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“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center from Houston, Texas, home for NASA’s astronauts and Mission Control Center. Listen to the brightest minds of America’s space agency – astronauts, engineers, scientists and program leaders – discuss exciting topics in engineering, science and technology, sharing their personal stories and expertise on every aspect of human spaceflight. Learn more about how the work being done will help send humans forward to the Moon and on to Mars in the Artemis program.
On Episode 196, Alicia Robinson and Crystal Larsen, increment training integrators at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, break down the intricate coordination needed to prepare astronauts for launch from the moment they are assigned to a mission. This episode was recorded on April 9, 2021.
Transcript
Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center: Episode 196, “The Astronaut Schedulers.” I’m Gary Jordan, and I’ll be your host today. On this podcast we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts, all to let you know what’s going on in the world of human spaceflight. A few times on this podcast, we’ve discussed astronaut training. Longtime listeners may know the basics. You have your training in T-38 jets, you have spacewalk training in the giant pool called the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, you have your systems training in space station mockups at the Johnson Space Center, science training, maintenance training, etc. What we haven’t really explored in depth yet is the massive coordination it takes to get all the astronaut training crammed in before their spaceflight, along with all of the personal items that go with such a busy schedule, and it is astounding. We’re talking the project management of everything from negotiating with the international agencies to scheduling an astronaut’s kid’s daycare pickup. And all of this, for every astronaut and cosmonaut from partner agencies, is managed by a small team of five women at NASA. Today, we sit down with a few of those women to hear the lesser-known, but critical role of what it takes to manage an astronaut’s schedule before their spaceflight. Joining us is Alicia Robinson and Crystal Larsen, increment training integrators at NASA. So, let’s get right into it. Enjoy.
[ Music]
Host: Alicia and Crystal, thanks so much for coming on Houston We Have a Podcast today.
Alicia Robinson: Thanks so much for having us, Gary. This is really exciting. I’m looking forward to talking with you.
Crystal Larsen: I agree. We are excited to be here.
Host: I’m looking forward to talking with each of you. I was just talking to some of my colleagues ahead of this podcast, and I was like, hey, hey, I’m going to be talking to the increment training integrators. And they said, oh, great. And they said, ask them, ask them a bunch of questions, because I know they do a lot, but I don’t know if we understand the full scope of what you do. It’s actually quite incredible. And I can’t wait to get into it. I want to start, though, with understanding about what it takes to be an integrator. What I think is, I think the ultimate project manager for a person’s life, right, that’s what I’m thinking, but I want to understand a little bit about what it takes to have this role. Alicia, we’ll start with you.
Alicia Robinson: OK, great. So, you are correct, it is the ultimate project manager for someone’s life. And we take it very seriously because we do encompass not only their training, but it does affect their personal life as well. So, we have to look at all facets of a crew member. So, I actually have a degree in criminology, which I’m sure you’re going to want to ask how that equates, but really, it’s my negotiation skills that I learned through having a degree in criminology that helps me in my job, because it’s all about negotiations. Time, countries, it’s all about negotiation. So, you have to be able to negotiate and plan ahead, long-term planning, and then when someone comes in and changes the plan, changes the crew members, you just have to be ready to fly with it. So, you have to maintain flexibility.
Host: That is perfect. Crystal, what about you? What kind of background do you come from?
Crystal Larsen: I have a degree in aerospace engineering. I started here at Johnson Space Center right after I graduated, working on shuttle flights in the FAO (Flight Activities Officer) group. And so, I actually started with the experience of planning for the crew but planning for the mission duration once they’re onboard. I’ve been here for almost 14 years, and just a few years ago, I transferred to the crew office where I started planning for the crew prior to launch. So, definitely consideration of all different types of milestones and requirements that we put together in order to make a mission successful before and after. I’d say a lot of experience also comes from being a mom, being able to multitask and manage every day and understand what people need personally and professionally, in order to get things accomplished really helps us out in our job.
Host: Very, very important. Now, we’re getting some hints of what you, what you all do. We talked about a project manager for someone’s life. Alicia, you talked about negotiations. Both of you talked about planning. And then, you also talked about missions. So, Crystal, I’m going to go back to you to help me understand just, just what is the role of an increment training integrator?
Crystal Larsen: So, our job is basically to have an astronaut ready to launch, means they have to be completely trained, certified, ready to go. We start that one to two years prior to their launch date, once they get assigned. And we are responsible for building and scheduling their whole training program. That includes international trips, requirements, we schedule classes, evaluations, simulations, language training, everything you can think of, medical preparations, anything that the crew is going to have to do. We gather all these inputs from all the different locations, and then the first thing we do is we meet with our international counterparts to develop a template, which is basically like a weekly calendar, so we know how many weeks the crew members are going to need to train here and in other countries. And then from there we start refining those details. So, whenever the astronauts are training here in the U.S., we start putting together a plan, daily, of all of their activities that they’re going to have to complete. It is something that is an integration of lots of different inputs. It gets very dynamic when you add personal constraints, facility constraints, we’re limited to how many astronauts can be training in a specific facility, at a certain time. We have off-nominal scenarios where something might get canceled or moved and it has a ripple effect on the upcoming weeks because it might be a prerequisite to all the next classes. We have different requirements for maybe a whole crew to do a certain class together, and then another class only one crew member needs it. So it’s kind of a giant game of Tetris all day, every day. And we build a plan for the crew members for every day that they’re in training to make sure that they are successfully qualified to launch when it comes time.
