh, thank you.
Joshua Santora (Host):Obviously, it’s going to be an exciting couple weeks here. I’m sure busy, but lots of fun.
Carol Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate it, too.
Joshua Santora:On our last podcast we said we’d answer a question from a listener, so we wanted to tackle this one from on Twitter from @teslaprince. “On average, how long does an astronaut spend on the ISS on any given mission?”
Well the truth is, it varies pretty wildly. With the shuttle program we saw stays as short as 7 or 10 days, but most expeditions on station are spent up there for about six months at a time. Astronaut Scott Kelly spent almost a full year up there for science research. Great question.
Despite beginning her career toward the end of the Shuttle Program, Misty Snopkowski carried over a youthful energy into her role as the Launch Site Integrator for Commercial Crew. Working directly with SpaceX, she spoke with me about the joys and challenges she faces leading up to launch.
Joshua Santora (Host):All right, so I am joined now by Misty Snopkowski. We are on the brink of launching the first ever, Commercial Crew launch. Misty thank you for making time for us today.
Misty Snopkowski: Thanks for having me.
Joshua Santora (Host):So we’re obviously talking about Commercial Crew and Demo-1, which is the first flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which is super exciting. So what job do you hold right now? What are you, what are you doing for Commercial Crew?
Misty Snopkowski: So now, now I am in the group that’s called Ground and Mission Operations. Our nickname is G-Mo. I was against that.
[laughs}
Misty Snopkowski: It kind of stuck.
Joshua Santora (Host):But we could spend days talking about like naming procedures and acronyms, but…
Misty Snopkowski: Yes yes so G-Mo, yeah, is the short, the short name for the office but essentially, my role is the Technical Integrator for G-Mo. So what that means is, because the scope of the group is so big, it covers launch operations, mission operations and recovery operations. And so they really needed somebody as an integrator to kind of look across all operations and make sure that all the requirements and standards were being integrated properly and, and just kind of have that that big integrated picture for all the, for all the operations.
Joshua Santora (Host):Cool so you kind of get play, “make it all work together.” Is that kind of…
Misty Snopkowski: Right. Right.
Joshua Santora (Host):…summarize that?
Misty Snopkowski: Yeah, yeah, and it’s, it’s a pretty big job because we have, we have the folks here at Kennedy who obviously are involved more in the ground and lawn shops portion of it. And then we have our major stakeholders over in Houston who are obviously very heavily involved in the mission operations side when were when we’re actually flying in space. And then there’s the recovery portion, which is kind of a mix of Houston and then obviously SpaceX is involved in the recovery part as well and that’s out here again in the Atlantic, so it’s a big, it’s a big job.
I should probably also, I don’t know if I mentioned that, but within the G-Mo org there’s my position on SpaceX and then there’s another one for Boeing. So I, I’m exclusivity responsible for the SpaceX operations.
Joshua Santora (Host):Tell me about being a kid and growing up. You wanted to, you always want to work in the space industry?
Misty Snopkowski: Um, I don’t know if I always wanted to work in the space industry. Just because, I mean, when you’re little you don’t really know what that means.
Joshua Santora (Host):I wanted to be a motorcycle policeman, that was my thing. So did you have like a thing?
Misty Snopkowski: I wanted to be a veterinarian.
Joshua Santora (Host):Yes, awesome.
Misty Snopkowski: I loved animals. It probably wasn’t until like high school timeframe where I started learning like what an engineer is through my physics teacher and so that kind of struck my interest. And then, I was always a huge fan of Star Trek The Next Generation.
Joshua Santora (Host):Okay, very good, right who’s not.
Misty Snopkowski: Right, so anyways, so that was always a fun thing for me in high school and then I just kind of found out what an aerospace engineer was and that seemed like a cool thing to do so I started pursuing that and learning more about
what that would entail. And then that’s what I ended up majoring in.
Joshua Santora (Host):And so what does your job look like on a daily basis? Are you spending time in meetings? Are you doing design work? Are you evaluating things? Like obviously we’ll talk about approaching launch week, but yeah not approaching launch week, what’s kind of a normal week or day look like?
Misty Snopkowski: It’s kind of a mix of all that, you know there is the program side of it where you’re in meeting at the program control board, or engineering review board. Leading up to this timeframe we’ve had several milestones with SpaceX as far as the designs go, because also what’s included in my roles and responsibilities is making sure that the launch pad, or LC-39a, as some folks might know it as, that all gets designed according to our requirements that we need for crew as well. So we had several what we called launch site operational readiness reviews with SpaceX where we went over all their designs. There is some fun stuff in the day-to-day to where you’ll get to go out to the pad and actually do walk down to the pad or see how they perform their vehicle processing. So those are always fun days. And then also along the way we’ve observed a lot of their static fire and launch operations, so that’s always fun to get behind a console and see how they’re doing that operation as well. So it’s not always in the conference rooms but sometimes we get to do some fun things out in the field.
