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3 Weeks in a Capsule

Season 1Episode 28Jan 19, 2018

Jessica Vos, Crew Systems Engineer, talks about how astronauts will operate in the Orion capsule for deep-space missions that can go up to 3 weeks: like how they’ll eat, sleep, exercise, work, and if needed, be prepared for the worst. HWHAP Episode 28.

orion docking hatch evaluation johnson space center crew

houston podcast episode 28 3 weeks in a capsule

“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.

Episode 28 features Jessica Vos, Crew Systems Engineer, who talks about how astronauts will operate in the Orion capsule for deep-space missions that can go up to 3 weeks: like how they’ll eat, sleep, exercise, work, and if needed, be prepared for the worst. This episode was recorded on November 16, 2017.

Houston, we have a podcast

Transcript

Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center Episode 28, Three Weeks in a Capsule. I’m Gary Jordan, and I’ll be your host today. So this is the podcast. We’ll be bringing the experts. NASA scientists, engineers, astronauts, all to tell you the coolest information about what’s going on here at NASA. So today we’re talking about what it will be like to live and work in the Orion Capsule with Jessica Vos. She’s a crew systems engineer here at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and we had a great discussion about how astronauts will operate in the Orion capsule for missions that can go up to three weeks. Like how they’ll eat, sleep, exercise, work, and if needed be prepared for the worst. So with no further delay, let’s go light speed and jump right ahead to our talk with Ms. Jessica Vos. Enjoy.

[ Music ]

Host: So living on Orion is going to be, it’s going to be tough. How long are the missions that you’re going to be living, if you were to say you’re going to live on Orion for blank, what are you planning for? How long of a mission?

Jessica Vos: The longest that we’re really thinking, it’s designed to do four crew for 21 days. The longest that we’re really thinking, that will really work out, is probably in that like 15-, 16-day range.

Host: Huh.

Jessica Vos: Because once you start docking to DSG, you’ve facilities there, so you would just basically kind of shut down or close off the Orion and go use your habitat module.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: The much bigger, spacious, better stuff, right.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: And this in thing, you’re going to be on a transport vehicle when you’re going that has some sort of a habitat kind of feature to it when you’re going to Mars.

Host: Right.

Jessica Vos: So, the just Orion piece, probably the longest you’d really need to be living in there is, it’s designed for 21 days.

Host: Okay. And the 21 days takes into account in case something goes wrong and you need some extra time, or is it just the redundancy aspect of things?

Jessica Vos: Well it was more like the sizing.

Host: Sizing, okay.

Jessica Vos: You can try to squeeze a mission in that’s right up to your 21 days and then you just have no margin for, you know, anything, but–

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: But the size of all of the consumables and how much, you know, CO2 scrubbing and how much water you need and stuff, it’s for four crew for 21 days.

Host: Okay. So then more likely it’ll be like a 16-day thing. Cool. So today let’s talk about just Orion, living on it, and what that’s going to look like. You know, like you said, the 21-day mission profile, it can support someone for 21 days and what that’s going to look like if you were to live there for, you know, up to that much but probably like you said, shorter, 16 days, so let’s start with Orion, like what, what is it. Because we talked with Najude and Morancy about this in a previous episode, but for those who didn’t listen to it, let’s talk about like what is Orion, what’s the shape of it. Like if you were living in it, what’s this house look like.

Jessica Vos: Okay, so basically volume wise you’re talking about maybe like a double minivan, you know. So like if you take the size of a minivan, if you’ve ever been on a road trip, you try to squeeze four to six people in a minivan, it can be kind of tight, but if you double that volume, that’s kind of what we’re talking about. It’s about 300 cubic feet of space. We are talking about putting four people in, and the shape is very similar to what you saw in the Apollo days in terms of that cone capsule, right. Physics kind of dictates that in terms of when you’re coming back from deep space, there’s a lot of energy that needs to be released through the atmosphere, and particular blunt body shape does that really well. So you’ve got, you know, the wide bottom with the skinnier top makes it look like a little cone. So, very similar to that.

Host: Okay, cool. But it sounds like, you said double minivan for four people, that’s more space than I would think.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, and, you know, what’s even better about it is the fact that you’ve got all of the volume to work with once you’re in microgravity.

Host: That’s right.

Jessica Vos: You don’t just have the floor space. You now have this really truly 3D space to do whatever you need to do in, so it’s not just the four people in a double minivan in their seats and rocking around on the bottom of the car or being strapped in their seats, it’s truly floating within that space, so.

Host: Okay. So you got this double minivan sort of space, let’s– how about the lay of the land. I’m imaging the one in building nine is the mockup of it. Once you enter through that hatch, what are you looking at, like where are the seats, where are the screens, where is all that stuff?

Jessica Vos: Yeah, so we are fortunate enough to have a full-scale Orion mockup here in building nine at Johnson Space Center, and the space vehicle mockup facility it’s like a big playground for spacecraft. When we enter our mockup, you enter through the side hatch, and as you enter, you first step on a step. And when you get in, you’ll see there’s a little bit of a space between your foot and the seat pan, the leg pan of the seats for the crew. And there are four of those seats aligned two and two. So two of them kind of, they don’t stack like lay on top of each other like bunk beds, it’s not like that. But they’re aligned two and two in like rows to your left.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: If the crew were laying in their seats to see you as you come into the side hatch, they would need to turn their heads to the right.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: So their feet–

Host: So the first, yeah, the first thing you see are their feet, and their heads are kind of towards the wall.

Jessica Vos: Right, yep.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: So their legs are kind of oriented towards the center of the spacecraft, and their heads are toward the outside so that their heads can line up pretty much directly underneath the displays and controls as well as the windows.

Host: Oh.