Host: OK, so I’m thinking about scope here based on what you said, Crystal. So, Alicia, what I’m hearing is there is, your focus really, right, you get assigned, it sounds like you might get assigned a mission. So, a group of astronauts from multiple countries are assigned a mission. I guess it’s your job to manage that particular group of astronauts, and then you get assigned by that group. So, so, what does that include? Does that include all of the astronauts in that group? How many groups do you have like at a time? I’m trying to think about the scope of your work here.
Alicia Robinson: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, it’s changed over time, because I too started many years ago. My very first flight was Expedition 7. And at that time, we only had the three Soyuz crew members. And yes, one ITI manages the full complement of the crew on that vehicle. Right? So, and then on shuttle, we managed seven people, because that’s how many people you had on that vehicle. Right now, we’re managing between three to seven people because you may have a group that’s on the Soyuz that you’re managing, as well as the group that’s flying on the commercial vehicle, which is four crew members. So you’ll have NASA astronauts, you’ll have whatever partner agency is on there. For example, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) or ESA (European Space Agency), or a cosmonaut from Russia. Soj you do manage the entire vehicle, whoever’s on the vehicle. And because it can expand one or two increments, depending upon the length of stay, that’s how you could end up with maybe having a Soyuz vehicle on top of a Commercial Crew vehicle complement.
Host: I got it. You’re talking about a period of time. And that can include multiple visiting vehicles going to the destination, which is the International Space Station.
Alicia Robinson: That is correct. Absolutely.
Host: Got it. So, Crystal, do you have some help, right? So, it sounds like you’re working with a lot of astronauts from across multiple countries all over the world. Do they have training integrators that you are doing some of these negotiations with, in terms of timing, so you get a little bit of help from the folks that are at the respective agencies?
Crystal Larsen: Absolutely. We have counterparts at all the different agencies that we meet with regularly in order to determine what requirements are going to be needed for that crew complement for each mission, what level they’re going to have to qualify their training to, and all the different partner centers, and so we coordinate to determine how much time is needed there, and then each international partner will actually manage the training at their center for that crew member. So, we work together to make sure that all the training gets accomplished here and at all the partner centers, in the appropriate time.
Host: Got it. So, again, I’m thinking about scope, right? So, it sounds like you’re specifically for astronauts, cosmonauts around the world that are assigned to a mission, right? But that doesn’t include everyone that’s in an astronaut corps. There are astronauts that have flown but are probably going to, assigned to do other duties. Then you have the astronaut candidates. What are the other, I’m trying to think about the whole role of, you know, who manages an astronaut’s time? So, we have you as the integrators, but what are some of the other roles in the astronaut office for managing the other astronaut’s times?
Crystal Larsen: So, we have counterparts that are in the crew operations branch, which actually take over the scheduling for the currently unassigned astronaut. So, that’s, for example, like you mentioned, astronauts who may have flown, but are not currently assigned or working on other job duties. And it also includes astronaut candidates when we have a new class that are going through their training. So, we have counterparts that work in that office up until a crew member is assigned, and then they’re kicked over back to the, our team, the increment integrators.
Host: I see. All right, Alicia, let’s get into it. Let’s just say you just got assigned a crew. An increment has been named, and the crew has been named, and you know who’s going to be flying, so you have to kick into gear and start, start organizing their schedule. What are some of the first things on your checklist to do?
Alicia Robinson: First thing you do is you look at the manifest schedule to see what operations they’ll be performing on orbit. So, you have to figure out, are they going to need EVA (extravehicular zctivity) training? Are they going to need robotics training? Identify who’s going to be prime for those tasks with a partner, modules of Columbus or JEM (Japanese Experiment Module), you have to determine who’s going to be the specialist, the leads on that. So, that’s when the international group gets together, and we all look at those pieces. Then we have a document called the MA/ITP, Multilateral Advanced Increment Training Plan, which is the basic document from all partner agencies that tells you what the requirements are for each system and for each module and task. So, that is the baseline. And then from there, we tailor it based on the astronaut or cosmonaut’s experience level to determine how much time is needed in any partner agency site, and then that’s how when Crystal mentioned the Tetris, the weekly calendar, that’s how we determine when they’re going to be in the U.S. to train, when they’re going to be in Russia to train, ESA, JAXA, CSA (Canadian Space Agency), depending on their tasking. So, that is basically ground zero, you start with that document and then you tailor and customize from there.
Host: I see. And it sounds like there’s this, a lot of the tailoring and customization that you’re talking about is, it sounds like a lot of it is related to experience. So, maybe if they have flown before, and especially with some of these recent missions that we’ve been seeing, have flown recently, right, so Mark Vande Hei, Kate Rubins, they’ve flown to the International Space Station very recently, so maybe they can cut down on certain things, because it’s really a refresher course for them.
Alicia Robinson: You’re absolutely right. So, yeah, we do have what’s called an experience flow for those type of people, but just like you said, if they’ve flown very recently, you can even tailor that a little bit shorter. And we have the full inexperience flow, like the amazing launch we just had, we had a rookie cosmonaut on there, well he would have, he would have taken the entire flow, because it was his first flight.
