Journalists Report March 22
Journalist: Diane Rothberg
We were able to accomplish two EVAs today.
This morning, we did some area mapping with the drone, and with the remaining time, performed an aerial inspection of the apex of the Hab, simulating a damage assessment should it ever be required. Tom and I, the drone rookies, got a chance to take the controls, under the guidance of Dean. After the EVA, we debriefed, and observed that, while our goals were accomplished, we should have been better organized and we should have been more specific in assigning duties to individual crew members.
So, before this afternoon’s EVA, we had a very thorough briefing. We outlined our goals, which were to compare the traditional drone controller with a new type of controller. This intuitive controller reduces the two sticks on a traditional controller down to one, and was designed by Scott Parazynski, a NASA astronaut, physician, and pilot who is the veteran of 5 space missions. We communicated with him directly this morning and he helped Dean set up the software for it. We outlined the flight maneuvers to be flown on a whiteboard which Dean, Tom, and Kevin took with them on their EVA.
We compiled some great photos of our 3D printing and drone research activities for the Civil Air Patrol cadets of the Niagara Falls Composite Squadron, since three of us (Julielynn, Tom and myself) are Senior Members and the squadron is enthusiastically tracking our progress!