Jessica Vos: So without moving their head a whole lot, they have visibility to look out the windows for orientation during, you know, dynamic phases of flight and understanding where they are relative to the stars, through the window, and then they also have all of the information that they need to execute those maneuvers on the displays and controls right in front of them. It also is, a real interesting thing about that design of the seats, they don’t have to do a whole lot of manipulation, like if you think about, oh, well why don’t we do really super fancy touch screens. Well, if you’re in a vibration environment like during launch, your hands are really heavy actually, and your fingers are going to be moving around if you unstrap them from that seat and then try to go touch the screen.

Host: Right.

Jessica Vos: So they much prefer, of course, the switches and the dials and the buttons, which we have on the outer edges of our displays and controls. We recently did some testing. It was just, I think it was last year, about this time last year, where we did a legibility under vibration test with the crew, and so you had the whole system of the seat, the suit, and the human all vibrating under what we would determine, what we had determined to be our launch loading condition, the vibration condition, and then they have to tell us basically are they able to read the screen and execute what they’re supposed to be doing based on those commands under the vibration condition. So the whole point is that they’re able to do what they need to be doing under all the dynamic phases of flight. So the seat is, the design is for that purpose.

Host: All right. Yeah, I’m imagining like a, I don’t know if you’ve ever been like in the car or something, you see the clock like going up and down, like the digital clock, and it’s really hard to read, and you’re like what time is it.

Jessica Vos: And if you do need to reach and push the button next to the clock like can you, you know. Are you going to push the right one.

Host: That’s true, because when they’re launched, you got all this weight on you.

Jessica Vos: So then after that you got the, you got the screens. So then they have these buttons around the screens, right, that you can press?

Host: Yep. So that’s, and that’s part of the design, right, three screens?

Jessica Vos: Yes, that is part of the design. You’ve got two people monitoring those three screens, so you’ve got a little bit of that kind of ability for both people to operate both screens. Now, I would say two screens at a time. So that middle screen, you’re going to get people being, reach and access wise, those two crew members, you know, copilot and pilot are going to be able to both see and touch at least those two screens in front of them, and then you kind of got the outer screens being monitored by one person at a time.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: The switches are very important. That’s what gives them that tactile feedback of knowing that they actually done something while they’re wearing, while they have their gloves on. So it’s easy for us, you know, with the fancy iPhones to just really gently feel a tap on the home screen button, right.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: But that’s the same when you’ve got layers of a suit going around your hands, right. So for them to know that they indeed have actuated something, they really like that switch feel. And so there are specific designs around how those switches feel to the crew member to make sure that they know that they have in fact actuated what they were supposed to actuate.

Host: Yeah. It’s the space version of responsive design, where like, as if your phone, but a lot of other things to consider.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: Awesome. So that’s like the, that’s the pilot area, and that’s where you would, you would, I guess, quote unquote fly Orion, right. So then, so is the rest of the area that you’re looking at, like you said when you go through the hatch, this whole area, is that the living area or is there more?

Jessica Vos: So there is space that’s up back behind their heads.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: And, now recall that the ECLS wall, ECLS is environmental control and life support, so there’s like a wall back there that houses all of that equipment, and then in front of that is a bunch of stowage, a bunch of webbing kind of material.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: Like you know kind carabineer or hook to different D-rings in places to kind of stow stuff in and kind of keep it stowed back there. Underneath the pallet, the floor, underneath the floor is more stowage. That is also where some of the avionics bays are, I believe, and then some of the other systems for the vehicle that humans require such as the waste management system.

Host: Very important.

Jessica Vos: Very important. So, yeah, somehow it all squeezes in there.

Host: Okay. And that’s really the, that’s really what Orion is, is trying to, trying to get, you know, like this camper that you’re going to be living in for 16, 21 days, whatever, and just squeeze all this stuff in that you need for all of that stuff, knowing that it’s not like you can stop at a convenience store or gas station along the way to pick anything up.

Jessica Vos: Exactly. In fact, as I speak to you this afternoon, there’s a team of engineers at one of the off-site mockup facilities that are doing a stowage evaluation. So they’re literally right now playing that 3D game of Tetris and trying to figure out where all this mass and stuff is going to go. Because you also have to think about the CG of the vehicle, both on launch and on landing, it’s got to be very specific, so things have to be put in certain places. And then there’s also another very good consideration or important consideration, and that is, with respect to reach and access with the crew coming home and going through this dynamic phase of flight, there are certain things that you’re going to want them to be able to get to pretty much right away. So there’s some stowage that is literally right on their seats. There’s stowage of things that’s right next to them or such that one particular crew member can get there in a very quick amount of time. So it’s not like you can just put stuff wherever you want to. There’s also consideration, right, for not storing things like food next to things like the [inaudible]. So it gets tricky, and so they redo these evaluations as the designs for all of this equipment, crew equipment matures.

Host: All right. Yeah, I’m going to have to, I’m going to have to get some tips from you for my dad because to, how to pack a camper for a camping trip, to make it the most efficient way possible. He could definitely appreciate that because he’s an expert packer, but not compared to an Orion crew system [inaudible].

Jessica Vos: Yeah, these guys have got it down, I’m telling you.

Host: Wow, all right. So obviously, you know, you’re maximizing the limited space that you have and thinking about every component about where things are stored and where things are, so, you know, the living portion of things, right. What is, what’s the lay of the land for, you know, now you can get out of your seat, and it’s time to go do stuff. Where is everything else? Like food.

