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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 222, Mandy Cady previews the latest science aboard the International Space Station and describes her role in coordinating hundreds of investigations performed in orbit. This episode was recorded on October 4, 2021.
Transcript
Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast! Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 222, “Station Science 2021.” I’m Gary Jordan, and I’ll be your host today. On this podcast we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers and astronauts, all to let you know what’s going on in the world of human spaceflight. Active listeners of this podcast know that the space station has a lot of research going on, more than 3,000 experiments over more than 20 years of human presence. When we, when we measure and plan all of these activities, we do so in a period called an increment. Essentially, this is a stretch of time between crew handovers or when one crew replaces another. They’re typically about six months. And in that six months, there are about 250 experiments that can occur, sometimes more. That takes a lot of planning and coordination. And with years of experience, NASA has this down to a science, pun intended. So we’re going to take a look at the current increment, increment 66, to talk about some of the great science on board now and some more coming up that we can expect. And we’re going to learn what it takes to coordinate all of that and cram it into a million other things happening on board at the same time. This behemoth of a task is assigned to Mandy Cady, the research lead for increment 66. And we got a chance to sit down with her and learn about how all of this works. So, let’s get right into it. Enjoy.
[ Music]
Host: Mandy Cady, thank you so much for coming on Houston We Have a Podcast today.
Mandy Cady: Howdy and hello.
Host:[Laughter] Hey, I’m very interested, not only to learn about the interesting science coming up here, now that we have, I guess at this point, the time that we’re going to release this episode, we have a new crew on board, but I want to explore just what it takes to organize that as well. And also, what it takes as the person who’s organizing it. So Mandy, why don’t we start a little bit about you and your previous roles at NASA. What, what helped you to become what we will get into here in a second, which is an increment lead. Tell me about your previous experience.
Mandy Cady: So, I have been in and around ISS in research for a little over a decade. I’ve kind of bounced around behind the scenes doing, actually writing the requirements of here’s what, here’s the box that you have to fit in order to get up on to ISS and make sure everything works and follow all the rules, to making sure people are, you know, making sure that people are keeping those requirements and verifying them, all the way to actually to being on the payload developer side, which is the person that’s bringing in the science and creating the experiments and putting those into orbit. So this new position that I’m currently in, the increment research lead, is a little bit more on the internal NASA side, and it’s working with those experiments and making sure they get on to ISS and are successful and perform their science.
Host: So is it a lot more like, it sounds like project planning or organizing; it sounds more of that, maybe, so then less than the hardware development or, or the science aspect. Is that sort of a true readback?
Mandy Cady: So it’s more on the science aspect.
Host: OK, OK.
Mandy Cady: I agree it’s definitely more planning than it is actually putting hands on hardware and building things. I save that for the engineers, who are much better at it than I am. I’m more that kind of detail-oriented person that says, hey, I have a black box that I need to send up, and it needs to be exposed for X number of days, and then I need someone to tweak this and tweak that. I have to make sure that, that gets done correctly into the originator’s…specifics, basically.
Host: OK, I understand. Is this your first go around in this role, or have you done this for a previous increment?
Mandy Cady: No, this is actually my first increment. I’m pretty excited about it.
Host: [Laughter] All right. Cool. Well let’s, what we’re saying here is the word increment, and I feel like at least, at least for me, that’s more like internal NASA-speak whenever we’re doing some of this planning work to make sure all of this great science gets executed. So, if someone were to come to you off the street and say, hey Mandy, what’s an increment, what exactly does that mean when it comes to space station Expedition or planning? How do you respond?
Mandy Cady: So, agree that total NASA-speak, so cautious there, because I’m sure I’ll get into that speak here and there. So, if someone were to just ask me, like, what’s an increment, it’s about a six-month period. Essentially, they coincide with a Soyuz docking, so for my specific increment, I have a Soyuz that docks on ISS, 66S, on October 18th, and then it leaves ISS, or undocks, on March 30th of 2022. So while that Soyuz is up there, there are other vehicles that are coming in, other science, other people, that are going on during that six-month timeframe. And so, I’m in charge of making sure all the science gets done and then working any issues that may or may not happen during that time.
Host: OK, I understand. So, your, your focus, it’s a measure of a period of time; an increment is a measure of a period of time. You have a pretty good understanding of who’s going to be on board at that time. But your focus is really, in that period of time, here are my priorities when it comes to the scientific investigations that, that we’re going to execute in that time.
Mandy Cady: Correct. Now I do know the crew members and the different spaceflight participants, all of the people that are going to be up on ISS during that time. Because sometimes we have investigations that are specific to a person. We do a lot of human research, and so we do have to be very cautious in knowing who’s on board, when, where, and their different constraints and protocols.
