Hi everyone! I’m trying to get right back on it and catch up with updating you all on life here at ISU SSP14. Life here is still pretty good but possibly even more sleep deprived. Last week was a little slower, my bubble of enthusiasm about everything burst a little bit at the start of the week but everyone here is so great and the activities are so cool that it has built back up and I’m back to being overly optimistic about life!
Last Tuesday’s lectures (24th June) consisted of The Brain in Space, Spacecraft Configuration and Attitude, Orbit Determination and Control. The brain lecture was pretty cool. Clement (the lecturer) brought in an eye camera and projected an image of someone’s eye up not the screen as their head moved. The really cool bit was that your eyes actually twist and rotate to make up for your head moving – I knew that they compensated for up and down but didn’t think that could actually twist! At lunch, there was an optional lecture about the SOfIA observatory. This is an infra-red telescope that is onboard a plane. The talk was interesting and it’s certainly a different way to collect observations above most of the atmosphere but in a reusable and slightly cheaper vehicle.
After lunch we had the first of our self-chosen workshops. For me, this was on Artificial Gravity (other options were Robotics Workshops – Part 1, Computer Vision for Space Robotics: How to make your Terminator See!, Space StartUps: Taking your idea from iPad to Launch Pad and What is the influence of animes and mangas (Japanese culture) on the perception of space sector). It was good fun. The first hour and a bit was lecture based (which was a little slower, as ever) but as we were a group of about 30 they could then get us all up to have a go on a spinning chair and playing with weights and conservation of angular momentum and spinning and moving your head around at the same time. It may not have been a completely necessary exercise but it was fun so there were no complaints! After that we watched clips of some relevant films (Tin Tin, 2001, Armageddon etc) to estimate the artificial gravity parameters to decide whether or not they were feasible and what the forces on the astronauts would be. As I’m sure you can guess, most were a little iffy. It was good to see the actual calculations rather then just doing things qualitatively so I can be a little sensible when watching sci-fi films and pointing out the mistakes 😉
That evening, we had an early evening lecture on Human Space Flight History & Future by a former astronaut (Reinhold Ewald) at ETS before heading back to Solin Hall for a special dinner in honour of Quebec day (or St Jean-Baptiste Day). I’m pretty sure that I was told a couple of different histories for what Quebec day was all about but some of the Canadians went all out in decorating and stick-on tattoos. After some celebrations we decided to head out for the Quebec Day fireworks (of which it turned out that there were none) but as the rain was just starting we decided to head back (the rain increased and drenched us massively en route) and chill together in the basement of Solin Hall. I brought the cards and introduced a small group to Irish snap, Shizzle snap and Flags (previously named spoons but we had to improvise) and also, to some extent, musical tables as we had to move every time someone spilled a drink on the table which, for the more lively games, was every other round. It was a really fun night and everyone seemed to have fun! Snap and its variations are good for group bonding so I’d suggest to anyone going to an international event to take a pack of cards and a really simple game as it works well for overcoming those initial meeting people barriers.
Wednesday was Spacecraft Structures & Testing, Spacecraft Power & Thermal Control and Space Systems Engineering before a team project session in the afternoon. In all honesty, I can’t remember the specifics of that meeting but I imagine it was further discussion on the overall aim of our project.
As my blog recommendation of this post, I’m going to point you in the direction of Things We Don’t Know (TWDK). I’ll let you discover them yourself but they’re growing, improving and if you look back a bit, you may even find some posts by yours truly. Check it out!
Wednesday evening was another evening panel on the Business of Space. As with almost all of the lectures here, it was really useful to hear from a few different perspectives within the space industry but in this case, all of the professionals were from the same part of the industry (satellite comms) and I think that I would have preferred them to have been from different areas of the industry. They were from different parts of the satellite communications industry (one was a lawyer alongside a buyer and a seller). As it isn’t an area that I’m particularly interested in right now, I’d have preferred to hear perspectives from different industries, but that’s personal preference.
Thursday was Current & Future Trends in Global Navigation Satellite Systems, Analyzing the Commercial Space Industry and Space-Based Positioning, Navigation & Timing. The first and last lectures were with Scott Madry who half way through decided that instead of the normal wave that he gets us all up to do, pulled out his guitar and started a sing-a-long on a space song with the made up words up on screen. He’s a really good lecturer and I think that there’s a lot to learn from him in terms of public speaking.