Jessica Vos: So there is a series of lockers both on that kind of ECLS wall that I was telling you about and a few more underneath the pallet on the floor, and I think portions of the food are stored in both of those places if I understand correctly. It could be that all of it maybe went in one of lockers underneath the seats now that I’m thinking about it, but they need to, they’re each stored– the way that the food is going to be stored is very similar to what we see currently on the space station, which is that they’re flown up in very specific sized compartments. I think they call them CTBs, and they’ll be organized either by crew member or by, you know, type of food that it is, and each of those gets put into a certain locker and given a certain, you know, spot to be.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: That’s the same for a lot of the equipment actually. It’s just, it’s all going to be in a particular locker. There’s a few different sizes of lockers and a few different kind of orientations, but it’s all stowed away. I think more interestingly there is the exercise device, and the exercise device is this neat little box that is going to be, going to serve as the step to the side hatch as well. So in zero gravity, of course you don’t need a step, right, to do anything with the side hatch. You’re not using the side hatch. You really don’t want that hatch to open on orbit. But on landing, when the crew is somewhat deconditioned after having been in microgravity for 16 to 21 days, they might need a step to get up and over that edge. So the idea is that this box that’s taking up space serves two functions. It’s going to be the step to allow the crew to get in and out, and the recovery crew as well, and it’s the exercise device.

And right now the exercise device is planned to be, it’s kind of cool because it doesn’t require any power. It’s just a flywheel-based device that’s got some smart settings to it that allow the crew to execute different prescriptions that the ASCRs give them. That’s the astronaut strength and condition rehabilitation specialist I think.

Host: Got to have acronyms.

Jessica Vos: The ASCRs. They provide the exercise prescriptions, and that one box alone will allow the crew members to get at least 30 minutes of exercise activity that will challenge their cardiovascular systems and their musculoskeletal systems as required, so–

Host: All right.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: So a little tiny box, and it’s kind of like a, I’m imagining a rowing machine, right, that you would see in the gym, kind of like that, but obviously more advanced so it can do aerobic and resistive exercise, meet all the needs that you need.

Jessica Vos: Right.

Host: Because the space station right now has the advanced resistive exercise device–

Jessica Vos: Absolutely.

Host: Which is like a big weightlifting machine. You don’t have room for that.

Jessica Vos: No, we don’t have room for that. [laughter]

Host: And it’s got a treadmill, I mean, from what Nujoud said, you could potentially stand up, right, if you were to like touch the base, like there’s enough room where you can stand up straight?

Jessica Vos: Yes, yes. You can. I believe, I know I can, but I’m only five three.

Host: Oh, okay.

Jessica Vos: So I don’t know that the, I believe the crew module is sized for I think up to a six four individual.

Host: Wow.

Jessica Vos: If I’m correct.

So, yeah, you don’t have to be particularly short. You will, you know, there is limits to which seat we can put you in if you are on that taller edge.

Host: Oh.

Jessica Vos: But, and I do believe that I think somebody at least up to six foot would be able to, like Nujoud said, stand in the center of the capsule.

Host: Wow.

Jessica Vos: But you’re right, when you’re rowing, you’re still going to get into a standing stature position, but in zero gravity, we’re going to have you do it through the center of the spacecraft.

Host: So you’re not going up to the tip of the cone, right, you’re going, yeah.

Jessica Vos: You’re not going up, yeah, you’re not going up to where the docking hatch is on the top at the very, at the tip, you’re going to the other side of the spacecraft. So you’re starting at the side hatch, right underneath the side hatch, and you’re extending your body long out to the other side of the spacecraft.

Host: Ah, okay. So that’s, so that takes up a decent amount of real estate, right, that’s the, that’s the working out real estate.

Jessica Vos: It sure does.

Host: And where is everyone else while someone is working out? I guess they’re all in the same room, right.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, they absolutely are. And it’s funny because when you think about how much time is really going to spent each day when you have four crew members doing at least 30 minutes each, it’s like a couple hours that that person is going to be basically occupying a good chunk of the space while they exercise, and everyone else is going to have to be kind of staying out of the way, right.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: So it’s going to be interesting.

Host: Plus the noise, I’m thinking of a rowing machine, right. So plus the noise of rump, rump, for hours.

Jessica Vos: Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s a good topic actually.

Host: Really?

Jessica Vos: There are several acoustic requirements imposed on every system that goes into the cabin for just that reason. Like it’s very hard to concentrate and focus and get real work done, right, if you are constantly, you know, having to deal with a buzz. You know how annoying that can be.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: So there are a lot of acoustic requirements placed on all of the different systems that have to be continuously operating, and yeah, the exercise device is one of them absolutely.

Host: So there’s an acoustic, it has to be, it can’t exceed like this noise level or something.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: Interesting.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: So have you simulated something, like an environment where people are living in Orion for a couple days already, or is that still to come, like so you can understand the acoustic environment and say, hey, that’s annoying or something like that.

Jessica Vos: So there hasn’t been, there has not been to my knowledge any day in the life of type of tests specific to the Orion capsule. However, there have been a series of analogue tests being done in terms of the isolated environment. So right here at Johnson Space Center, the human research program owns the HERA, which is the Human Exploration Research Analogue.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: And they do study how humans behave in isolation and the effects on team dynamics, and they try to stress them out a little bit, right, and try to see how they can improve on the team dynamics basically. It’s very BHP, behavioral health and performance oriented, not as much as hey, you know, is the Orion design adequate or sufficient. We haven’t gotten to that point with the Orion design yet in terms of verification and validation. We will with EM1 and EM2. We’ve got sensors on the EM1 mission that uses the Orion capsule that will measure acoustics and radiation and all that good stuff. But in terms of the people aspect, we study it here through the human research program in HERA, and unfortunately the volume of that is just way beyond what– it’s huge in there.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: So they have way more volume in space to live and work in.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: The acoustics though I would say is probably one of the things that they do tweak to try to see if it stresses the crew out, but I couldn’t speak to the results of that, but I’m sure that it’s one of the things that they try to tweak, as a variable, to see what kind of impacts in terms of stress it has on the crew.