Host: Understand. OK, so who are we looking at for, for this increment? So we could talk about it now, especially because we’re recording it so we’ll talk about in real time, understanding that when this comes out, I think we’ll have, I think we’ll have Crew-3 on board by the time that this comes out. So who are going to be the lucky people that are going to get to do the experiments that you’re managing?
Mandy Cady: So, during my full six-month timeframe, I’ll have about 17 crew members. So that’s USOS (United States Operational Segment), that’s international partners, that’s spaceflight participants, so those are, by spaceflight participants I mean the visitors, people that have paid to come onto ISS for a specific reason and then return back. During that mission we also have what’s referred to as the PAM mission, which is the Private Astronaut Mission that Axiom is working. And so that’s an additional four people that will be on board in early 2022. So that’s about 21 people in a span of six months that we’ve got to, that are going to be doing different investigations, sleeping, eating and everything else that’s involved with living and working on the International Space Station.
Host: So not bad for your first go around as an increment lead, huh? It sounds like a heck of a —
Mandy Cady: It’s a little busy.
Host: [laughter] Well that’s good. And, you know, one of the things that you’re getting thrown into now is, this is definitely a unique case because we have Commercial Crew missions, which I want to focus on here in a second, but now we’re also starting to work on these private astronaut missions, so that’s a whole other thing. Let’s focus on Commercial Crew for a second. This is, this is a little bit unique because with the addition of Commercial Crew, now there are more seats on a vehicle, which means more people on board. And so, for you, how does that affect your work, understanding that now you have more bodies on board to execute the science, how does that fit into your planning?
Mandy Cady: So it’s definitely good. The more commercial vehicles that we can have up there, the better. So we’re no longer dependent on Soyuz vehicles in general, which one, from what I’m told are very expensive, and two, they have a limited capacity. So being able to have these commercial vehicles we have bigger capabilities, so that’s things like, hey, maybe I can bring bigger items up there, bigger satellites, I can bring more items, I can bring items that have a little bit different protocol such as, like, hey, I want to bring up some cell biology, and it has to be kept cold for X number of time before you get it on ISS. So, increasing those capabilities just opens up a whole world of possibilities for the different research that we can bring in and then execute on ISS.
Host: OK. Yeah, I want to investigate that, too, for a second. We’ll talk about, let’s dive into the planning aspects of all of the different pieces that have to come together for you to, for you to do your job. I definitely want to talk about the science constraints, but before we do, let’s talk about the flow. Let’s talk about the flow of how, how you get the information and how it gets fit into your planning. So, so on the, I guess, you can help guide me because you’re the one that’s obviously planning this, but how, how does the research first come in that says, I am an investigator, I want to do a scientific experiment on station, approximately, do they say approximately this time? So how is that, where’s the entrance for, for this research coming in?
Mandy Cady: So there’s different avenues.
Host: OK.
Mandy Cady: So let me start with the little bit harder aspect. So if you are a researcher that has a relationship with NASA, you can talk to your NASA counterparts and have paperwork, documentation, contracts, strict with NASA, that says here’s what I want to do and go forth and thou shalt do it. The other way, the way that the most people come in, since they may not have those established, established counterparts, established relationships, is they go through the ISS National Lab. So, a perfect example: so I used to be a payload developer, and what would happen is ISS National Lab would send out a RFP, a Request for Proposal. They’d say, hey, the International Space Station wants to do research on cellular biology; something to do with cancer research. Send in all your ideas, we’ll slim it down and decide who gets it. So, if I was a researcher, I would say, hey, I’ve got this great idea, I’m going to write up the proposal, and I’m going to send it in. OK, so I get through all the wickets. ISS National Lab decides, hey, this is an awesome idea, this is what we want to do. Now we’re going to give you options of different implementation partners. So, these are the Space Tangos, the BioServes, the different payload developers that we often hear internally with NASA that are building experiments. So once ISS National Lab chooses me, quote/unquote, they like my proposal, they give me the option of talking to these different guys and essentially contracting out my idea to them and saying, here’s what I want to do, how do you propose to do it? And I get to choose who I want to work with. And then that kicks off the, the process of actually developing the hardware, making that idea that I had originally in paper come to life and then integrating it over to NASA. So once I choose that payload developer, then I work with ISS National Lab and then they get it through the NASA wickets, I like to say, so the documentation and initial approvals, to actually start working alongside that implementation partner and getting my research up to ISS.
Host: So is it after, that’s a lot, I like this ISS National Lab example. So, after all of that approval happens and they say, all right, this is, this is good, we have an implementation partner, we know who’s going to be actually executing it, doing all these checks and everything, where do you come in to say, OK, this is, or maybe there’s a couple more steps that we’re missing here, where you come in and say, OK, let me see what I could do to fit it into the increment 66 schedule?