Host: That’s right. That’s referencing the Soyuz MS-18 that just launched. We’re recording this today, when it just launched and docked, with Mark Vande Hei onboard.
Alicia Robinson: Absolutely. And I want to give a shout out to Crystal, because that is her crew.
Host: Really? So, Crystal, you’re in the middle of all of it, huh?
Crystal Larsen: Yes. This was actually my first complete crew, yes.
Host: So, so, when you’re managing a crew schedule, do you manage everything on the ground and in orbit, or is really your job mostly getting them ready for flight?
Crystal Larsen: Our job is getting them ready for flight. We basically hand them over to the Mission Control Center once, once they launch, they start taking care of completing mission priorities and tasking on orbit.
Host: I see. OK, all right, so, so, Alicia, you were talking about different things that they might have to do on orbit, right? What do you find are some of the most common things that you have been putting into the training flows of all of the astronauts? See, when I think of it, I think about getting ready for station training, you know, making sure they know how to work the experiments, how they do maintenance, maybe some Neutral Buoyancy Lab. What do you think are the most common things you’ve got to fit into that schedule?
Alicia Robinson: Yeah. And it’s actually, now, and when I look back to when I started station, Expedition 7, it was very, very increment-specific, like, you know, you had to train so specifically to that increment. Now, we are kind of more baseline and we’re kind of more in maintenance because before we were building the station. So, now that we’re kind of in just like maintaining mode, they do a lot of maintenance training for the exterior of the station, which, as you mentioned, is the EVA training at the NBL, the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, and then they do have some robotic operations that they need to perform. So, those are two of the high-ticket items. Of course, experiments are a priority. So, they have their payload training for experiments, their baseline data collections, because they, themselves can be a part of an experiment. And then, of course, they have to know how all the systems work in all the modules. So they have to have all of their life support training, as well, and fire, depress[urization] in case of an emergency. So, those are the main things that we train. But there’s so many other things. And appearances even, actually, we have to make sure that they’re comfortable to do appearances, and education outreach. So, we take time to make sure that they have an opportunity to practice that on the ground as well.
Host: That’s right. And I know we request quite a number of those from our end, here in PAO (Public Affairs Office). Crystal, you mentioned, well, I heard at least a little earlier, the timeline was approximately maybe a year and a half to two years, which to me, I mean, if I were to just think about that training for two years, that sounds like a lot of time. But I don’t think folks may understand, what they might not understand is just everything you have to fit into that timeline. And we’re getting a sense of it now. Especially, what Alicia just said: not only all this training, but we’re talking about, you know, events, there’s some personal items, you know, what exactly is the, really the challenge of fitting everything into that one and a half to two years?
Crystal Larsen: It always seems to be a challenge to fit it in. It always seems like we’re short on weeks for one reason or another. I mean, you have to figure that for a year and a half to two years of training, these astronauts are not only going to need to be training every week to meet these objectives, they also need vacation time. They also need recovery time. They also need to not be overworked every single week. So, we have to keep them at a reasonable amount of work hours. We have to spread out their technical training. We have to make sure they’re getting physical training in there every week to stay healthy. We have to make sure they’re getting administrative time, so that they can take care of personal items, work items, anything that’s not directly related to their immediate training. So, while it’s a lot of technical stuff that goes into it, we still have to fit all the other pieces of life in there and make it work week after week for this entire duration. And then you always have something that comes up. I was talking with Alicia earlier: this year, COVID has been a real thing. I mean, that changes everything. It changes our traveling constraints, whether or not we can go to a partner center when we planned on it. If we can’t, then we have to try and figure out, how are we going to receive that training that was supposed to be required at that partner center? If we can’t do it now and we try to wait until later and hope that we can travel then, then how do we backfill that training time and make it effective, without losing a week of training time? So, it’s always tailored to what we need, and then when things come up, we’re losing time. So, it seems like you’re always trying to make up a little bit of time. And in the grand scheme of things, the idea of handing your life schedule over for a year and a half to two years sounds so intimidating, it’s really, still, sometimes not enough time.
Host: Wow.
Crystal Larsen: We’re always struggling to get it to work.
Host: Well, let’s narrow it down to a day. Crystal, this might be fresh on your mind because you just worked with this increment that just launched. So, do you have a day, maybe in the recent couple of weeks, that maybe stands out to you as this was an absolutely insane day, because the astronauts had to do this, and then they had to do this, and then they had to do this? Is there anyone that sticks out to you just immediately of this most recent increment?
Crystal Larsen: I have seen all sorts of things where I’m a little overwhelmed looking at the schedule for the crew. Obviously, we try to make everything as simple for them as possible. But you might have a day where they wake up early to go fly a T-38. And then afterwards, they have to run to one building on site, which is, of course, away from Ellington, so they need some travel time. And then they might have a class that’s off site at the NBL, so they have to travel over there, and then come back to the same facility that they were just at earlier for another training class because of all of our facility constraints and crew member constraints, we couldn’t get them back to back. After that, they might have to go get a medical exam, and then go to a physical training class, and then they have another one after that. And maybe we didn’t even get a chance to give them a lunch that day. Sometimes, the days just look completely overwhelming. And it can be back to back classes and events for them sometimes. It’s a very interesting dynamic to see what their days lay out like on a nominal basis.
