Iss Update - Rats crew member dave coan - 08.29.12

>> We are with Dave Cohen here at this time back in the space vehicle mockup facility. Dave is one of the RATs crew members this year so he's had probably a lot of interesting adventures over the past 10 or so days. >> Dave Cohen: Has been, yeah. >> Thanks for joining us. >> Dave Cohen: Sure. >> So tell us ... >> Dave Cohen: Sure. >> Tell us a little -- give us an overview of what you as a crew member have been doing. >> Dave Cohen: Well we've been testing now for nine days or so and just doing different valuations of how we might fly around an asteroid and actually take some geological samples. So we've been trying various things and using various tools and areas of testing to simulate that. And just kind of get a feel for how we might do stuff and really evaluate our operations from both a technical point of view for the engineering of the tools and the vehicles and also from a geological and kind of science point of view. >> So has it felt like you've been exploring an asteroid? >> Dave Cohen: Actually you know at times it really has been. When you're in a MMSCV flying around and they project out a SIM during virtual world and it -- when you're flying that vehicle that's all you see out the front windows and it looks like you're actually there. >> That's sort of the Rover, basically ... >> Dave Cohen: Yes. >> ... that would fly along the surface, the space exploration vehicle. >> Dave Cohen: That's right. >> And I think you've spent some nights in that vehicle as well, right? >> Dave Cohen: We did, yeah. I spent three full days in there and two nights. So that was quite a little adventure. You know it's about the size of a van on the inside. So it was interesting to be stuck in there and not be allowed to leave. The only time we were allowed to leave is when we did our space walks. >> So you ate in there, slept in there, everything. >> Dave Cohen: Slept, did everything we had to do inside there. >> What's the point of that? Why have somebody spend the night in there? >> Dave Cohen: Well they're thinking of -- so it would a long mission to an asteroid. You know it could be several weeks to even months so they're looking at going in a large habitat but then to get down to the asteroid they've developed this multi-mission space exploration vehicle to actually fly towards the surface. And that way they don't - your ride home doesn't get endangered by being too close to the asteroid. >> Okay. >> Dave Cohen: So when you fly down in order to save fuel they want to stay there for a few days. So they're thinking three days to maybe 14 days. So we were doing a three day habitability study to see how comfortable it is to stay in there for three days and what other stuff you would need in the vehicle that they haven't thought of yet to make it more comfortable and survivable. >> So what's the verdict? >> Dave Cohen: It's not too bad actually. You know it looks really small. It looks small from the outside and even on the inside when you first get in there it's kind of small. But living in there it's not too bad. It's kind of like camping. >> Okay. >> Dave Cohen: You just don't get to go outside too much. >> And so you let's see you also mentioned that you've participated in space walks from the virtual [inaudible] and probably some on ARGUS here behind us, the active response gravity upload system, did I get that right? >> Dave Cohen: Right, very good. >> Okay, so what did you learn through that? >> Dave Cohen: So yeah we would do those two types and we'd use them both differently. You know we'd go to the [inaudible] laboratory and put on some VR goggles. So that made it look like we were looking at the asteroid and really immersed us in it. >> And you're basically seeing the same thing they were through the windows of the space exploration vehicle, right. >> Dave Cohen: Right so those two worlds are tied together and we can fly our jet packs around there. So, you know, one concept is to have a little individual jet pack and to fly around the surface and collect samples that way. So in the VR lab we could do that kind of thing and it's, you know, really high fidelity visual. So you, again, you feel like you're right there. But the only downside is you can't really do anything in the virtual world because it's all computer generated. So the other type of space walk we do would be to come over to the ARGUS system and actually physically pick up some tools and actually, you know, use hammers to hammer on a rock and collect a sample or use some of our other tools to collect some soil samples or actually evaluate that long boom back there is one thing. You know so some actual physical space walk hardware so kind of two different ways to do it and give us two different valuations and kind of put the whole big picture thing together at the end to give an overall evaluation of the condition. >> Well and so you actually may recognize Dave from some other activities that he's been involved in. He's a space walker officer for Mission Control, kind of moonlighting here for the RATs position, I guess. >> Dave Cohen: Yeah that's right. >> So you now have kind of been on both sides of it. You've been the person back at mission control and now performing space walks. Does it give you a different perspective? >> Dave Cohen: Actually it does, actually. You know I've done like I said the mission control stuff so I've done the training and sat in mission control and watched, you know, other individuals go out and do their space walks. And then come in here and doing it yourself it's yeah it's a different perspective and actually having to be the one physically getting it done. You know at times in mission control you might get, you know, wonder why things aren't progressing the way you planned it or want it to go and you get over here and you're actually physically doing it yourself you can kind of see why things can deviate a little from how you thought it was going to happen. >> And can you see, you know, how we would use this information in the future? Why, you know, why this -- why these are good questions to ask now? >> Dave Cohen: Oh absolutely. You know going to an asteroid is going to be a very challenging thing. And we go to space station and we designed it to do space walks on so there are hand rails that you can hang on to and places you can plug into for stability. You know, an asteroid doesn't have any of that but then it also doesn't have any gravity so you can't stand up. So yeah we definitely need to put a lot of thought into what kind of tools we would use and how we're going to actually do stuff. And this is giving us a lot of good information about the various methods that will and won't work. And I think we've learned some of both of those, you know, some of the things we've tried didn't work so well and some of the things we've tried worked really well. So we'll go and refine that and do some better testing in the future. >> What's been your favorite part? >> You know it's flying the SEV is actually really fun. It's got a really nice control system and when you're flying it again you're looking at that virtual world and you feel like -- you feel like you're there doing it. But actually I really enjoy ARGUS too. It's a lot like being almost like Peter Pan. You can fly around here very easily, it will suspend you from this cable and just a slight push and you start floating across a surface. It's really neat. This really makes it feel like you're in zero gravity. So it's pretty fun. [ Silence ]