American Morning
Obama to unveil vision for U.S. space program
(CNN) – President Obama travels to the Kennedy Space Center today to outline his vision for America's space program.
Space veterans and NASA's rank-and-file are criticizing the president's plan, saying they're concerned about the future of American space travel. Our Suzanne Malveaux has the report.
Read more: Apollo astronauts decry Obama space plans
Counting Down Cady: Boiling water at room temperature
Editor's Note: Cady Coleman, Ph.D. is a NASA astronaut – a veteran of two space missions, who has logged over 500 hours in space. She is assigned to the Expedition 26 crew and is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz 25 in late 2010. Below is a blog written by Cady exclusively for CNN via NASA's Astronaut Office.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/02/caldwell.tracy.gi.art.jpg caption="Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson waves while getting into her space on April 2, 2010 for launch to the International Space Station."]
By Cady Coleman, Special to CNN
Woo hoo! My friend Tracy Caldwell Dyson is in space! Tracy blasted off last night in a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan along with Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov and fellow flight engineer Mikhail Kornienko.
That is just the beginning of an exciting month at NASA. Two days from now they’ll dock with the International Space Station (ISS) and begin their six month expedition. Meanwhile, the Space Shuttle Discovery is poised on the pad for an early morning launch Monday and their crew of seven will dock with the ISS on Wednesday.
Those seven astronauts include three women that I’m proud to call friends: Stephanie Wilson, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger and Naoko Yamazaki. Let’s hear it for girlfriends in space!
The same preparations that got Tracy for her journey last night have kept me hopping as well. Since I last wrote in late January, I’ve traveled to Russia and Japan for training, spent weekends in Massachusetts to see my husband Josh and my son Jamey, qualified on the robotic arm to "catch" our supply ships, picked out pants, shirts and workout gear to wear on the space station, helped Sandra Day O’Connor celebrate her 80th birthday and got a decent start on organizing the many piles of stuff around my house and office for next December’s launch.
Counting Down Cady: What an astronaut does over the holidays
Editor's Note: Cady Coleman, Ph.D. is a NASA astronaut – a veteran of two space missions, who has logged over 500 hours in space. She is assigned to the Expedition 26 crew and is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz 25 in late 2010. Below is a blog written by Cady exclusively for CNN via NASA's Astronaut Office.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/01/08/family.apollo.art.jpg caption="Cady and family – Mark Hopkins, Conor, Garrett and Jamey Murray-Coleman, Josh Simpson, Kieran Murray-Coleman, Jamey Simpson, Ann Doty, Cady Coleman."]
By Cady Coleman, Special to CNN
Every couple of weeks, Josh and I go through our calendars to understand who has to be where and when. The Christmas holiday gave us a good chance to do that, but this time it was different: Our Expedition 26 launch (E 26) is less than a year away!
Usually when I make my entries on Josh’s calendar, I write things like “Cady to Houston – Cady to Massachusetts – Cady training in Russia or Japan or Europe, but on Dec 10th 2010 – I wrote in “Launch Day: Cady to Space.”
Then I wrote “Cady in Space” on all the subsequent weeks until June of 2011. Wow! Now THAT is cool. Now that the flight is less than a year away, I find myself thinking of what life might be like this time next year.
Let’s start with the holiday. As the mom, I wonder who will wrap the presents next year, and pack the car with the one million things that I think are necessary to bring to Grandma’s house on Christmas Day. It is not something I worry about though.
I know that Josh has all those things in hand and it isn’t as if the 9-year-old is really going to say: “Hey – how come I don’t have a very wide selection of clothes to wear at Grandma’s house?” I’m sure they will even figure out how to make Grasshopper Pie together – a Coleman family favorite. I’d like to think I’m indispensable, but Jamey and Josh are on their own a lot of the time while I’m training, and they seem to do just fine!
What does an astronaut in training do over Christmas vacation? The good and bad news is that we can’t do any of our formal training during those holiday weeks, so I get to spend time in Massachusetts with Jamey and Josh. I plan, of course, to get a lot of work done in addition to that family time, but, well, I’ll just say that I got some things done, and others not.
Follow Cady on Twitter @Astro_Cady
Counting Down Cady: Cady relives first space launch
Editor's Note: Cady Coleman, Ph.D. is a NASA astronaut – a veteran of two space missions, who has logged over 500 hours in space. She is assigned to the Expedition 26 crew and is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz 25 in late 2010. Below is a blog written by Cady exclusively for CNN via NASA's Astronaut Office.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://am.blogs.cnn.com/files/2009/12/creamer.jpg caption="Astronaut TJ Creamer gives a press conference at the Baikonur cosmodrome on December 19, 2009."]
By Cady Coleman
Special to CNN
Was it everything he hoped for and dreamed about? Col. TJ Creamer left Earth yesterday on Soyuz 21S, bound for a six month stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Was it worth the wait, the time away from his family and the grueling pace of training around the world? Based on my two space shuttle flights, I predict that launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome was everything TJ dreamed about, and then some!
I’m betting that as we speak, TJ is floating inside the БО (pronounced bay-oh) with a huge grin covering most of his face. I don’t mean to leave out Oleg Kotov and Soichi Noguchi, also onboard the Soyuz yesterday when it launched, but TJ’s veteran crewmates have both been to the ISS before. Oleg spent 6 months as part of Exp 15 in 2007 and Soichi made 2 spacewalks to help assemble the ISS during STS-114, the first post-Columbia mission.