Host: Yep. I remember I had just, I got a little bit of a sense of it, because we are part of that flow that you’re talking about, Crystal, right, so we get a little bit of studio time with them to record some products, make sure we’re sharing their story whenever they actually do go to the space station. I remember one astronaut, she was coming in and she was about to record something with us, but she was in workout attire, and she also had like a little vial of, I think it was either saliva or something, and she was taking samples for human research. And she was shaking the vial. She was like, “hey, where can I,” she was literally shaking the vial saying, “hey, where can I go change?” She had a bag of all kinds of medical equipment because she was taking all these samples for the spaceflight. And I was just like, wait, so you’re coming right from like a workout/research study to go right on camera? You know, this is, it was absolutely insane. And I got a little bit of a sense of that. I was like, oh, wow, I think this is, I think this is like every day for them, going back to back doing different things.
Crystal Larsen: It really is. It’s really impressive how they maintain such great attitudes, and they’re so willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish the goals. Sometimes you feel bad just saying, “I know you’re going to be in workout clothes. I’m going to try and give you five minutes to change.” And they’re such troopers about it.
Host: Yes, they really are. I do the same thing because I want to make sure they’re comfortable on camera, and so we put them in and we give them the water, we give them a seat. You say, “hey, you know, we’ve been recording for 45 minutes straight, and you’ve been talking nonstop. Do you want a sip of water? Do you want to sit down? Do you need to do a bathroom break?” They’re like, “nope, let’s keep going.” Like almost all of them, it’s actually astounding, they’re just superhuman beings.
Crystal Larsen: Absolutely.
Host: Alicia, I want to, I want to get a fuller perspective of everything they’re doing. So, we’re talking about, a lot of the examples that Crystal just gave, especially that one day where they’re driving around Houston really, they’re going from Ellington Field, they’re going to the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, they’re going back and forth from the, from the main center. What happens when you have an international aspect of that? Now, travel is getting a little bit more, a little bit more complicated. What happens when you have to start planning for these international trips?
Alicia Robinson: Oh, yeah. And with COVID, as Crystal stated, it has really been a challenge, because for a while there they couldn’t even travel internationally. And then we had to, when they were able to travel, we had to use charter or NASA, the NASA plane, or charter flights, to get them there, which added a myriad of constraints with COVID testing, pre- and post-flight testing, and now you’re very limited on what days they can actually travel. If we were to talk post-COVID or pre-COVID, when we build our weekly schedules of them having to travel to Russia or Japan or wherever they’re going, you give them what we call a travel prep day, or you try to, give them a day before they leave, or sometimes just the morning off, to actually pack. Because just like Crystal said, you’re running from building to building, you don’t even, they don’t even have time to pack and prepare. So, we’ve pre-negotiated these weeks with the international partners, typically at the beginning of their flight. And we adjust as we need to, but they really, kind of know, in a perfect world, where they’re going to be a year from now on, you know, a given week. They actually have all of that laid out for them. So, that is pre-negotiated, but you have to look at the international partners schedule for holidays that they may have in country. You want to avoid those times. You don’t send an astronaut to Japan during Golden Week, because no one’s working. And vice versa, you don’t want to send them here during Christmas week because no one’s working here, right? So, that’s where we have to sit down, and that’s where the international training implementation working group gets together, and we actually have telecons weekly, but we actually try to meet face to face pre-COVID on a quarterly basis, because it takes an entire week to just lay out the crew training template. So, that is how we get the international piece of it. And they bring their requirements. My Japanese counterpart will bring their requirements and say, “we need this crew member for this many weeks. These are the weeks we would like.” We look at it, we go, “oh, can’t do those weeks because they have a personal constraint on this side, or I have them in training on this side,” for example, a chamber run, which is extremely difficult to move because of all the pieces involved in getting someone into a chamber, so that’s where we do all those international negotiations, is through that working group.
Host: And so, now, we’re getting a little bit of insight into what you mean, Alicia, by negotiations. Really, what it sounds like is, everybody’s getting together from their respective countries. It sounds like even from, from within NASA, because everybody wants an astronaut’s time, and it’s up to you to negotiate, no, that person’s going to be busy then, or nope, there’s going to be a holiday at that time. So, when you say negotiation, that’s what you mean, right?
Alicia Robinson: Absolutely. Yep. It’s constant negotiations, trading here, trading there. Nope, I can’t put so and so in the pool because they have to be in the chamber that day because that’s the only day the chamber’s open, and I know you want them for this medical research and the blood draw has to happen, but they can’t have a blood draw that day because they’re underwater, so we need to find a different day for the blood draw. And it’s all of those, I don’t want to, well, horse trading, I guess you could call it —
Host: Sure, sure, yeah.
Alicia Robinson: — of their time. And so, it’s constant negotiations.
Host: Yeah. See, this is where that criminology background, Alicia, comes into perspective. It seems like that’s something you absolutely have to, a skill you have to have, sure, but also have to enjoy if you’re doing it that often.