That afternoon was workshop number two on Space Situational Awareness (others were Robotic Workshop 2, EyasSat workshop, Business Models and Rover Mobility). The computer rooms that have been set aside for our dedicated use are pretty sweet. They’ve all got large touch screen monitors and are pretty shiny. The lectures introducing the topic were maybe a little long but we had a good time using STK (orbit plotting software) to check out how we spot space debris and near Earth objects. We were given a sheet of problems to work through which were suitably challenging and quite fun to do. We’re currently having lunch and dinner at ETS and the food in the canteen here is pretty decent although the lack of variation is getting a little old. For departmental activities, I’ll be over in HEC so the changing up the food a little is something that I’m actually quite excited for.
After dinner, we were given an exam briefing for our final exam on Friday 4th July. On a side note, I’ve had to start writing dates out in full because North America put their day and month around the wrong way and so I need to be clear. I think I’ve mentioned the exams before but our final exam is 2 hours long and open book (including internet!) but the questions are essay based. I haven’t done a exam in this format in 4-5 years so it’s going to be a challenge. Fingers crossed! (Or thumbs pressed as the Germans say!)
Thursday evening, I went along to the English Class to improve my own talking style with non-native English speakers and help them with their vocabulary, speaking and understanding. We went through vocabulary from the week’s lectures in small groups before combining what we were each doing to make one big revision page. It was actually really useful for my own revision and good practise for speaking in a classroom to a non-native audience.
Friday was Space Psychology, Space Mission Design and Space Habitability Design.Then it was quiz time again! (I did well on this one!) and in the afternoon, it was the annual SSP robotics competition. As mentioned earlier, two of the workshops so far have been robotics based so this Friday was the sum of their efforts.Each group of four or five had to create a gem collecting and obstacle avoiding robot using Lego mind-storms. The competition was good and everyone was cheering the robots on. Our amazing tech guys had wired up the arena so the whole competition was streamed live over the internet. AND the best bit was that at 3pm, when the competition finished, it was announced that we were free and had the afternoon off! I’m not sure anyone could really believe it! So, we headed to the pub in the building and had drinks in the sunshine. Good times!
Unfortunately, however, a meeting for the heads of our team projects plus the head editors (myself and a Canadian called Fred) was due to occur that evening and on getting home and having a nap, I didn’t actually wake up again for a while and completely missed the meeting…awkward. Everyone was cool about it and that’s the use of having two head editors!
Friday night was Culture Night number 2 – featuring Israel, Austria, Belgium and Greece. Yet again, it was pretty cool with food, ouzo (and the Israeli equivalent) and waffles from Belgium – good times! This week was bouncing around chatting, playing cards, pool and ping pong. The basement of Solin Hall is certainly being used to its full potential. It’s a really good resource!
Saturday was a trip to the theme park! One of the TAs organised it for those interested so that we could all get in a bit cheaper via a group ticket. Each ticket was about $40, which seemed like a lot at the time as all previous views of the theme park implied that it wasn’t the biggest (still cheaper than the UK big ones though!). But it was actually EPIC! There were big roller coasters, small ones, backwards ones, standing ones, up and down, loop the loop, wooden, the list goes on. It was brilliant! It was also one of the hottest days of the year so we were melting all day but it was pretty kick ass! Also, although it was busy, the queues weren’t actually that long (max 20-30 mins maybe – but we avoided the really long queue for the big water toboggan). For those of you who may have been to Oakwood, a little theme park in Pembs, it wasn’t even a third of the size of Drenched (aka Hydro) but they had the same idea of a bridge to cool people off! So yeah, I’d really recommend the theme park as a day trip to anyone coming to Montreal.
Saturday night marked the start of the International Fireworks Competition that’s happening in Montreal over the summer. You could upgrade your theme park ticket for a few dollars to get a seat for the fireworks but we decided to head back as it was just too damn hot! I think I may have become a bit dehydrated over the course of the day (although I was drinking lots of water!) as when I lay down for a bit of a nap, I was really dizzy and my head was like it was still on the rides. But, I drank some water and ate some ice cream and all was well (mostly).
The fireworks were epic! They broadcast the corresponding music on local radio so that everyone can hear it. It was really impressive and the music made such a difference. There were some new styles of fireworks too which were like phoenixes and flying Catherine wheels – it was really good! After that, a couple of us got a bit lost trying to find the Metro again (apparently the rest of Montreal wasn’t heading there!) but we did end up at the end of St Catherine Street, a whole street lined with pink baubles across the top. The street was packed and we just decided to walk and enjoy the night. Maud is a TA here who’s half French and half Russian so she and I skipped merrily down the street before heading for a little chocolate shop – Juliette et Chocolat. We bumped into other SSP people along the way and gained a few and lost a few to a pub with a bucking bronco (which will definitely be a stop in the future!) and went for the most amazing chocolate brownies and chocolate milkshake ever over chats about life and Russian politics. It was really interesting and nice to just sit and chat to get to know each other. But main point here – if you come to Montreal, find this shop!
