Some Space Operations

Lukey and Kenzie had an opportunity to try to land the Space Shuttle while we were at the US Air Force Museum.  A short video of their attempt is at the bottom of this page.  

Neither of them succeeded in successfully landing the shuttle but Lukey did manage to get all the way to the long runway at Edwards Air Force Base.  He crashed on the runway but he almost had a successful landing.  Kenzie drifted too far off her glide path so her flight was terminated as a missed approach and hence a doomed mission.  The space shuttle has no engines when coming back to Earth so once you start on the glide slope, you are committed and must land.  You glide that behemoth in on a very steep and fast angle and then slightly flare just before touchdown on the runway.  If you stray off your glide slope path as Kenzie did early in her flight, it's game over, since you would have no way to get back into position to land.  

In hindsight, both Kenzie and Lukey could have used some advice on the unique flight dynamics of the space shuttle and how to operate the controls before they stepped into the simulator.  They jumped right in so I had assumed they knew what they were doing.  My assumption was wrong.  I should have pulled them aside and explained a bit about what they needed to do and how they should best go about completing their landings.

They also had an opportunity to get up close and personal with a real space suit and to step into one of these big, heavy suits.  They didn't get to actually wear the suit but they were able to step into the suit from behind.  

Here they are, below, floating in space on a tethered mission at the ISS...  Earth 254 miles beneath them, the ISS above them, and the Earth's moon off in the background...

In these photos below, they are using the MMU (manned maneuvering unit) in a simulation.  They have a big screen in front of them depicting a simulation of their space scene.  They need to successfully maneuver from the space shuttle cargo bay to the Hubble Space Telescope...

Here is a short video of their attempts at landing the space shuttle....