Alicia Robinson: Oh, yes, because it’s every day, and it’s all day. And so, you have, you have to be very flexible, and you have to think ahead. You have to anticipate. Things happen, like Crystal had alluded to earlier. And then you have natural events. You have the ice apocalypse that we just had in February, where the center was pretty much closed. You have COVID, you have hurricanes, you have tsunamis, you have earthquakes, so you have things happening in other countries where, oh my gosh, we can’t send the crew there now because Japan just had an earthquake. Or a volcano erupts, I’ve had that happen, where I couldn’t send people to Russia because the flight path was over, you know, where that volcano had erupted a few years ago. And so, it was like, oh my gosh, now they can’t go to Russia, now what do we do. I didn’t have anything planned for them in the U.S. I better figure it out. [Laughter]
Host: Wow. See —
Alicia Robinson: You’re not going anywhere any time soon, so let’s figure out what you can do while you’re here.
Host: Yeah, you’re not making me envy the position, Alicia, at all, I mean, that just, like it sounds like Mother Nature can throw things at you. Random scheduling conflicts. I mean, it just seems like that is, that seems like that might be one of the most difficult parts of the job. Not just organizing everything but reacting to the unknown.
Alicia Robinson: Yes. And yeah, throwing a pandemic on top of it.
Host: Yeah.
Alicia Robinson: Boom.
Host: That’s right. Crystal, I’m thinking about, you know, all these things we’re talking about, right, so there’s just things that are just going to happen throughout a training flight. And we said, even that one and a half to two years can get pretty dense with all the activities that have to happen, but the reason that you have to have all of this training is because they have to be prepared for a spaceflight. There are critical milestones, right, that they have to meet before they are, we can call it certified or ready for that flight. So, when we’re thinking about all the training thing, all the things that they’re training for, what is it that is in the critical path of, they have to make sure they have this training and pass it before they can go on the flight, which is on this date?
Crystal Larsen: So, really, that’s kind of identified by what the requirements are for their increment. Based on what the requirements are for their increment, it’s determined what level they need to train to for each item. So, if they’re planning an EVA during that increment, a nominal planned EVA, then we know we have to have them certified to be able to go out the door safe in a suit, be able to do all the maintenance and perform the mission-specific task at hand. If we know that there’s going to be a specific Japanese payload that’s new and is going to need a lot of work and we need to train somebody to be able to operate and perform maintenance on that, then we identify all of these items that they have to be trained for. And it’s every single system and task and payload that’s anticipated during their planned mission. And so, going into this, we know what qualification they need to be trained to, if they’re a user or an operator or a specialist. And we need to know what the minimum is for the crew complement. If we have three cosmonauts, if we have one U.S. crew member on the flight, we need to know who’s responsible for emergency training; should something off-nominal arise while they’re onboard, and we really have to go through, the team as a whole goes through to identify what their qualification levels are, and we actually have a minimum for everything going through. There might be a couple items that you try and work to a higher qualification to, if the time is available, but you might have to, at minimum, be a specialist for emergency training so that you, as the U.S. crew member, can respond to any U.S. emergencies onboard, so that you can maintain safety for the crew. It’s really a dynamic matrix that’s very increment-specific. And we go through, and those are the minimum qualifications that they have to work on throughout the entire training process.
Host: So, so, we’ve been talking a lot about the astronauts and their schedule and managing their time. Now, let’s follow that path, Crystal, and go behind the scenes to see what you are doing. So, when it comes to project management of an increment, what are some of the things, some of the things that are on your agenda and your responsibilities, what kind of board meetings are you sitting in on, what kinds of tools are you using to manage these, who are you talking to, to make sure that they are certified for this, that, or the other thing? What does your, what does your behind the scenes role look like?
Crystal Larsen: Like we had mentioned earlier, we do work with our international partners who are also responsible for the training at their centers. Like Alicia mentioned, we meet with them once a week just about every week, to talk about crew templates and where they need to be and when. We also work with all of our systems leads for every mission. So, we have a lead for every system, and they’re identifying major tasks that need to be accomplished. They’re identifying the classes that need to be taken, but then, we also have our chief training officer who is kind of like our right hand. It’s the person we work the most with, and they are working with all of the instructors for the crew members. So, while we make all this plan happen, they take this plan and make sure that all the instructors are getting the astronauts as students everything that they need. So, we are having constant conversations with international partners, with instructors, with team leads, every time something needs to be moved or identified, there’s a different person you’re calling for. [Laughter] Everybody, everybody has really a special item that they work on. And you go to the person who holds all the information for that item in order to make sure that you’re meeting all of the requirements that are necessary.
Alicia Robinson: I’d like to throw in one here, if you don’t mind, Gary.
Host: Please, please, come in, yeah.
Alicia Robinson: We have to work with each other. The ITIs, we actually have to negotiate with each other, because I only have my crew member in town for two weeks, and I really need them in Building 9 but Crystal is hogging it up because she only has, she has to get her stuff in, and that is probably the most intricate part is that we say, “hey, can I jump in with you then? Can I put my guy or my girl in with you?” You know, we have to work so closely together. We are really, there’s five of us, and we are really, really close, have a very, very good, close working relationship. And actually, part of the getting ready process is sitting down, talking to the rest of the ITIs and going, “who has a run on this date or who has a prep and post on this date that I can jump in on?”