Joshua Santora (Host):So just asking you very personally, is that a disappointment? Is the work for NASA all you had hoped that it would be?
Misty Snopkowski: Oh yeah, I mean the things I’ve gotten to do my whole career have been really awesome. Really, like more than I could have ever expected. I mean just to even be, to say you know, to tell you my career history and to say that I got to fly the last shuttle launch and then I was part of a brand new program that got stood up. There’s not a lot of people that get that kind of opportunity in their career, so I do feel very fortunate to experience that. And then and just seeing all the things that this company, SpaceX because that’s who I’m closest with at this point but just to see all the things that they’ve accomplished in the last few years under TCAP has been amazing.
Joshua Santora (Host):Yeah and so what’s life been like leading up to launch, so kind of a little bit everything in the day-to-day but obviously when we get close to launch it’s a whole different game.
Misty Snopkowski: Yes it’s been insane. You know and a lot of it is because this is our first launch as a program to, so you know we’re kind of figuring a lot of things and learning a lot of things as we go. But yeah, it’s been, the last I would, say two months, have been pretty intense just trying to get to this point. You know, once the hardware, and I kind of knew this already because shuttle was kind of the same way, but once the hardware gets to Kennedy Space Center, like that’s when things turn on around here.
Joshua Santora (Host):Yeah.
Misty Snopkowski: And kick into a different gear and so you kind of step away from the paperwork aspect of it and you’re and you’re more trying to follow what’s happening with the hardware and getting that vehicle stacked. I think it was right before the end of last year, we were mating the vehicles, and then as soon as we got back from the new year, you know, we had folks here on the second working so that we could get ready to roll out the vehicle and do the first dry dress.
So I think public saw that when the when the vehicle rolled out to the pad, but ever since then it’s just been like super high-speed, you know we had a static fire…
[sound of SpaceX static fire test]
Misty Snopkowski:…a couple weeks ago, or more, it all kind of blurs together.
[laughs]
Misty Snopkowski: So yeah, I’m really excited about the launch happening, like it’s been a long time to get to this point, a lot a lot of work. And sometimes it’s kind of funny like sitting here like thinking about it, you know, you’ve just kind of been in the mix of it running as hard as we can.
Joshua Santora (Host):Yeah next Saturday. Yeah like that’s weird to say, right?
Misty Snopkowski: Yeah, yeah, and the team’s been getting ready, you know we’ve fit in some sims since the beginning of the year to get the launch team ready. So it’s pretty exciting to be this close.
Joshua Santora (Host): So Misty, thinking about launch day, very early morning, where are you planning to be when we fly?
Misty Snopkowski: That’s a good question. I was actually just talking about it this morning.
Joshua Santora (Host): So you get things you have to figure out when launching a vehicle for the first time.
Misty Snopkowski: Yeah well, so by the design, I’m not gonna be in the control room. You know SpaceX is the operator for this mission but there is a whole NASA team that’s supporting our launch manager who’s gonna be Steve Stich for this mission. And so there’s a team behind him that’s giving him inputs to anything that might be happening during the count but that’s mostly an engineering team that had helped stand up and get them ready.
I’ll probably be over in Hangar AE. It’s a big facility that we use for NASA to house some of the folks who are around during day of launch. That’s probably where I’ll be.
Joshua Santora (Host): Good and so will you be playing a specific role or will you really just became kind of enjoying this? Are you watching data? What’s your function at that point.
Misty Snopkowski: I don’t have a specific day of launch function.
Joshua Santora (Host): Okay.
Misty Snopkowski: Like I said, that’s mostly covered by the engineering teams. So I’m probably more there for moral support and then to be with the team, right? Like we’re at this very end point and so you know I kind of want to be with everybody when it happens.
Joshua Santora (Host):Awesome. How much do you interface with SpaceX, or is it more focused on working with our NASA team make sure things are in order?
Misty Snopkowski: I talk to them like every day, all throughout the day, to be able to pull something like this off you have to have a pretty good working relationship with your counterparts. We’ve got folks that are here local from SpaceX. I talked to people at SpaceX in Houston and then also in Hawthorne. So you know, over the years you kind of form a pretty good working relationship with them. But yeah, we talk all the time.
Joshua Santora (Host):And you mentioned that your work kind of focuses on the launch pad and a lots of things going on there. So speaking from a uneducated perspective, how complicated is a Launchpad? Because there’s on one hand like, I’m like you just need a big mound to like fire a rocket into space off.
Misty Snopkowski: Yeah.
Joshua Santora (Host):And on the other hand, I’m like, there’s no way it’s that simple.
[laughs]
Misty Snopkowski: No, it’s pretty complicated. So well, SpaceX wasn’t starting with a complete, you know, just mound of concrete, they inherited the old shuttle launch site. So they really kind of had a pretty good foundation there, but if you look at, if you were to walk out there today and look at that pad compared to when the shuttle was flying, it looks very different now. But as far as all the systems out there, you have to think about every system that’s onboard the vehicle has a ground interface to it. And so when you when you put it in that context you start to think about, ok all the fluid connections that have to be made at the launch site going into the vehicle, all the electrical connections, all the command and control.