Mandy Cady: OK, so I come in once ISS National Lab has, has chosen, chosen who they want to work with, the person who has written the proposal has chosen an implementation partner, and that implementation partner has told ISS National Lab, hey, we are at a point where we’re putting hardware together, and we have a schedule, and we know we’re going to fit in increment 66, and this is what we want to do: are you good with it, ISS National Lab? And ISS National Lab looks, you know, kind of at their long-range plan and their different capabilities and they say, OK, yeah, we got a spot for you right here; go ahead, we’re going to sign you off to be in increment 66. Go start putting all your paperwork in. Then that’s when I get involved in really digging into the details of, OK, so you have this experiment, you are going to give it over to NASA in order to launch on this date, you want it to go on this vehicle, and here are the different kind of protocols and constraints that you have with this experiment in order to get it done. Can I do it? Does this work? And let’s kind of make sure I understand exactly what this principal investigator wants for their experiment, so I can make sure it gets done to their satisfaction and to make sure we optimize that science on the International Space Station.
Host: OK, now I’m sure all of these different researchers have their own, let’s see, their own nit-picky things that they want. Maybe that’s the wrong term to say, but essentially, you know, some of the investigations can run on their own, some of the investigations require oversights, some of the investigations require astronaut time. So, so how is that part of your process to say, you know, let’s fit this on to an, like all of the different pieces that have to be, what I’m asking you for really is all of the pieces that have to be considered to, for supporting on orbit.
Mandy Cady: So luckily for me, a lot of that, a lot of those kinks, so to speak, have already been worked out by the time it gets to me. But I do help with some of that. For example, an investigation might come through that needs what’s called the MSG, the Microgravity Science Glovebox. So basically, it’s just an enclosure that you put an experiment in and then the astronaut uses the box to protect themselves, and they have gloves that they go inside the box, and they can work and experiment. It might be an experiment that they’re worried about something leaking or possibly an off-gas or, just some type of thing just to keep the crew safe. So that MSG, that Microgravity Science Glovebox, is, there’s not a lot of them on orbit, there’s only one, and we have to make sure that we’re watching that facility throughput, and not every experiment can use that MSG. So, if I get an experiment that comes in and says hey, I need use of this facility, then I have to step back and say, OK, well I’ve got four other experiments in the queue. What are your constraints: do you have to be down at a certain time, do you have to come back on a certain flight, do you have, do you have to be in there for a long time, do you only need a short amount of time, can you work autonomously, just like you mentioned, do you have to have a crew member there, do you not? So, I have to look at all that and make sure it fits. And if I see an issue like, oh well, hey, you have to be in this facility for, you know, three months, that’s a problem because I have all these other items that are in queue, then I have to raise the flag and say hey, is this a need, is this a want? This is kind of where the little, the niches that the principal investigators want, and I have to dig in and say is this a need, is this a want, or is this a desire? So, what’s pertinent to the science to make sure that I’m optimizing that science but not going overboard, so to speak. And so, that’s kind of where I come in to make sure everything stacks up correctly, almost kind of like, I will give Rachel [Barry] really good props on this one, she gave me a good example. A good way to word it would be like thinking about a Thanksgiving dinner. You’ve got multiple dishes; some are hot, some are cold, not all of them can go in the oven at the same time; you’ve got people coming and bringing stuff. You have to take all of that into account for the full meal to make sure everything gets to where it needs to go, so to speak. I think that’s a little bit better example than throwing all the NASA-speak in there. Does that work?
Host: Oh, that’s, that’s perfect. I have made Thanksgiving dinner myself, and it is an excruciating nightmare, but it is beautiful when it all comes together, right? It’s, you got to make sure what has to stay hot and what can sit out and stay cold, you know, all that kind of consideration.
Mandy Cady: Exactly.
Host: What a wonderful example.
Mandy Cady: It’s a big symphony of a lot of different, you know, a lot of different aspects, you know? You want to make sure the turkey’s right but not dried out. You know, you want to make sure you don’t set the house on fire with the, you know, the deep frying the turkey outside. I mean, you just have a bunch of different aspects. And that’s really where my team and I come together to make sure those are all documented correctly, and they’re executed properly. Because you and I both know, you get to that Thanksgiving dinner and, hey, you had an uncle that came in that’s allergic to sweet potatoes, and now you have to redo a meal or pull out something different. There’s always little tweaks that you have to do here and there just to make sure it all comes together in the end.
Host: Well that’s a really good topic to jump into next is, is replanning. I mean, you, it sounds like you have a lot of work up front to make sure that when you get to the increment you have all the data that you need, and you are ready to go. The teams are ready to support and all of the above. But you know, there’s always that uncle that comes and, you know, might not have reported correctly that he was allergic to sweet potatoes, and you just, you have to do what you can to accommodate that. So, when it comes to replanning, how does that work for you?