As a trio, the Expedition 22 crew was always great to interact with. They all bring, of course, amazing technical competence to the ISS stage, but Soichi’s quick wit, Oleg’s quiet, slow smile and TJ’s ever-present cheery nature made them a pleasure to train with as well. As Nicole Stott’s backup for Expedition 20, I spent the last 2 years training with my fellow astronauts and cosmonauts in Star City Russia, Tsukuba Japan, Cologne Germany and of course, Houston Texas.
TJ and I didn’t always overlap in those places, but he was known for his generosity in sharing the training lessons that he learned with other crew members. Many of my skills with both large and small computers came from TJ-based-advice. He was especially helpful in hooking me up with cool software to make learning Russian as easy and fun as possible.
Because he was on a mission ahead of me, he also provided helpful lists of Russian vocabulary for our Star City training. My favorites: for water survival “No really, I mean it – I can’t swim!!!!” And for winter survival: “Who has the marshmallows?” (Thanks Teej!)
Counting Down Cady: Cady, son watch Atlantis blast off
Catherine "Cady" Coleman, Ph.D. is a NASA astronaut – a veteran of two space missions, who has logged over 500 hours in space. She is assigned to the Expedition 26 crew and is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz 25 in late 2010. Below is a blog written by Cady exclusively for CNN via NASA's Astronaut Office.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/11/23/shuttle.atlantis.gi.art.jpg caption="The space shuttle Atlantis STS-129 lifts off November 16, 2009 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida."]
By Cady Coleman
Special to CNN
Nothing beats watching a space shuttle launch – except being able to see it with your 9-year-old. Jamey knows that I am an astronaut, but watching a launch together helps him realize that his mom has really done THAT twice, and is getting ready to go a third time on the Russian Soyuz.
I was home in Massachusetts when STS-129 launched last Monday, and I watched the lift-off with Jamey and the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders at Buckland-Shelburne Elementary. Because I am often working during a launch, Jamey and I have never gotten to see one together, and I was pretty thrilled to have been home in Massachusetts for this one. With the upcoming retirement of the shuttle, it’s strange to realize that there aren’t likely to be any shuttle launches when I get back from my flight to the space station.
I loved seeing the launch through the kids’ eyes. We were watching the countdown, and one of them asked me to rewind the tape so that we could watch the beanie cap retract again. It took a little explaining for them to realize that this was LIVE. Those 6 astronauts are strapped into the shuttle this very minute – and that we can’t rewind! They were so excited that they kept starting the countdown early! Patience comes hard at this age, so I filled the time before launch with explanations about the engines, the tank and the boosters, and I showed them the little window on the shuttle that was mine for my first launch.
Don't Miss: Follow Cady on Twitter @Astro_Cady
Finally, came the “5-4-3-2-1 Liftoff!” that they’d been waiting for. The looks on their faces were priceless. Eyes so big – mouths wide open, and lots of great verbal expressions that I wouldn’t expect from 8-12 year-olds! The camera view from the external tank showing the Earth in the background made it clear that the shuttle was headed for space – and fast! I think it is still hard for Jamey to realize that I’ve really been there and done that!
“What was it like for you to watch a launch?” asked one of the teachers. Hmmm. I’m usually too busy at launch time to be emotionally engaged – until the very last moments before liftoff. That’s when it hits me. The realization that something very big, very significant is happening, and there is nothing I can do to change the results. It is a big deal to launch people into space on a vehicle as complicated as the space shuttle, no matter how many times it has happened in the past. I can only watch and know that the people who get the shuttle ready for launch are doing their best to get everything right. I trust them to do that. They know that somebody like me will be sitting on that shuttle, betting my life on the quality of their work. However, none of that changes how I feel when the clock counts down to T 0.
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- Cady, son Jamey, stepson Josiah, husband Josh
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- Cady and son Jamey
“Do you ever wonder if your shuttle is going to blow up?” asks one of Jamey’s classmates. Whew. There’s a tough question. I’ve answered it at schools before, but never when my son was in the audience. Fortunately, Jamey already understands that I think the NASA mission is so important that it is worth the risks that we take when we go to space. As I explain, I see Jamey nodding wisely in the back of the room.
The other questions were easier. “What does it feel like to be floating?” “How do you eat?” “How do you sleep?” And, of course, they asked the inevitable “How do you go to the bathroom in space?” I like to explain that we use suction to make everything go neatly where it is supposed to go, with the clear instruction that regular vacuum cleaners are not to be used to try this at home!
My friends on the STS-129 crew are working in space even as I write. They’ve docked with the International Space Station and are transferring supplies and doing space walks to store the spare parts that we might need as the space station gets older. Although they are working hard, I’m sure they are having a great time up there – floating – eating – sleeping – and all those other fun things that the kids at Buckland Shelburne are now experts on!
Goodnight from Houston!
Cady
Program Note: Watch CNN's American Morning as we follow Cady on her year-long mission to space, and check back here for blogs, photos and video updates from Cady as she documents the behind-the-scenes life of an astronaut.
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