Host: Definitely, we actually just had Lisa Spence and Paul Haugen here earlier today to talk about HERA, and by the time this comes out, I believe there’s the HERA episode already, Space Habitats.

Jessica Vos: Awesome.

Host: So there should already be a little bit more anybody that, and I was picking her brain, but obviously there’s still, there’s still researching. They still have to collect the data–

Jessica Vos: Oh, yeah.

Host: So they haven’t, they haven’t like, you know, consolidated everything into a published paper quite yet, and more to come, but absolutely, totally transferrable to an Orion environment. The human element to that.

Jessica Vos: Yep, yep.

Host: So, what other sorts of living systems are on, are on Orion. I guess, well, okay, I’ll lead in the right direction for, for example, environmental, right. So to live you have to, you know, you’re in space, but it’s got to be a certain temperature, right?

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: You got to have oxygen and carbon dioxide removal and stuff like that.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, those humans are rather picky, right. Like we take an exact just so much of a temperature swing or a pressure swing, and we just get uncomfortable really fast. So, there’s comfort and survival, right.

Host: Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Vos: So, Orion will be pressurized at 14.7 pounds per square inch, or PSI, which is exactly what you would see here in Houston, Texas, because we live pretty much at sea level. So that’s fantastic.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: We don’t really have to deal with any sort of feelings or impacts to performance due to changes in pressure.

Host: Cool.

Jessica Vos: The air is also the exact same concentration of oxygen and nitrogen and all the rest of the trace contaminants, well we should be cleaner, honestly. But, yeah, so we’re looking at 21 percent oxygen and the rest nitrogen for the most part, so.

Host: All right. So it’s, okay, so it’s emulating all of that, and all of this is in a tiny, is the environmental systems, do they have to be designed to be more compact, or was it kind of a cut and paste sort of technology?

Jessica Vos: Great question. So I believe that what we are flying on Orion is a fairly new and more compact system. It is a mean swing bed, it’s a solid mean swing bed technology, which we have three units, and it’s designed to be, as most systems are on this spacecraft, anything that’s needed in different nominal missions, and nominal mission duration for four crew for 21 days, we try to design redundancy into, so that if something happens and you’re just not quite sure what it was, okay, you know what, we’re going to switch to this other thing instead, or we’re just going to use the second one that we, you know, built into the system. So that’s how the ECLS system is. We have three units, and each unit has two beds that swing. So, what the purpose of the solid mean is to basically remove the CO2 from the air. There’s other kinds of filters within that system that’ll take out other types of contaminants, but the main thing that we really worry about from a human health perspective and human performance perspective is that CO2. So, it’ll take out the CO2. It basically attaches, the solid mean is really sticky. It likes the CO2, and then when we flip the bed and expose it to vacuum, all of it goes away.

Host: Wow.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, so once the bed is full, you turn around and expose it to vacuum, I think it’s like 20 minutes or something max, and then you flip it around again, and we have three different units that do that same process.

Host: All right.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: All right. So, pretty efficient then, I would guess, right? Because you’re right, you built in the redundancy.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: And talking with Nujoud before, that redundancy is built like, all right, we can have this amount, but if we go, if we do, you know, more redundant systems, then that’s more weight, so what’s the right amount, and then, boom, you locked in on the three, you said, right.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: Yeah, very cool.

Jessica Vos: Yep, and like every single system has to have that trade of how much tolerance you’re going to build into it. Some systems we just say, you know what, we’re going to have to, we can’t afford it, we’re going to have to fly in terms of mass. We don’t have the spare mass for this one versus this other more important one that we need the mass for, so we are going to decide to control it via operational controls in flight instead. Just make sure that we only operate it for this much time or we only use it for this much, and you can, you know, there are, those are some of the other ways that you can manage the resources and the consumables that you don’t have extra of, right.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: Power is like that quite a bit. It’s the same way on the space station right now.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: Like you have to know exactly what you’re plugging into and how long you’re plugging into it because you could short something else out over here, you know, so.

Host: So, I’m guessing Orion has power constraints too, right.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: Is it going to be solar powered?

Jessica Vos: Yes.

Host: Okay. Very cool. So how is the solar panels now. Because I’ve seen various pictures in the past of, you know, you got the ones that are more circular and ones that are more like an X.

Jessica Vos: We’re the X.

Host: We’re the X now.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: Cool, I like that one.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, yeah, we are the X. We’ve got four.

Host: Sweet.

Jessica Vos: You know, that kind of do the pretty unfolding thing.

Host: All right.

Jessica Vos: So, yeah, but they go, they extend out fairly long, I don’t know the exact numbers, but yeah.

Host: Okay, and that will, it’ll be solar powered and–

Jessica Vos: Um-hum.

Host: Okay, very cool. So another big one that I know about is, and you were talking about all of the important stuff being around, the waste management, right.

Jessica Vos: Um-hum.

Host: Right. So you’re going to be on there in the one room with four people for quite some time.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: So how is the bathroom situation?

Jessica Vos: Tiny. It is a very tiny, like smaller than a telephone booth like closet thing.

Host: All right.

Jessica Vos: It is very tiny, and it’s really funny too because I believe as it’s oriented right now, just because you only have so much room in the spacecraft, right, I think the exercise device sits right above the door for the WM.

Host: No.

Jessica Vos: So you may have to interrupt somebody’s exercise session to go in and then, you know, interrupt it again to get out, so you know. But, you know, that’s what it’s like when you’re camping and living in a camper. That’s how things go. So–

Host: It’s true.

Jessica Vos: But, yeah, the design of the actual system itself, of the potty itself, is similar in, you know, concept to what we use on station today.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: It’s basically purposely driven airflow that’s being intentionally directed in a certain way, you know, to help stuff get out and not get all over the place.

Host: Also very important.

