United Space School ‘09 - Diary of Events

by Eamonn Mulholland

Pic: Eamonn Mulholland (Watergrasshill), Chris Greenfield (USS Senior Administrator) and Gabrielle O’Donoghue (Gortnahown, Mitchlestown) at the USS in Houston, Texas.

This is a collection of all the events in which I participated during the two weeks while attending the United Space School (USS) in Houston. The whole experience involved two of the most memorable weeks of my life and I managed to learn so much from the time I was there, whether it was to do with learning about space flight and all of NASA’s new projects, or learning about the culture of all the different students from around the world and simply experiencing what America had to offer.

 Sunday 26^th

Gabrielle O’ Donaghue and I, from Loreto and St. Colman’s College Fermoy, flew out from Cork airport at around 6AM and arrived in Amsterdam with no problems. When we arrived in Amsterdam we were sent all over the airport to get our transfer flight but got on the plane in the end while our flight was delayed by 2 hours but still got moving eventually. We arrived in George Bush International Airport at about 2PM Houston time. We were met by Chris Greenfield who was to be our head teacher for the two weeks. We then waited for some time while Chris rounded up a few more students who were arriving around the same time as us. We made our introductions to a few of the students who had already arrived but we had no idea that after our shy Hellos that we would come to become such great friends with everyone there. After a few more people assembled we drove off to a house where our host families were to pick us up. I then met my roommate who was a Marcus Bunn from Australia. We just spent the rest of the night getting to know our host families better and we also got our first experience with American fast food where we got to try some ‘Taco Bell’. We just spent the rest of our time recovering from jet lag.

 Monday 27^th

We went for lunch on our first day where USS was officially opened. A few guest speakers addressed us for a while telling us to get as much out of the whole experience as we could and to be prepared to work hard. After lunch we drove to the University Houston Clear Lake (UHCL) where we were interviewed to be put into our respective teams. We were just asked things like why we thought we were suited to be put into the teams selected. I was eventually put into the Yellow team. The teams were all to do with different aspects of our mission to Mars we were to create over the next two weeks. The teams were Yellow, Red, Blue and Green….that is Yellow was mission control, Red was getting to Mars, Blue was Working on Mars and Green was living on Mars. That night we had a soccer game which was students against the staff. We would only play for about 10 minute intervals because the heat was so much it would dehydrate you very quickly. In the end, we won 7-9 so it was night to be celebrated.

 Tuesday 28^th

We arrived at UHCL where we did some team building exercises for the day so that we could get to know our team better. After all that we got a talk from Lee M. Morin, who was an astronaut in the previous Apollo missions. He went into detail about the future of space flight and explained about what will happen when the Space Shuttle retires. We spent the rest of the day with our host families and got to try some more American food.

 Wednesday 29^th

We started working on our team projects this day. We essentially divided up the different parts of our assignment and decided who would be working on what. We also got another talk from a man who showed us a series of pictures taken in space. That night we were taken to a Tex Mex restaurant owned by an astronaut. We got to try some very nice American food there, even if it was a little spicy for my taste. There was also some entertainment from some students showing us a thing or two about their home culture.

 Thursday 30^th

This Thursday was one of the best days, since we got a tour of the Johnson Space Centre where we were shown the very mission control that the Apollo team used back in the late 60’s and we also got a look at the present mission control which was rather exciting because there were two missions going on at the time we were there, so we got to see them in action. We then went to the underwater facility which was used to train the astronauts to get used to zero gravity. We were then given a lecture about space food and told how tricky it was to package the food to overcome the effects of zero gravity. After the tour was finished, we arrived back in UHCL for another lecture, this time from a man from the Isle of Man who taught us about Space Law which was particularly interesting. We then worked on our projects for the rest of the day until 5pm, the time at which we finished every. My host family took us to the fun fair for the night then which was great and we met up with some other Space School students who came as well.

 Friday 31^st

For all of Friday, we were brought to Brazos Bend which is an observatory out in the country. But first, on our way there, we got to go to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet which was very tasty, but the one thing I definitely noticed about the food in America was that the portions were so much bigger than anything we have in Ireland. When we arrived at Brazos Bend we got a talk from a woman there explaining about the building and then we got to take part in a simulated mission to Mars where there were two teams, one was mission control and the other were the astronauts. We then switched over half way through the mission. A Canadian girl and I were in charge of navigation as well as a guy from Wales and a guy from Kentucky. We had to work with each other and direct our space craft first into orbit and then to Mars. In the end the mission was a complete success. After that we got some lunch and were then give a lecture on a good deal about astronomy. By the time that was over we were brought up to the observatory where we observed the Moon very close up, which looked amazing. The mosquitoes were biting us like mad out in the country-side so we all got a few marks from the night. We then drove home at which point it was around 11pm so we were all fairly exhausted from the day.