Host: So, it seems like even from the beginning, both of you have been in this role for quite some time, right? And so, there’s got to be some of those tips and tricks that you’ve learned throughout the years to know what’s important, you know, whenever something comes up, no, I need this, or all, you know, just being in that role for a long time, it sounds like you’ve, you’ve learned quite a bit. What are some of those, some of those big lessons that you, that you come into every day when you’re about to work on a schedule?
Alicia Robinson: Oh, gosh. The first thing I would say is that you just know that in the end it’s going to work out and they’re going to be on the rocket. So, you just like, have to take a pause. Even though it seems like you don’t have enough time, which we never do, but you sit down, and you just say, “let’s look at the efficiencies that we can make.” And that, one of the things is if a class allows for it, there are classes where you can only put one crew member in because it’s a phlebotomy class, you know, or something like that, a medical class or a personal BDC (baseline data collection) type event where you have to be just one person, but whenever there’s an opportunity to put more than one crew member in an event, that is the first thing we do is we sit down and we say, “how many people can we fit in there?” Now, COVID adds another twist to that, right? So, classes where we used to be able to say, “OK, we could put three, four people in there.” Now because of social distancing, mask guidelines, the comfortability that a crew member has—some crew members, you know, really want more space, you know, between them and other crew members and instructors and things of that nature—so, that, to me, is the biggest thing that we all, all of the ITIs do very well, is that we have to, we sit down, and we look for efficiencies right off the bat. How can we make this fit, because it has to, we have a launch date; and it all has to fit.
Host: So, taking that example, right, let’s go into COVID for a little bit, because I think, like you’ve mentioned, this throws a little bit of a challenge into everything. But here’s the thing, is just over the past year that we’ve had this pandemic, not only has that been a challenge, because you have restrictions on how many people can be in buildings, there’s got to be this safety, you know, safety measures of masks and social distancing, put into all of these things. You talked about international travel restrictions. But I think what’s really coming at me is, just recently, a lot of these crews have been assigned pretty late. So, when you’re talking about, or their mission changes a little bit late. So, when you’re talking about this one and a half to two years, right, that, that all of a sudden, it sounds like it may get condensed even, even shorter than that. So, now you have to find, what is the critical path to success, right, to, Alicia, as you said, make, it’s going to happen, but how do you get there with all these restrictions coming your way, and a super tight timeline to do it, how have you done it over the past year?
Alicia Robinson: Oh, gosh, yeah, that has been a challenge. And as Crystal mentioned, we do have the training team lead, which is the CTO, the chief training officer, and we usually, we go to them and say, OK, normally these are the minimum qualifications that we need for the increment, and based on the crew members’ experience. So, if you’re having all rookies on this flight, and now, they’re named late, or the mission has changed, you have to get the instructor team to look at it. So, you have the subject matter expert from each discipline that says, “OK, you know, even though they haven’t flown, I’ve seen this person, for example, in the pool, I know they’re really strong here, we can maybe take down the number of required NBL runs, let’s do an assessment on their robotic capability and see if we can maybe cut down some classes if they’re meeting a certain threshold on their captures.” So, you have to go to the subject matter experts, because we manage all the time, we own all the time internationally and domestically, but they own the content, right? So, we have to make sure that they are going to be able to say yes, I feel with strict confidence this crew is trained on fire, depress, ammonia leaks, and that’s how we have to compress the time. So, and, I mean, that’s where we start to go in order to compress the time. You have to go to the subject matter experts to get them to look at the crew members’ experience and what they have seen them do in the past, what they know about their skill level and their task level, in order to make reductions. We cannot just make blanket reductions just because they were named late. You have to do it on an individual basis, based on skill at task.
Host: So, Crystal, based on what Alicia is saying, it sounds like, you know, this experience thing, it sounds like that is a big consideration when it comes to fitting some time in for each of these activities into an astronaut schedule. Something I’ve learned just from my very minimal interactions with astronauts, and I’m curious to hear your perspective, because I feel like you guys are talking and working with astronauts all the time, that’s your job, but I also feel like every astronaut is different. Maybe just in terms of personality, maybe in terms of their needs and wants and of certain things. So, how do you fit that also into the schedule of the personality and the traits of an individual that is an astronaut?
Crystal Larsen: You definitely have to approach each individual and their unique preferences. That’s a huge consideration. I mean, they are the person we are working for, essentially. We need to serve them and get them qualified. So, they’re preferences play a big role in not only our working relationship together throughout this year, but also how we impact their schedule, which impacts their personal life for this entire time training, leading up to spaceflight, which is a big deal for personal, family reasons, all kinds of stuff like that. So, you have some astronauts who will come in and say, you know, “I’m giving you complete authority, I have no constraints, just do whatever you can, and I’m happy with it.” And it makes it really easy. And then you have some people who may have constraints, that doesn’t necessarily make it hard, it just means that we have to work around them because it works better for them and makes them happier, makes us happier. Everybody is unique in their preferences and we work to accommodate all of those as best as we can. Some people really like to stay on top of their training programs and know what’s coming. Some people, you know, a great example, I just had Mark Vande Hei, he’s done it before, and like you mentioned, very recently. So, he was just happy to be training again. “Give me anything. I’m not so worried about what’s coming up. I’ll handle it when it comes.” And just gracious for all of the opportunities. Everybody has something that works differently for them. And I think about it in terms of we’re the same way, you know, I don’t know if I could give control of my calendar up to somebody else the way that they do. I don’t know that I’d personally be able to handle it. While they may have small preferences in there, ultimately the goal is just to be qualified and prepared and ready to fly.