There’s also the sound suppression system out there. When it launches, to catch all the sound vibrations, you know. From a crew perspective, they had that to add the crew access arm, which is a pretty beefy, complicated, hydraulic system. The emergency egress system is also being installed out there for the crew. There’s also all the supporting GSC just to get the vehicle out there. They call that the transporter erector, so that’s a really big complex piece of GSC that had to get designed and built. So there’s, and the thing is, it’s kind of funny that you give that perspective on the launch site because if that’s the case, if people think that, then we did our job right. Because from our perspective the launch site should just be ready.
Joshua Santora (Host): Yeah.
Misty Snopkowski: And you shouldn’t think about it, and the vehicle should just arrive, so…
Joshua Santora (Host):…that’s awesome. So just kind of spitball, and I know that this would be that you’re kind of just spitballing a number here, at least I think you would, how many systems are we talking about? You talk about each one needs an integration point on the ground, like how many systems are in a rocket?
Misty Snopkowski: Oh man, if I had to like put a SWAG on it, you know, just kind of thinking about all the lead engineers that I have on the ground, there’s probably like between, you know, if we were to hash it, up maybe 35 to 40 different subsystems.
Joshua Santora (Host): Okay.
Misty Snopkowski: But we group them into probably four or five major systems. So we got the fluids and that’s a huge system just because there’s so many different types of fluids. There’s the electrical, a command and control, and mechanical, which is also a pretty big beefy area, but under those four titles there’s a whole bunch of other things happening under there. And then you have to think also what we call facilities, which is kind of like where the water comes from. Kennedy Space Center will supply the water or where we call you know big power comes from, AC power. So those things fall into what we call facilities out here and so that’s a whole other area of things that gets applied to the launch site. So there’s a lot going on out there that most people realize.
Joshua Santora (Host): And is there any area that you in particular have focused on in your time?
Misty Snopkowski: Um no, I’ve always, I mean within the program I’ve always played more the integration rule for all that. So I mean if an issue comes up in a particular system then you know we go off and work it, but from a program perspective I’m more the integrator for everything.
Joshua Santora (Host): So what does the Commercial Crew program mean for you? And I’m thinking about its goals and vision and mission. What does that mean to Misty?
Misty Snopkowski: You know, because I was hired on at the very beginning of the program, it did kind of take a little bit of like shifting your mindset on what your purpose was compared to shuttle. Because the goals of Commercial Crew are more to spawn a new industry for space, and to kind of teach these commercial providers on how to do human spaceflight. And it’s kind of one of those things where you know you’re the mama bird and you want the baby birds to go off and do this on their own eventually, right. And so you know that took a little while to, I think for everyone in the program to kind of adjust to kind of go into the program with that mindset.
I was actually just thinking about this a couple days ago, but looking back from when we first started to where we are now, and just kind of reading the headlines and all the news about all these different space companies that are out there doing it and wanting to start to provide services for just regular folks – it’s pretty cool to be able to kind of like see that progression happen. And I think that was like the one big goal that Commercial Crew and then obviously the other goal is to get these vehicles done so that we will launch our own astronauts.
So that’s how I how I see the program and its purpose. That’s what I think about when I’m doing my job every day, you know, how can I help these providers to get where they need to be so that they can get certified and do this on their own.
Joshua Santora (Host): So a really important question, if you could be any character on Star Trek Next Generation, who would it be?
Misty Snopkowski: Oh my goodness, Geordi was always my favorite.
Joshua Santora (Host): Who doesn’t love Geordi.
Misty Snopkowski: Yeah, yeah, he had those cool glasses. Which you don’t really know what they did.
Joshua Santora (Host): That’s right, doesn’t matter, they’re really cool.
Misty Snopkowski: Yeah, yeah.
Joshua Santora (Host): All right Misty, thank you so much for joining us today.
Misty Snopkowski: Oh thanks for having me.
Joshua Santora (Host): I like to think of launch days as payoff days for years of hard work. Nothing provides a jolt of energy like seeing your work fly into space.
Misty Snopkowski: Right.
Joshua Santora (Host): So good luck to you and your team, and the entire program and thank you.
Misty Snopkowski: Thank you, appreciate it.
Joshua Santora (Host): I’m Joshua Santora, and that’s our show. But before you go, remember that we’d like to hear from you, our listeners. Do you have a question about space exploration? Tweet us your question using the hashtag #rocketranch and we’ll plan to answer a listener’s question at the end of the next episode.
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Thanks for stoppin’ by the Rocket Ranch. And special thanks to our guests Mike Lee, Carol Scott and Misty Snopkowski. As always a big thanks to our producer, John Sackman, soundman Lorne Mathre and Glenn Benson, editor Michelle Stone, and our production manager, McManus Woodend. And remember: on the rocket ranch… even the sky isn’t the limit.