June 1, 2001

NASA/Johnson Space Center
Cooperative Education Office

Release: J01-60

Allison Bahnsen of Lancaster, Ohio, Completes Cooperative Education Tour at NASA

Allison Bahnsen, daughter of Jim and Jay Bahnsen of Lancaster, was selected in March 2000 to participate in the NASA Johnson Space Center Cooperative Education Program. She is currently a sophomore at Purdue University majoring in aerospace engineering. She is a 1999 graduate of Lancaster High School.

Bahnsen worked this year from January to June at JSC in Houston, Texas, where she was assigned to the Extravehicular Activity and Intravehicular Activity Equipment Branch of the Crew and Thermal Systems Division. Part of her duties involved supporting the STS-98, STS-102 and Expedition Two crews on the IVA Flight Crew Equipment console in the Mission Evaluation Room in Mission Control. The MER is Mission Control's behind-the-scenes technical support room where engineers resolve in-flight problems as they arise.

Bahnsen also worked on personal hygiene, crew fitness and crew provisioning items, participating in all aspects of flight readiness from procurement, through testing and flight certification, to hardware delivery. Also, she developed a mass and volume packaging factor matrix for space shuttle, International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope tools and toolboxes. These packaging factors will aid in the design of future toolboxes by helping engineers calculate the required packaging or toolbox size for a given set of standard tools.

Bahnsen returns to Purdue this summer to continue her studies but will return to JSC for another work tour with the Engineering Directorate's Advanced Space Exploration Office in August.

The JSC Co-op Program allows college students from throughout the country to prepare for their career by supplementing classroom learning with valuable real-world experience. This competitive program allows about 150 co-ops from more than 40 universities to alternate semesters at school with working at JSC in paid, full-time positions directly related to their field of study. Not only does the program provide students with great work experience, but also it helps them decide what kind of work they want to do after graduation.

For more information on the JSC Co-op Program, visit http://coop.jsc.nasa.gov/.

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