 Saturday 1st  

We had no lectures at the weekends so on the Saturday the host family took us to Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast and then we were taken to Wendy’s fast food restaurant for lunch. After that we were taken to meet up with the rest of the students, where we were taken to actually meet the astronauts who just arrived back from the International Space Station one day earlier. They held a conference open to the public. We got a chance when the conference finished to get their autograph and pictures. After meeting the astronauts, we were brought to a soccer game which is much more different from Irish soccer. There were even cheerleaders there who were kind enough to pose with us for a picture. The soccer match finished up at around 9pm, so after that we were brought back home where we got a chance to visit Wal-Mart. This is a huge chain store all over America. After that we just hung around at home for the rest of the night.

 Sunday 2^nd

For this day, we got to learn much about the culture of all the other students as a culture faire was held in UHCL. We all had to make something native to our home country, as well as to perform something traditional. Gabrielle and I made a cherry trifle which took a fairly long time to make but turned out very well in the end. At the culture faire I played a bit of Bodhrán while Gabrielle did some Irish dancing. Some other things people did were the guy from New Zealand performing the famous ‘Hakka”, people reciting poems and speeches from their country and plenty of different types of singing and dancing. We all got to try the food that all the students made where most of it was gorgeous. After the culture faire, we got to learn some Texas culture as well, when we were taught how to line dance. After that we were brought home and just hung around with some of the other students for a while.

Monday 3rd   

The Monday evening consisted of nothing too different; we worked on our projects as usual and we got a lecture on nano-technology from Pádraig Maloney from Dublin, which most people found very interesting. That night we went bowling for a few hours with all the students. We were split up in to groups of 6 and had 2 games. After that we were driven home.

 Tuesday 4^th

On this day we were driven to a place where we were to be part of a video conference. We had a few guest speakers talking and this was broadcasted over the internet for the public to watch. After all that we were taken to learn about medicine in space and what medical precautions were necessary for an astronaut. When we got back we had a games night held in a café which was pretty good.

 Wednesday 5th & Thursday 6th

For both these days we were working on our projects, just finishing them off and getting our speeches ready. On the Thursday night we were taken to the cinema to watch Transformer 2 after which we hung around for a while after before going home. 

Friday 7th 

We spent this day preparing our presentation; we did two mock takes of it in front of a person who gave us tips on how to improve ourselves. This took up most of our day. During the evening I got a chance to meet up with my cousin from Houston, who came out and took me and my room mate to dinner and afterwards took us for some Starbucks coffee. She later dropped us home and said goodbye to us.

 Saturday 8^th

In the morning we were taken shopping for souvenirs for our families but then later on we were taken back to UHCL to present our projects. We each had to talk for about 2 minutes. The topic I did my project on was Space Law. The quality of our projects determined whether we graduated or not. During the night we had a pool party which was great. It was held at one of the host family’s house and there was a barbeque there for us too. By the time the party was over it was fairly late so we just went straight to sleep.

 Sunday 9^th

We spent most of the day packing up our stuff, getting ready for home. Our graduation started at 4pm so we all dressed up in our suits and dresses. When we arrived we got another barbeque and the graduation certificates were given out one by one. Everyone graduated so we were all fairly relieved. It was also there that Chris Greenfield announced he resignation from USS, which took everyone by surprise. For the rest of the night we said our goodbyes to the people we had come to know so well over the last two weeks. We went home about 3 hours after the graduation finished.

 Monday 10^th

On this day we were transported back to the house we arrived at on the first day where we waited to be taken to the airport. We all said our final goodbyes and left for home where after a 12 hour flight we arrived back in Cork airport safe, sound and incredibly tired.

 Those two weeks were the two greatest weeks of my life and I was so grateful to have had the opportunity to go and have this memorable experience. I would definitely advise this to anyone next year. It’s such an amazing experience but I would tell anyone to be prepared to work harder than they’ve ever worked before, but also be ready for to the time of their lives!!