Sunday morning was hot. After trying and failing to sleep in the heat, Anne and I decided to just escape the flat to go for brunch elsewhere where it would be cooler. So we had a nice wander around Atwater with pastries, fruits and smoothies. The rest of the morning was then spent with one of the UK Toms who had requested the help of a couple of girls to help him find a casual blazer. I think he was pretty pleased at the end of it, in no time we found him a blazer for half the price he was originally going pay so it was a success! We girls then went off shopping and for a wander round. I needed a pair of shorts so of course, I came back with no shorts but 2 new shirts. That weekend was also marks the beginning of Jazzfest, a festival in the city of Montreal to celebrate Jazz. So after shopping, Anne and I wandered down towards the area where they were meant to be held (with a few stops to look at bags and snacks). When we got there, it wasn’t that busy as the main event kick off that evening so as it was so warm, we decided to just lie in the shade of a tree and watch the people go by. At one point, a group of people all dressed in victorian era stuff came out blowing whistles with placards but as they were in French, I had no idea what they were campaigning about. They then wandered into the crowd who were sat on the grass to sit and chat. Cue Anne and I pretending to be asleep for a little while.
From there we had a wander around the rest of Jazzfest but nothing big was really going on before that evening so we escaped the heat and went home to relax for a while. That evening, we had an editors meeting for our team project and allocated responsibilities for the sections of our first deadline, a 15 page project plan which details exactly what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. Over the course of this week, the departmental teams within our team project will each be putting in their own perspectives on what they need to do.
Dinner that evening was courtesy of Anne, William and Dan who had cooked a great meal before heading to see a very popular person at Jazzfest, but they left Alana and I some in our oven to eat! We decided to have more of a chilled evening in preparation for the start of the week so after much debate about what film to watch (it was getting late and the better ones were longer) we decided on Disney’s Hercules which was enjoyed by all on a huge tv that they have in the basement here for anyone to use with some fairly comfortable sofas.
Monday’s lectures covered Satellite Telecommunications, The Heart in Space and New Space (the development of more private companies in the space industry). That afternoon, our departmental activities kicked off. Management and Business are based in the HEC for all of these and it’s quite nice to have a change in scenery. It may have something to do with it being a business school but the rooms over there were really nice. We were introduced to our department chairs and Maud (my fellow brownie adventurer from the other evening) is our department teaching assistant. The rooms over there aren’t organised by number, just by a name so for our first meeting, we headed over there en mass and were directed to our rooms on arrival. The department sizes vary but each is around 20 people. As part of our introductions, we had some ground rules laid down of which one was no laptops unless you really need them. This makes sense as it keeps you more engaged with the speaker, although sometimes, I feel I need to be actively doing things to stay awake. For our departmental activities, we first had a web lecture from the VP of special projects at Virgin Galactic who gave us a briefing on their business ideas and what they’re up to. That was pretty interesting. After that we had a lecture from Chris Martin, who is responsible for procurement at NASA who gave us a lecture on NASA and its departments.
Something which has to be said is that the food at HEC is much better than at ETS. I’m not sure if it’s the quality of the food or just a change in choice but I’m very glad to be over there. Monday night we were given a lecture about the current and past activities of the Russian Space Agency which wasn’t the most engaging but nor was it that bad. It was interesting but not mind blowing.
Happy Canada Day! The heat wave hit its supposed maximum on Tuesday, but luckily the calendar was set for the whole day in ETS so it was a day of being overly air conditioned rather than just melting outside. That morning I’d dressed in very loose clothing ready for the heat but right as we were leaving, Anne remembered that it was Canada day and we were meant to wear red. So, I threw on my rugby shirt and off we went. It was only a bit later that I realised that Canada Day celebrates Canada gaining its independence from the British so I’m not quite sure how appropriate my British Lions top actually was…but as with the other national days, it’s quite hard to get a straight answer as to what these national days are about so I may be wrong.
Lecture 1 was Commercial Satellite Communications Industry before Space Medicine (in which there was a google hangout arranged flash wave – the lecturer was confused but cool about it) and Disruptive Technologies. Team Project meetings were in the afternoon before the English classes. On behalf of Canada Day, we skipped the vocab stuff and had a trivial quiz all about Canada and as it started later, I managed to get to the participant talks on Polish satellites and Orbit Rendezvous Using Angles-Only Navigation.