Host: So, this might be something that is, we’re talking about how busy astronauts are, but this might help maybe put it into perspective just a little bit more is, you know, you’re talking about, you’re talking about managing an astronaut’s schedule, and everything they are being asked to do. And even, even some personal items, which I actually do have questions about, but before I get to that, I wanted to ask about just when you’re thinking about an astronaut’s schedule versus, let’s just say, your typical 9 to 5: you get in, you’ve got an hour lunch, you go home, you make dinner, spend time with your family, you go to bed. What is different when, for an astronaut versus that 9 to 5?
Alicia Robinson: It’s not 9 to 5. [Laughter]
Host: There, bingo, right?
Crystal Larsen: Exactly. I mean, we have nominal working hours that we try and schedule them within those hours. However, you might need to fit a T-38 flight in a day with other training classes. So, you may have to start much earlier. Part of the currency requirements for flying are that you have to do night flights. So, we might have to do something like that. You might have a simulation with either an IP (international partner)[astronaut] or somebody in a different state across the country that has a different time zone and we have to adjust things like that. COVID, again, brought another constraint when we weren’t able to travel, we did try and do some training remotely. So, then what we had to do was we had to adjust the crew here in Houston onto a schedule for, that matched the Japanese training leave in Japan. So, that way everybody was able to coordinate distance training appropriately. Their schedules vary greatly. It is not as highly dependable as just us coming into work and getting our job done in a normal 9 to 5. We try our best to accommodate that, because we know it’s important that they have all of their things outside of work, but it’s, the requirements themselves drive lots of variation on that.
Host: And that’s where that personal stuff comes in. So, Alicia, now, it sounds like part of the reason that you guys are dealing with that, you know, some of their personal stuff is because their schedules are so tight, and it sounds like even erratic, right? You made the joke that it’s not 9 to 5, it’s outside, you’ve got to accommodate based on whatever that training flow is. So, what are those, what are those typical, maybe more common, personal items that you guys are working to fit into their training flow?
Alicia Robinson: Well, one that stands out to me…things as simple as you taking, you know, for granted is a haircut.
Host: Hmm.
Alicia Robinson: I actually have to, we actually have to schedule time for them to get their haircut. And one of the things that I had to do for a flight was I had a crew member who was flying, and they’re OK with me saying their names because they say it all the time, but when I had Samantha Cristoforetti on a previous flight, she wanted to make sure one of her crew members could cut her hair appropriately. So, I had to actually send Terry Virts and Samantha to the hairdresser, and I had to coordinate with the hairdresser and make sure I could fit it in, you know, kind of after hours, because they were busy all day, to make sure that he learned how to cut her hair. So, that, that was, you know, just one of the things. But other typical things you have to schedule around is sometimes, you have a crew member who’s expecting a baby. You like to try to schedule around the delivery. You have crew members whose kids are getting married, or a crew member themself that’s getting married. And you think that that’s not common, but it’s common and it happens all the time. They want to be a part of their son or daughter’s baseball game, basketball game, they want to at least see one. They want to be there. They have kids graduating from high school or college, they want to be there for that. So these are things that you try to schedule around. And one of the things is because we work so far in the future, like Crystal has mentioned, you know, a year and a half, two years in advance, nothing gets done until we put it on the schedule or on a template to show what country they’re in. So, by the time an event shows up on a crew member’s schedule for, you know, today, that thing was planned so long ago. You know what I’m saying?
Host: Yeah.
Alicia Robinson: So, it’s just, yeah, it’s like, you know, people are like, “oh, but can you just move that?” Oh, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no, we cannot just move that. We had to fly in people from Huntsville to teach that class. We had to make sure this was available, that was available. Oh, we can’t just move that class. [Laughter]
Host: And here I am on a Friday thinking about, huh, I don’t know what I’m going to do this weekend, right? And then the astronauts, they already know what they’re going to be doing for the next, you know, 17 weekends, whatever it is.
Alicia Robinson: That’s absolutely right. Until the ice-pocalypse, or, you know, a pandemic shows up.
Host: Until, yeah, that’s right, until something completely unexpected happens. Wow. You know, I think, so what I’m getting from both of you is, you both have been doing this a really long time. And just some of the stories you’re telling is just making me think, man, there’s got to be a lot of anxiety in this job, right, because things pop up, and you just have to deal with it, but from what I’m getting from both of you is, you both seem just very happy. You know? It seems like there’s a good comradery, maybe with the ITI team, maybe with the astronauts as well. What’s it like, your culture, just working with the astronauts? Crystal, I’ll go over to you first.
