Astronaut Stephen Bowen: challenge yourself and learn from it

Astronaut Stephen Bowen has flown three shuttle missions (STS-126, STS-132, and STS-133), is a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy, a native of Cohasset, MA and a graduate of Cohasset High School. He talked with attendees of the Sample Return Robot Challenge last month.

Bowen said he found the Sample Return Robot Challenge fascinating. The challenge may sound simple: start here, go out and get this thing, and bring it back. But you can’t use GPS or a magnetic compass. So it may be a little more difficult. You have to do all the navigation on board.

Bowen was fascinated with the different ways the teams solve the problem. How they approach a similar problem but come up with different solutions. How they come up with different budgets and have different knowledge bases. Bowen joked that how the robot behaves is a reflection of how the team members think, but to be fair, it really isn’t  as linear.

We had the opportunity to ask questions and here is a summary of what Bowen said.

What is your role at NASA now?

Bowen is still active in the Astronaut office. The office has shrunk and is at about 50 people. He was in charge of the EVA branch up until January 2013. He went to Canada for robotics training and is working on his Russian. When certified he can be eligible for a Space Station mission in the not too distant future.

When you return to the Space Station, what will you be doing?

What space station crews do now, conduct experiments. It can take 2.5 years of training, which is very repetitive. But when you’re in orbit, you feel like you are actually able to contribute to the science itself. That is the exciting part that astronauts want. They want to be a contributor, to help with the basic research and science being done on the space station. Many of them join the Astronaut office with an expectation to be explorers and help and contribute as part of the team.

And sing?

You don’t want me to sing. But every so often someone does something that gets the Social Media excited. The popularity and visibility of NASA increases. Engineering, science, and exploration are so fascinating on its own, we just do a very poor job in the media in general in presenting it. A lot of the time, Hollywood has made it look too easy. And the joy in solving a difficult problem gets lost.

Bowen thinks that in our culture, we don’t challenge the student enough to solve these difficult problems and he believes that would excite them. There is nothing more exciting than solving a problem that other people you work with can’t. It makes you think, wow, I understood this. I got something great out of this. Bowen believes that our popular culture doesn’t do a good job at encouraging it.

Sometimes we present math and science as difficult. In reality, it is fun and exciting and something we should all be able to do.

In laymen terms, what do you do on the Space Station? What kind of experiments do you do up there?

Be careful how you use that term. Even in the social media world, Bowen has no clue how social media in general works. Astronauts do what normal people do. They follow procedures and do what is asked of them. They also get the incredible experience of floating, which never gets old. When you get frustrated working on stuff that isn’t going your way, you just let go for a second and begin to float. You say to yourself, I’m floating in space. And if you get the opportunity, you can look out a window and see Earth.

You get to help the primary investigators to get their experiments done. In addition, you run the engineering plant, the system that allows you to live in space. The maintenance can take a lot of time. Recently they had a ammonia leak and had to do an emergency EVA outside to solve the problem. There are tasks that take time that you may not get credit for.

You also have to do two hours of exercise each day so that when you return to Earth you can function. You’re up there for six months. You need sleep and pace yourself, understand how you’re functioning long term. There are various systems on board that need to be maintained. It’s just like on Earth, but in a different environment where you get to float.

And make videos?

The cameras on board the space station are on most of the day. Unlike the space shuttle, where the crew turned them on and off. During either Expedition 8 or 9, they turned the cameras on and have left them on since. People see the astronauts living in a fish bowl which can make it hard for people on Earth to comprehend that they are watching people living in space. On board, it is important to remember the cameras are always on.

During a recent music video, the cameras on board look like they are high-definition.

There are high-definition cameras on board. The first high-definition camera was launched on STS-126. At some point they hope to have high-definition cameras outside of the station. On a recent spacewalk, there was high-definition footage out a window and it was outstanding. Views of the Earth will be really nice.

Was there any post-production work on that music video by Chris Hadfield?

There was post-production.

There is also time-lapse photography of the orbits which used a nice camera. Bowen mentioned his wish for a continuous transition from darkness to sun because that is a view that no one has been able to capture with a camera. It’s a view that is breath taking. One day they will get a camera up there that can do that. It wouldn’t have to be outside of the station.

You told us the story about solving problems. How do we take that beyond cool videos?

That’s why we have teachers. At a very early age, we should challenge students to solve problems. And to fail. You should be allowed to make mistakes. Obviously the consequences of making errors in some environments are higher. But that should be the challenge. We should be socially accepting of failure. We have spent so much energy and time demanding perfection from students.

Bowen often shares another story. He was not a very good reader. His teacher told him he was in the lowest reading group in first grade. He said that we don’t necessary help children and tell them that “I know you can do better. I see it in you. You can do better. And I’m going to challenge you to do better.”

At the end of first grade, he was in the top reading group. He learned that whenever he had a problem in class, he needed to remember to spend a little more time working on that class. Because there is some reason teachers are teaching us this stuff. Maybe not specifically the piece of information, but the ability to look further.

The ability to challenge students like his first grade teacher did to go beyond made him a better student.

With all your training, what was the unexpected?

The unexpected part of all his space shuttle training and space flights was how little was unexpected. It was sometimes freakishly amazing how exact they trained the crew of what to expect on orbit. Maybe it is who they hire. They piece together the training so that you have a really good understanding of what you’re going to do. Especially on a Space Shuttle mission where everything is highly choreographed.

The experiences of seeing something or feel something in space were unexpected. The unexpected feeling of joy. Having an overwhelming sense when you have an experience. That feeling happens a lot on board.

I saw you launch on STS-132…

I was also there. But you guys had a much better view than I did because I was looking at lockers on [STS-132 and STS-133]. On STS-126 I was on the flight deck so I got to look out the window. When we got to orbit, we suddenly got emails from everyone. Turns out we didn’t have the best view even though we were looking out the windows. STS-126 launched at night. Just past Mach-1, they past through a cloud barrier and saw ripples through the clouds. So I have never had the best view of my own launch. I’m glad you guys had a good view.

…what was one pivot point in your life that changed what you wanted to do in life?

So when the Edmonton Oilers didn’t draft me…

I always wanted to be an architect or professional hockey player. When I got to high school and was taking the mechanical drawing courses for five years, and understanding what engineering and physics were, I steered more to the engineering side of things. Finding a pinpoint, I would have to go back to the schoolteacher motivating us to go out and solve problems. I don’t think there is a single point, but a whole series of little things.

Even challenges like going to a hockey game and forgetting a skate when you’re the only goaltender. Suddenly, you feel really really bad, but I never forgot another skate again. The challenge at the time was that if you aren’t serious enough to keep track of your equipment, maybe you don’t want to be playing hockey. That is true in so many other things.

By the time I got to be on a submarine, the challenge was if you’re not willing to keep your space clean and taken care of, you probably shouldn’t be on a submarine. If you’re in space and living on a space shuttle and there are six other people living in that tiny space, keep track of your stuff and think about the people around you. Little tiny things along the way add up and everyone has a different set of experiences. You can’t pinpoint just one thing. Who knows how you end up there.