Wednesday was Cosmology, Astrobiology and Why we go to space. The last one there which was full of cool space videos. We then had our last multiple choice quiz (I got 8/9 – woo hoo!) before heading over to HEC for the next round of departmental activities. This afternoon, we had a guy from ESTEC (a branch of the European Space Agency) explaining the concept of RFPs (Request for Proposals). We were then split into groups and have been given an RFP to complete i.e. a set of specifications and we have to decide what type of satellite we can create within this.
That evening was the Canadian Space Agency Panel. Four top people from the Canadian space agency came in to talk about their current status. There’s been a trend recently of taking pictures of people sleeping in lectures, and the evening lectures are prime time for this. I was concerned about dozing during the lecture but the head of the Canadian space agency is a very loud guy and a good motivational speaker. The Canadian participants all got a special meeting with him before the main panel so it seems like there’s a bit of a benefit to going to the SSP in your home country. I also got a chance to have a chat with Chris Hadfield’s press officer about working on that side of things and Scott Madry about the possibility of going into remote sensing for disaster relief. It sounds like a pretty reasonable career path. After this, we headed to the Burgundy Lion for a few drinks and had a chilled and fun evening.
Thursday was a very rare day off. It came under the category of revision for our final essay exam the next day but we took an hour in the beginning of the day after breakfast (at 8am!!) to discuss the business and management contributions to our first team project deliverable, the team project plan. Unfortunately, some of the team didn’t actually turn up until 9am so I missed out on some very much needed sleep. After getting through all of that, I failed at having a nap but then joined some of the other girls here for a girls brunch It was really lovely as there are so few of us here (about 20% so same as in most science and engineering things) we hadn’t all met properly. So we went to a really nice brunch place and just chatted about ourselves and women in science in general. As I’m really just starting out in the industry, it was good to hear from women who were already there and what challenges they’ve faced. Most of the women here are really proactive so I’m glad that we’re building a good support network in ISU.
After brunch, we headed to ETS to get some revision done. However, I’m pretty sure almost every TA came up to us to ask what we were doing and that we really didn’t need to revise for the test the following day. It’s true that it’s open book and open internet but it was still very weird not to be revising before an exam. I got some other useful stuff done though and went to the participant talks which were interesting. They were on The MarsCrew134 Analog Astronaut Expedition and the The Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC).
We ended up heading back to Solin after and just chilling for awhile. I made friends with our neighbour’s cat, Mina, who has come to stay at Solin Hall with us. She decided my window was a fun place to be so while I was trying to read the last summary chapter of the ISU course book, she came in looking cute and completely distracted me!
As no work was being done, I followed my Mum’s sage advice, ‘Remember that this is all about networking. If you have the choice between staying in and studying or going to the pub, you go to the pub’. Wise words Mum. So, I went to wine, cheese and the film, Pirates of Silicon Valley, which is about the beginnings of Microsoft and Apple and the impressions I got from the short bit of it that I actually saw was that both of them were a bit mean. We only watched about a 45 minutes of it though as it was someone’s birthday and he’s bought cake and beer to the basement of Solin Hall for us all! It was red velvet cake and the beer wasn’t half bad. It was fun!
Friday was our essay exam. We had to choose 2 out of 3 questions to answer. The two that I chose came down to discussing various aspects of various missions specifications. It wasn’t too bad and I got a B overall for this stage of SSP! After the quiz, we got some time off (a whole half an hour) and then a class meeting followed by an amazing rendition of ‘Oh Happy Day’ from all the staff at SSP. It was a good ending to this part of the programme. We had our general lunch but then escaped to the cafe across the road (originally discovered due to urgent needs to tea and coffee on the national days when the cafeteria here was closed) which does such amazing cakes and cookies (although the banana bread in the canteen at ETS is pretty good).
That afternoon we had a workshop with the International Space Exploration Co-ordination Group (ISECG) where we discussed some aspects of space exploration. We began with a lecture before splitting into working groups for an hour long session discussing a particular topic. Our group’s topic was the benefits of space exploration. We had a chat about it all and then afterwards, we had to present it. The question of who wanted to present was asked to the class and after a short silence, someone said ‘I nominate Cait’. It was seconded and I was then responsible for reporting our team discussion back to the lecture hall. I had the notes that our TA, Tom, had made during the discussion so made them pretty and summarised our stuff (apparently) very well. A couple of people said afterwards that I spoke well which was really nice of them! A discussion was generated to round everything off about space exploration which descended into chat about our Mars One candidates, but we ran out of time before the conversation reached its conclusion.
So there we are, that ends phase one of the programme! We now move on to focus more on our departmental activities and team projects so now the work really starts. Wish me luck!
Speak to you later!
🙂
ISU SSP14: Through Cait's Eyes 