NASA Day 11: Surveyors, Safety Meetings, and Airplanes
Today starts off with me sleeping in on my birthday. Not a lot - but an extra half hour is always nice. I got in at 9:30, met with Kass, found Claire, and met Brian, Kevin, and Carl. Carl does most of the office work while Brian and Kevin do the dirty work, that is, go out and survey the pipes.
I found out what the pipes are made out of. HDPE, or High Density Polyethylene. Old pipes use steel which get corroded. HDPE pipes don't corrode, are more flexible, and less likely to break. HDPE can also be run in longer distances as well.
What the surveyors do is excavate a hole in the ground to confirm that the pipes are where the diagrams say they'll be. It's like a safety net because it's a lot cheaper to confirm the pipe's depth than to put a hole in a liquid nitrogen pipe. When there's that much piping underground, accidents happen. It's happened twice this year. They hit a steam line that heats up all the buildings and I think they hit a water line - maybe. I don't remember.
Talking with them and thinking about if afterwards is leaving me with more questions than answers. Why dig a hole? They dig holes to confirm the depth of the pipe, but that only tells you the depth of the pipe at that particular spot. 10' down the pipe, and the depth could be completely different. And I have another approach - why don't I invent some sort of device you throw in the water pipe. The little robotic GPS enabled fish can swim along the water/gas/steam pipe and map out where the pipe is using coordinates. Could I invent that and make a lot of money? I'll have to find out.
Brian and Kevin showed us some more underground systems, finished projects, and future projects. At one point, they're going to have to take an entire road out of service for about 3 months. This place has a lot of piping not surprisingly.
I think the lab was trying to get safety clearance so that the meters could be calibrated, so a little inspection occurred beforehand, but I'm not entirely sure.
After the inspection, we met with Michael and J.D. at the hanger. They gave us a tour of the different research planes and gave me a little physics lesson. I knew nothing about aeronautics, but I tried to keep up. I'll have to play some of Microsoft's flight simulator and learn the ropes a little bit.
I only got one picture - and it needs more of a smile, but they let me sit inside the cockpit of a little two seat plane. In some of the planes, there's hundreds of rockets and explosives inside the plane. One example is the ejector seat. If I'm about to crash or something, I can pull a yellow tab, and in two seconds, it'll be sianora to the plane and I'll be blasted up in the air where a parachute will then explode up in the air and I'll have a nice safe landing before having to explain to my boss why the plane crashed.
I learned a little bit of plane terminology. Then forgot that little bit of plane terminology, but I'm loving the idea of being a pilot. Training is hard. They made J.D. fly the plane without any visuals as a student. The instructor would be able to see the plane in the front, but he had to run the plane almost like he was blindfolded. He was allowed to use his instruments, like altitude, things like that - but he wasn't allowed to see what he was doing from takeoff to landing.
After the tour, we split off. I went back to the MIC. Earlier, Cass gave me a birthday card and an engineering notebook, and I have to say, I've never been so excited about getting a notebook in my entire life. But since it has NASA on it, I'm actually going to use it along with my Surface. I don't know how long, because I prefer using my Surface for note taking, but doesn't it look cool?
Tomorrow should be another day. I think I'm seeing the slope lab tomorrow along with a few other things. Until tomorrow then!
I found out what the pipes are made out of. HDPE, or High Density Polyethylene. Old pipes use steel which get corroded. HDPE pipes don't corrode, are more flexible, and less likely to break. HDPE can also be run in longer distances as well.
Talking with them and thinking about if afterwards is leaving me with more questions than answers. Why dig a hole? They dig holes to confirm the depth of the pipe, but that only tells you the depth of the pipe at that particular spot. 10' down the pipe, and the depth could be completely different. And I have another approach - why don't I invent some sort of device you throw in the water pipe. The little robotic GPS enabled fish can swim along the water/gas/steam pipe and map out where the pipe is using coordinates. Could I invent that and make a lot of money? I'll have to find out.
Brian and Kevin showed us some more underground systems, finished projects, and future projects. At one point, they're going to have to take an entire road out of service for about 3 months. This place has a lot of piping not surprisingly.
I ate lunch in the mic where I typed the first half of this - and then I met Don back at 86 with Claire. Claire had some nice plans to take an hour and a half nap before Don called her and saw another lab with Don about halfway through her lunch break.
Then, we went to the fluids lab for (you guessed it) a safety inspection. Where Don and a few others on a safety committee looked for anything wrong with the lab and suggested fixes in safety. There were one or two suggestions about airflow. I don't know too much about the lab, as I was just shadowing Don doing the safety inspection. However, nothing changed since the last safety inspection, so he didn't do much besides looking around.
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| The flow lab measures how much volume flows through a medium in a certain length of time |
After the inspection, we met with Michael and J.D. at the hanger. They gave us a tour of the different research planes and gave me a little physics lesson. I knew nothing about aeronautics, but I tried to keep up. I'll have to play some of Microsoft's flight simulator and learn the ropes a little bit.
After the tour, we split off. I went back to the MIC. Earlier, Cass gave me a birthday card and an engineering notebook, and I have to say, I've never been so excited about getting a notebook in my entire life. But since it has NASA on it, I'm actually going to use it along with my Surface. I don't know how long, because I prefer using my Surface for note taking, but doesn't it look cool?
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| My NASA notebook :D |
