Lost and Found

One thing that a lot of people ask me, when they learn that I'm a part of NASA's Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars (WISH) program (see previous post), is, "What exactly do you do?" The answer is: A lot of things. I've completed 3 modules so far, each of which covers a separate topic, but so far my favorite module has been the second one. In that module, I was required to design a Crew Transit Vehicle (CTV) capable of leaving near-Earth orbit (NEO). [Side note: In science, doesn't it seem like everything has an acronym? So far there have been 5 acronyms in the first 4 sentences.] We had to write a report of at least 500 words about the design of our CTV regarding propulsion, crew accommodations, etc. Using the parts of the CTV that we explained in that report, we then had to draw a diagram of the spacecraft.

Because I realize that this is probably pretty confusing to anyone who doesn't know what a crew transit vehicle is, here's mine (which I designed with the capability of transporting commercial travelers, instead of just astronauts, to the Moon):

 

A warning: I am a terrible artist. My space suits (#5, on the second level) look like blobs of Play-Doh, and the sleeping bags (#10, bottom level) look like... actually, I don't even really know what exactly they look like. Sad as it is, one of the few things I'm actually happy with is the toilet (#13, bottom level), which even then doesn't look remotely like a toilet would in space. Oh, and I'm moderately okay with how I drew the treadmill (#14, bottom level) and water electrolysis machine (#4, top level... don't ask why there's a water electrolysis machine). But even though I'm really pretty awful at drawing, I'm still super happy with how this design came out, because this is my first time ever actually designing anything related to aerospace, and I had so much fun designing it that I don't really care if it looks like something vomited all over it. I even had a lot of fun writing the design report (I interpreted "at least 500 words" as "Oooh yay an excuse to write a 2500-word report on the design of a spacecraft!").

There are some things that make me almost reconsider becoming an aerospace engineer, and then there are some things that make me wonder why I ever considered giving this up as my dream. This CTV design was one of the latter. After designing this, I know that I'd love to have a job like this for the rest of my life, except where my designs actually make an impact on the world. And if designing the interior was this much fun, I don't even know how much I'm going to enjoy any opportunity to design the exterior (which is more interesting to me) of a spacecraft or aircraft.

Module 4 (my current module) will also require a design report and graphic, this time about an innovation that would be able to assist astronauts in the construction of the International Space Station (ISS). Well, this should certainly be fun...

On a completely unrelated note, here's a little poem/story/thing I wrote last year:

Lost and Found

found on a candy wrapper floating in the gutter after a rainstorm:
anywhere on earth is heaven as long as i'm with you.

found on a note falling out of an old algebra textbook:
every minute without you is a minute of my life wasted.

found of the bottom of a recycled board intended for a tree house:
there's nothing like spending time with you to make my day a little brighter.

found on the back of an envelope sticking out of a mailbox:
every word you say is another reason to love you.

found scrawled in the corner of a lab bench in silver marker:
just looking at you gives me the strength to do anything.

lost to misuse and time:
the true meaning of love.


~Becky Hill