Jessica Vos: Yes. And then it gets contained into a canister that’s got some odor control features to it, and then once that canister gets full, it can be sealed and closed off and then you stick a brand-new one in, and so–

Host: All right.

Jessica Vos: It’s kind of a fancy bucket with a hose on the end of it and some odor-control features.

Host: Hey, that’s going to come in handy, because that’s right next to the exercise [inaudible].

Jessica Vos: Yes, I know.

Host: That whole area, I know I would hang out on the other side if I was at Orion for the most part for sure.

Jessica Vos: But, yeah, in general I’m not sure that there’s a whole lot of privacy going to be offered on this vehicle. I mean, of course there’s always the option of hanging up your sleeping bag. I mean you had a question about that, and it’s really more of just a blanket with Velcro straps on it that allow you to adjust the squeezability, right, how tight it is on your body, and then some D-rings to adhere it to some pieces of structure so that you don’t go floating off into each other when you’re sleeping. But there is the option of hanging that up, you know, putting the D-ring up, or getting it unfolded and sticking out so that you want to be behind it. But I’m just, I can’t imagine that with 21 days of taking that much time and energy to make sure that you get, you know, behind your little curtain, I don’t know.

Host: Well, you know what, I would assume with a crew of four astronauts that are going on these missions, I would assume that they are going to be a very tight-knit group of people.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: And just talking with space stations astronauts and even HERA, just talking with them too, whenever you’re with people in these environments, you learn to, you know, teamwork is very important. Camaraderie is very important, and all of that sort of translates into if you’re going to the bathroom, respect each other, so–

Jessica Vos: Yeah. Absolutely.

Host: Yeah. Just out of curiosity, I’m thinking about the movie Apollo 13. So when they were on that trip, they didn’t have the water recycling system that we have on the International Space Station, they literally ejected it out into space. And it had this sort of cool crystal effect as it was floating away. Is that what’s going to happen on Orion?

Jessica Vos: It absolutely is.

Host: Ah that is so cool.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, I’m not sure that they’re going to be able to see it the same way. You know, just based on where the windows are and where that ejection port it, but – or the evacuation port I guess – but that’s how we’re going to do it.

Host: Ah, okay. I hope they get some good views – this kind of sounds weird to say – but it is kind of cool to see the crystallization of pee.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, so I’ve heard!

Host: Very cool. There’s a, you know, one thing I was thinking about actually is, we just moved right from flying the thing and like how, where everyone’s going to be sitting to just kind of living, but I know there’s going to be a launch and entry suit that you have to wear at first, right. So these bulky like orange suits, right. It’s kind of like the, it’s an upgraded, new, fancy pumpkin suit, right.

Jessica Vos: Right.

Host: Kind of. So once you’re wearing that and now you’re in orbit and now you’re transitioning to living on Orion, where does that pumpkin suit go?

Jessica Vos: So it has, it has another locker.

Host: A locker, okay, cool.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, just another locker, but that suit becomes really important in some of the, on orbit, in the event that some emergency happens like a depressed cabin, so if something happens that causes your cabin to depress for any reason, all of the systems in there including the food system and everything are meant to be, to provide for 144 hours of depressurized cabin survival.

Host: Oh, okay.

Jessica Vos: So 144 hours, basically six days.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: That’s kind of like, yeah, worst case you’re on the far side of the moon and something happens, your cabin depresses, and you have six days until you can get home.

Host: From the far side of the moon though, how long until you get home?

Jessica Vos: Six days.

Host: Oh, okay. So it’s literally planned for exactly that, in worst case scenario.

Jessica Vos: It’s meant to cover that worst case scenario, absolutely.

Host: Got it, okay.

Jessica Vos: So, in that event, you’re getting in your suit, and you’re living in your suit. So that suit also has some unique features to it that the pumpkin suits from the space shuttle program did not have.

Host: Oh, okay.

Jessica Vos: That would allow for, you know, the collection and mitigation of human waste.

Host: Wow.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, because that’s six days’ worth of living, right.

Host: Um-hum, yep. It’s also going to allow you to take in some calories and some water.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: So there’s special food bags and food-like consistent, what am I trying to say, like material, like it’s going to be, and you wouldn’t normal eat it, but if you had to, it’s going to be like this, I don’t want to say sludge, but it’s kind of like a, it’s like a powdery mixture that you would–

Host: It’s not like the running gel, right? Is it kind of like that?

Jessica Vos: It would be kind of like that.

Host: Okay.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, that would allow you to take in a lot of calories.

Host: Yeah, that’s what those are for, right.

Jessica Vos: In a pouch, right.

Host: Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Vos: But it’s specific to interfacing with the spacesuit and being operated with gloved hands and with a vacuum on the outside environment, right. So it’s a pretty tricky thing to–

Host: Is it like a straw that goes through the helmet or something and then you squeeze it through?

Jessica Vos: Basically that’s what you would see.

Host: Oh, okay, yeah.

Jessica Vos: Yes, yeah.

Host: Oh, yeah, that’s how I’m imagining. I’m sure it’s more complicated.

Jessica Vos: Right, right. So there’s a whole team of engineers that is working on putting that system together to make sure that the crew won’t be starving for that 144 hours that they will. But you can’t pop the visor, you can’t, you know, the whole, the whole interior of the spacecraft at that point is a vacuum.

Host: Right.

Jessica Vos: So–

Host: So you have to survive in the suit, and that suit has to support you for six days.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: Whoa.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: That’s cool. I actually think, is it, is it Cody Kelly?

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: Jessica Vos: Is that the guy?

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: Okay, yeah, I got his name about crew survival and stuff, so we’re really going to have to bring him on the podcast.