Crystal Larsen: I think it’s easy for us to all remember every day that we’re blessed to be able to do this job. We’re blessed to be working in this position where we get to work with the astronauts. We get to be a part of such an integral part of spaceflight. We get to watch it all firsthand. There’s such an emotional attachment, maybe not even to the astronauts that we’re assigned to, but I might be attached to Alicia’s crew members and any of my other crew members that I just see in the hall every day when it’s their time to launch. You’re very emotionally attached to the mission and the job and it’s very special, a very special thing to be a part of. And I think none of us lose that, even when it gets busy and overwhelming. The job is all about being prepared to handle all the things that don’t go according to plan, which is ironic considering we plan for a living. You know, you know it’s not going to go according to plan always, and it’s just, you do the next right thing, you make it work. I think having great team members and such an amazing group of people as a whole in the crew office is really kind of what keeps our spirits up all the time.
Host: Alicia, you, well, you both actually have mentioned how long you’ve been in this position; you’ve been doing this for a number of years, and you’ve seen several programs throughout it, right? So, we’re talking shuttle and then it’s mostly Soyuz, now we’re getting commercial crew into the mix. What have you seen in terms of the evolution of your own role and how it’s changed with just being maybe more NASA-focused, to bringing a more international and maintenance schedule into it, to now working with commercial companies?
Alicia Robinson: I’m so glad you actually mentioned that because I was sitting here thinking, as Crystal was talking, that the astronaut corps, they are, they’re amazing people, right? They’re the best of the best. And I get to work with them, you know, daily. You get to know them on a personal level. You get to know their families. And by knowing their families and just being so connected to them, you feel a personal sense of responsibility, not only for the mission, but for their personal happiness and growth, right? And so, now you throw in these international astronauts, you know? I’m so honored that I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with cosmonauts, you know, for so many years, you know, something I never thought growing up that I would travel to Russia, and, you know, just walk around Red Square, you know, how amazing is that. And when I look at the state of the world and the, you know, some of the challenges we have, I look at the International Space Station as just this wonderful piece of unity in a kind of chaotic world, right? And I worked the shuttle program, I had three shuttle flights. And then, but mainly been an ISS worker. And just seeing all of that, and it just brings, for me, this sense of great pride. And the other ladies that I work with, the other three ITIs, are amazing. And we’ve worked together for many years. And we know each other so well that we can almost finish each other’s sentences. Same with the international partners that we work with. This team, you know, I’ve worked with my Russian counterpart for probably 18 years, you know, I’ve been to their homes. They’ve been to our homes, you know? It’s just this wonderful feeling of having this comradery. And then now with the commercial partners, you know, it’s another sense of pride for me, you know, being here in the U.S., seeing our crew members and the partners launching from the U.S. again. So, that is just one of the things that I just love about the evolution of spaceflight. And then we’re going to be going back to the Moon and onto Mars. I mean, it’s just something that, with all of the challenges we have, I wouldn’t trade it for anything because I’m not going to get this in any other, I’m not going to get this sense of accomplishment and this sense of pride anywhere else.
Host: I love the sense of passion, Alicia. And building off of that, Crystal, you know, just, exactly what Alicia just said, just seeing this progression and just being embedded in NASA culture and in international suite of all of these talented people that help to make the mission possible, thinking about those next steps, Alicia mentioned Artemis, right, so we went all through to working with commercial crew today, that next step is you guys are going to be helping out the astronauts train for putting the footprints of the first woman, next man, on the Moon. That’s going to be your job is making sure that they are ready for that mission. What do you think about whenever you think that, man, this is, this is coming up soon?
Crystal Larsen: It’s really one of those things that kind of gives you goosebumps. It’s surreal at the same time; it’s very exciting. We don’t know what all that’s going to entail yet for our job. It’s a little too soon for that all to be defined for us. But it is something that we are so looking forward to. Again, the sense of pride, even though this isn’t something we’re putting into action yet, we’re all just beaming with excitement waiting for this to happen.
Host: Well, I’ve very much enjoyed this conversation with both of you today. I think, not only did I learn so much about what you, what you do, I really didn’t fully understand what it takes to organize an astronaut’s schedule, but I think, I think one of the best takeaways, for me at least, was hearing both of you and how passionate you are about this job. So, Alicia and Crystal, thank you both for coming on Houston We Have a Podcast today. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Alicia Robinson: Oh, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much. This, it’s just a wonderful opportunity. And this is one of those great things with technology. We get to do this and we get to, you know, hopefully inspire some other people to come up in the ranks and say, “hey, I want to work at NASA, but I don’t, I didn’t know that there was a position for me if I wasn’t an engineer,” so I hope it inspires someone today.
Crystal Larsen: Absolutely. It was a pleasure to be here.
Host: Thanks to you both. Take care.
[ Music]
Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around. I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Alicia Robinson and Crystal Larsen. I definitely enjoyed it, learned a lot, and I hope you felt the passion from the work that they do as much as I did. You can check out more of our podcasts at NASA.gov/podcast. There’s a couple other podcasts across all of NASA that you can check out and subscribe to from that page. We, Houston We Have a Podcast, are on social media on the NASA Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you want to talk to us, use the hashtag #AskNASA on your favorite platform. There, you can submit an idea, make a comment, just talk to us, and just make sure to mention it’s for us at Houston We Have a Podcast. This episode was recorded on April 9th, 2021. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Pat Ryan, Norah Moran, Belinda Pulido, and Jennifer Hernandez. Thanks again to Alicia Robinson and Crystal Larsen for taking the time to come on the podcast. Give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you’re listening to us on and tell us what you think of the show. We’ll be back next week.