Jessica Vos: Oh, absolutely. That would be a– he’s a fun person, and he does all the fun stuff so–

Host: Awesome. That would be cool. Yeah, so the suits themselves are designed, but then, you know, they go into a tiny little locker, and then, you know, hands off for that.

Jessica Vos: In fact, the seats do as well.

Host: Oh, the seats go in lockers?

Jessica Vos: Yeah. The whole cabin configuration just kind of changes from okay we’re in flight mode to now were in just coast mode, right.

Host: Whoa.

Jessica Vos: And just live and do science experiments.

Host: Do the screens stay?

Jessica Vos: Yes.

Host: The screens stay, the chairs go, the suits go, and it opens up this whole thing.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: Oh, that’s so cool. You know what, I did skip over, because you did briefly mention it, and then I just sort of skipped over it, but beds, you know, like sleeping. It sounds like it’s just going to be a sleeping bag strapped to a wall.

Jessica Vos: Right, yeah. I was going to say, not so much with the bed. There’s no mattress, no, but there’s also no gravity, so it’s kind of cool, and this is, it’s very similar to on space station.

Host: Right.

Jessica Vos: They find themselves rather comfortable once, you know, they adjust, that whole, you know, the way you feel when you first enter microgravity and the first couple of days can be a little, a little strange on the body.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: But you do get used to it fairly quickly. It only takes a couple of days, but once you’re there, it’s really comfortable, and what they do is they have a blanket. It’s just thin though. It’s not like a big poufy sleeping bag or anything like that. It’s just thin because the temperature inside the cabin is, you know, that very comfortable kind of 72 to 75 degrees, and it’s got various straps in places so that where you want to feel that snuggy feeling, right, you can, do it tight, but for the most part, they actually like to just kind of leave it a little bit loose, and you’ll see them, they kind of sleep like zombies.

Host: Right.

Jessica Vos: Like they have their arms out in front of them, and they’re just kind of hanging and they’re floating, and it’s funny because the station sleeping, quote unquote, sleeping bags are, they’ve got all of these straps and this and that to make sure your head doesn’t go bobbling around and so you can hook yourself to the wall and you can get it super tight if you want. And it just seems like none of that gets used. Just floating there feels nice.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: You know, you can imagine, if you just kind of let your body just float in a pool.

Host: Oh, yeah, that’s a good feeling, that’s a good feeling.

Jessica Vos: You know, yeah. So they’re just like, all right, I’m going to sleep now. Just lean back and let their arms float and–

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: You know, but they do, they do, I think, at least give themselves a little bit of a restraint so that they know they’re not going to end up in somebody else’s space overnight or into a different module entirely.

Host: That’s true. You don’t want to play like space bumper cars in the middle of the night, just kind of slamming into each other. That would be weird. Yeah, just from talking to a couple astronauts, they both said, sleeping, you know, once you get used to it, sleeping in space is probably the best sleep you’ll ever get. Because, if you think about it, right, even in a bed here on Earth, you still have gravity pushing you against that bed. In space you have–

Jessica Vos: And it’s pushing that weight of the blanket on you too, which is so comforting.

Host: Oh, that is, that is comforting, yeah. But just nothing pressing on you, that’s got to be a fantastic feeling.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: I bet you it should.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: Just out of curiosity, for the way the mission is designed, for Orion missions, would it be kind of lights out, crew go to sleep, all at the same time, or are they going to be shifting?

Jessica Vos: As far as I understand it, there’s not going to be much shifting. They’re going to be on a very similar, in terms of a day night schedule and sleep schedule, it’ll be fairly similar. What they will shift is their exercise sessions and their kind of personal time sessions, but from a day-night cycle, it would be the same.

Host: Okay. Do they have the ability to sort of switch to like night mode and maybe turn the lights off or change them to like a warmer color?

Jessica Vos: Well, so that’s interesting you ask that, because lighting is a big deal in terms of, you know, the habitability of an environment, right.

Host: Definitely.

Jessica Vos: You can have some really harsh lighting and just get headaches all the time, and you’d just be really like, grrr, and it’s due to the lighting. So I believe that the systems, there are requirements now for how we design habitable environments and what kind of lighting is required, and I know that they’ve implemented some interesting new blue light stuff up on space station. So, I believe that that is one of the, going to be one of the capabilities with the lighting system in Orion, is to have different basically modes of light. I don’t know how fancy they’re going to get, because it’s not light we’ve got the Lexus of space crafts here, you know. But that is something that is, in terms of helping them stick to a cycle, a day-night cycle, the whole circadian rhythms and all of that stuff, all of that science has been done, we know it works. And so I believe that part of, at least some of that is going to be implemented in the lighting system in Orion.

Host: Yeah. Because I know they are doing, it’s called the lighting effect study on station, and it’s exactly that. LED lights, change them to a little warmer things in your crew quarters or something, so at night you don’t have this big fluorescent light in your [inaudible].

Jessica Vos: Absolutely, yeah, they use them in HERA too.

Host: Oh, oh yeah they do. That’s right.

Jessica Vos: The whole bottom floor of the lab has a completely different set of lights than the habitation floors, both with the galley and the exercise equipment and stuff and then the sleeping tents, you know, on the very top floor of HERA, so–

Host: Yeah, just actually learning some of this stuff from HERA from this light effect study, I actually put like a blue light filter on my phone and on my computer like so at night I can, you know, I can browse a little bit without having to worry about it actually affecting my sleep.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: Which after learning about it, I realized, oh my gosh, that’s why I’m not sleeping, because I’m screens before bed. You can’t do it.

Jessica Vos: So in terms of speaking of screens, they will have laptops.

Host: Cool.

Jessica Vos: Anywhere between two and four. There might be a couple laptops and a couple of iPads. All of that is still to be determined, but it is currently accounted for in terms of the mass allotment for that kind of a system.

Host: All right.

Jessica Vos: And there’s some dependencies there and some reasons why we would use that stuff. One is to get rid of a bunch of paper, right. You can do all of your procedures and stuff from your tablet. They do that on station all the time now. And another, especially from the crew health perspective is that that’s how they would be able to do any sort of video conferencing, right, with home. So I say that, at the same time, the way that EM2, the EM2 vehicle is currently equipped, it’s only got the S band communication technology.

Host: So only radio, no visual.

Jessica Vos: Pretty much. You might be able to squeeze a little bit in there, pictures but probably not real-time skype-like video.

Host: Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Vos: So, but there is some potential to expand Orion’s capability with optical communication, and once they would do that, then for sure they’d be using these laptops to do more, you know, videoing with their families at home. But they absolutely will have time each day or at least every other day or something along those lines to be communicating with their families.

Host: Nice. All right. So that’s part of their day, right. Actually that’s a good conversation to have is we know that they are, you know, they’re going to be working out. We know that they’re going to be sleeping. What’s a day on Orion like on this mission. I guess, you know, talking with family, but, you know, is that built into the mission profile?

Jessica Vos: So we are flying people that are very good pilots for a reason. Good pilots and good scientists, right. Okay, well I guess it’s pilots, scientists, and engineers.

Host: All right.

Jessica Vos: And the reason for that is because you need people, this EM2 mission is a mission that has not been done before. Similar things have been done in Apollo, but that spacecraft was different, and the designs and how we got the mission done was a little bit different. So this EM2 mission is really a checkout mission, and there’s a lot of dynamic phases of flight. A lot of, you know, translunar injection burns and stuff going on. We’re co-manifesting a payload on this mission, so there is a lot to, and it’s just the first time that all of this stuff is going to be used in the manner that it was meant to be used by humans, right. EM1 will test out a lot of the structure and the systems that are just automated and controlled from the ground, so that’s good, but this is when the humans will kind of, you know, be doing the ringing out of all the different things that may or may not have been known about how this design is going to work.

Host: Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Vos: So they’re going to be doing a lot of, you know, checking out, a lot of system checkout and kind of on purpose, you know, kind of driving certain systems to do certain things. They’re going to be piloting and navigating that spacecraft through all the different dynamic phases of flight. They are going to be, there probably will be some science, but I don’t expect that to come until like a little bit later missions, once we’ve really kind of flushed out what the system can handle and what it can’t, because they need to be ready just in case something just isn’t working the way it was planned to, designed to for whatever reason.

Host: Right.

Jessica Vos: They will spend a little bit of time doing their meal prep and meal time, and for the most part, that’s kind of the only planned relaxation time, right. They do have their personal time of personal hygiene, which usually is right after the exercise, right, but as a crew and being able to just relax, sit back, and, you know, I wouldn’t say drink your coffee, but squeeze your coffee because it’s in the same kind of like, it’s like a Capri Sun for coffee, the same kind of thing, with a special straw in it that keeps it from leaking out when you’re not actually sucking on it. And so from that standpoint, there is meal prep time. The food comes in lots of different kinds of packages that take different kinds of preparation, whether that’s just heating or putting water in and letting it sit out and that kind of thing. So they’ll prep the food. They’ll prepare their coffee, and then they’ll sit back and eat, and they’ll do that two, three times a day. So, yeah, I think that’s pretty much the extent of what they’re going to be doing on EM2.

And then once we start getting, hopefully we’ll understand how these systems behave and how much maintenance they all really require and be able to move into doing more science, even on the shorter Orion missions and then extend that into what the deep space gateway would have with their habitation module and their labs and stuff.

Host: All right. I can think of like a lot of different podcast episodes just on all of this, right. Like we could probably do one just on EM2 so people understand what that’s all about. We could probably do one just on some concepts for deep space gateway. Like there’s a lot of like, because I can definitely ask a lot of questions, but we will be here for hours.

Jessica Vos: No, let’s not do that.

Host: Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Vos: It’s freezing in here. [laughter]

Host: I’m so sorry. I should have said to bring a jacket. We did talk briefly with Nujoud about EM1 and just the structure of that mission real brief, right. Another thing we need to do is actually cover EM1 through and through, but that’s going to be no crew. It’s going to be going translunar injection, way out past the moon, coming back super-fast to test the heat shields. And you’re right, a lot of it is structural and just understanding about the space craft.

Jessica Vos: Yep.

Host: Do you think you can give like a two-minute explanation of EM2, or is that really something we should probably save for a podcast.

Jessica Vos: Well, for the two-minute explanation, we will be launching from Kennedy Space Center on top of the SLS, and there will be a comanifested payload along with this mission. So not only is it the first manned mission of Orion, but we will also be bringing [inaudible] payload along with us. And the AA2, I was trying to think about the launch abort, so there will be the LAS system on top of the Orion, so in terms of the rocket sack that you’ll see, you’ll see SLS. You will see Orion, but Orion will be covered by the LAS shroud, the Launch Abort Systems shroud. But the test of that system is actually coming up before EM1, so that will be really exciting to see.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: So, once we, after we launch and we get rid of the LAS, because we didn’t need it, thank goodness, right, everybody was cool, we will be going around the orbit one time in kind of a low Earth orbit, and then we’ll continue on into a high Earth orbit, at which point we’ll kind of separate from the first stage and let that go, and the comanifested payload in Orion will go in different directions, both going to the moon, but in different orbit trajectories, orbital trajectories.

Host: Ah, okay.

Jessica Vos: So there will be two different stages of the rocket taking these two things in two different directions, and they’ll do two different translunar injections, but at that point in the mission, the Orion and the service module are heading out to the moon as are the comanifested payload, or as is the comanifested payload. When it is on a trajectory that’s going to take several, several days to get into a different orbit, it’s going to be a near rectilinear halo orbit that the comanifested payload will be going into, and we will be going into just a free return trajectory around the moon.

Host: Okay, all right. And then–

Jessica Vos: And that is expected, from the Orion perspective, it takes about, yeah, about 10 to 12 days to do that mission.

Host: Okay, 10 to 12, and that’s when we’re getting to the Orion can last for 21 days, but this is more of a 10 to 12 sort of deal.

Jessica Vos: Yeah.

Host: Okay. So the comanifested payload, that stays there, right. It doesn’t come back?

Jessica Vos: It does not come back.

Host: But the people definitely do, right.

Jessica Vos: Yes, exactly.

Host: Yeah, cool.

Jessica Vos: But, yeah, the comanifested payload will be staying in that NRHO orbit around the moon, kind of that polar orbit, it looks that way.

Host: Yeah, uh-huh.

Jessica Vos: And, yeah, but we’ll be coming, we’ll be coming back.

Host: Cool. All right.

Jessica Vos: So there’s a whole suite of landing and recovery systems as well that allow us to retrieve the capsule once it lands and allows us to survive re-entry and then get to the capsule and recover it.

Host: Yeah, so landing and recovery, is that like a, what’s included in that package? Is that parachutes or am I–

Jessica Vos: Yeah, yeah. Like everything that we need on that heat shield, the parachutes. There’s a system called the command module uprighting system that is, or the crew module uprighting system, excuse me, not the Apollo. It is what will make sure that we are able to upright the vehicle should it land with its, you know, docking hatch side down in the water. We don’t want it, that’s not the proper orientation, right, that would have the crew hanging in a funny position in their seats, so we want it to flip back over on it’s own. So those come out and inflate. Those are those big orange, you know, balloon things that you see on the top of the capsule.

Host: Oh.

Jessica Vos: They used them in EFT1’s.

Host: Yes, yes. I know what you’re talking about. They’re just, they look like big puffy life jackets sort of, I guess. Yeah, cool.

Jessica Vos: And there’s a series of parachutes that go to that. I think there’s 11 total parachutes, when you think about all the droves and then the main, so, yeah that’s a whole system in and of itself, just like the abort system protects you from anything that might go wrong on the pad.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: And then we also have a service module abort capability, which is, should anything go wrong, when you made it to orbit but now something happened that you’re not able to complete the entire mission, but you don’t have to lose the crew, you can just abort to an Earth orbit and then come back in, you know, intentionally, from that orbit instead of having gone all the way out to the moon and back.

Host: Ah.

Jessica Vos: So lots of orbit capability. A lot of capability for keeping the crew alive. In fact, you’ve got that launch abort capability. You’ve got the system, sorry, service module abort capability. You’ve got the 144-hour survival scenario.

Host: Right.

Jessica Vos: So when the crew is in their suits.

Host: Yes.

Jessica Vos: And then you also have, should you land just something off nominal, the cabin is required to provide the crew with a habitable environment for up to 24 hours. So that would be a not very fun 24 hours. I can tell you right now. It’s going to be, you’re going to feel thick just from having gone through what you went through, let alone bobbing and rocking on the ocean. Depending on where you landed, that might be kind of a warm cabin, not a whole lot of cooling available for that time. There is ventilation. You open up what’s called a snorkel fan, and you will get airflow, but, yeah, it’s going to be, but the point is, is that they’re not going to, they will be able to stay alive and be kept safe on the ocean for up to 24 hours.

Host: All right. A lot of things to think about for a worst case scenario, but it seems like you got it, you got it like covered all along the way. You got launch abort, you have crew survival within the suits, you got this whole waving in the ocean but still able to, you know, figure it out, even if the capsule lands upside-down, flipping it up like right side up, so.

Jessica Vos: Yeah, that is basically what human spaceflight is all about. In order to bring back, you know, that experience that they have and to be able to use that knowledge and expertise during the mission, you got to keep them alive, and you got to keep them performing well.

Host: Yeah.

Jessica Vos: So, all of that goes into, you know, making sure that we, those are national assets at that point, right. All of our astronauts that go and get all this knowledge.

Host: The human and the human space flight is definitely the most important [inaudible]. For sure. Awesome. Well, Jessica, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. That was an awesome description of, I felt like I was there. I felt like I was living in Orion. I felt like I was slurping on those things through the suit. I didn’t want to, but I felt it. But, yeah, no, that was really, that was really awesome. We’re definitely, and I thought of so many different more podcast episodes that we can do, just covering all of these different things, because this was just like a high level like, you know, even just, you know, going through the intricate details of living on Orion, there’s still so much more to talk about, so definitely looking forward to another podcast. Thanks so much for coming on. Maybe one more time, we’ll probably have to have you another time.

Jessica Vos: All right, thank you so much.

Host: Yeah, cool.

[ Music ]

Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around. So today we talked with Jessica Vos about living in Orion and kind of the space of how it’s all laid out, and there’s a lot more that we could have talked about with Orion as I mentioned at the end of the podcast. If you want to know more right now and just can’t wait for another episode of Houston We Have a Podcast, go to NASA.gov/Orion. I would say there’s definitely some cool stuff to come in Houston We Have a Podcast, but if you want to know right now, just go to that website. Or on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it’s @NASAOrion, that’s on Facebook. Twitter is @NASA_Orion, and then on Instagram @exploreNASA is like Orion and space launch system all of that kind of combined.

If you have a question specifically about Orion, use the hashtag askNASA on any one of those platforms, and ask that question there, or you can submit and idea to the podcast. Just make sure to mention it’s for Houston We Have a Podcast. This podcast was recorded on November 16, 2017. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Rachel Kraft, and Laura Rochon. And thanks again to Ms. Jessica Vos for coming on the show. We’ll be back next week.