Mandy Cady: So that’s when my team comes into the real time. So that’s, I guess I didn’t really explain that very well in the beginning. So yes, we have all that preplanning before our increment starts. When our increment starts, then we go into what’s called real time. And so, that’s when we’re sitting on console, we’re listening to the crew and what they’re doing. We’re constantly looking at the schedule to make sure that our items are getting scheduled and performed correctly. And there are time when things, you know, happen unexpectedly. There are times when, oh, well we had a power failure, and so this facility went down. Or, hey, the crew grabbed the wrong sample, or we put it in the wrong spot. Like, things happen; we’re all human, we all understand that. And so, then there’s a little bit of replanning. You know, we get a call down that says, hey, we had an issue, here’s what we decided to do in the moment, or hey, can we go talk to the principal investigator? Which, oh, for most of our experiments we will have someone on call that is listening while the experiment is going on that can say, hey, I’m not seeing this thing that you put in the instructions. What do you want me to do? And so, sometimes we can correct it then. Other times, we have to troubleshoot or come back and replan things. And so, we’re in constant communication with not only the principal investigators and the implementation partners, but also the supporting NASA teams that are the experts in whatever system that we’re working in. So that’s kind of how, when we move into the real time planning, that’s what we’re working on a daily, if not, well yeah, it is a daily basis.
Host:[Laughter] That’s, I do want to get into the execution part of things, absolutely, because that sounds like a big part of your role. Just a couple more things on the planning phase that I was curious about before we jump over there.
Mandy Cady: Of course.
Host: Because it sounds, it sounds like when your, your job really is to, I mean, and correct me if I’m wrong, you’re trying to make everybody happy. You’re trying to make the researchers happy and make sure that they’re getting everything that they’re requesting, but you also want to consider the flight control teams, you want to consider the astronauts and their time, the facility and hardware owners. It sounds like you got to make everybody happy. Is that a fair readback?
Mandy Cady: I think that is totally fair. My, my two top priorities, and any NASA person will let you know, top priorities are the safety of the crew, safety of the vehicle. Those are always going to be our top priorities. After that for me it is making sure the science gets done and is done, is optimized. So, we want to make sure there’s no loss of science, and then making sure everybody else is happy is kind of the auxiliary priority, so to speak. So yes, I think that’s fair.
Host: I know that, that struggle of trying to make everybody happy. But there’s got to be some, some fun parts to it, too. I mean you’re working with a lot of cool people, especially the researchers. I mean they have, I can only imagine the level of excitement that they, that they have when they’re talking about getting their research up in space. That’s got to be so cool. Do you ever get some time to talk to them or to travel over to their lab and get to look at the investigation, make sure it’s going to fit the needs on orbit or anything like that? Do you get to, you know, travel around, meet cool people, that sort of thing?
Mandy Cady: So, when we are not in a pandemic-type situation, we were definitely meeting with our international partners during the planning phase and meeting them face to face, which, you know, unfortunately we weren’t able to do that this year. But we are looking forward to once we’re out of this pandemic situation that we will be able to meet face to face. We are, you know, talking to them on a daily if not weekly basis to make sure all of our items get planned and scheduled correctly. As far as, like, the principal investigators, we do get feedback from them as well as some of their NASA counterparts, which I’m also constantly talking to. But really as far as the principal investigators and the people that are designing the hardware, I got to see a lot more of that when I was on the payload developer side of things. So, like that implantation partner that I was talking about earlier, and that time I was actually like hands on hardware, meeting with the actual scientists that were developing these experiments. And so I saw more of it then than I do now. But luckily, I still have those contacts and can still reach out to them or, you know, talk to them via email on an as-needed basis.
Host: I understand. OK. Very cool though. I mean hopefully we’ll get to that soon because there’s, you know, I think that’s just a cool part of the job that we get to do is just talk to so many really cool people.
Mandy Cady: Agreed.
Host: Yeah. Let’s go to the execution then. I think you called it, you get to real time, maybe real time op[eration]s.
Mandy Cady: Yes.
Host: So, so what’s happening? OK, now you’ve done all the planning. You know, you talked about replanning a little bit. But what’s the period of time, I know this is your first time around but what are you expecting in particular for increment 66 on how you’re going to support as the lead?
Mandy Cady: So, I’m expecting some long hours. I’m expecting some weekend calls. But I say that with a smile on my face. I mean it sounds difficult, it sounds not fun, it sounds like a lot of work. But when you step back and realize that, I mean you’re listening to the crew members as they are doing this experiment; you’re watching video of these crew members performing these experiments that maybe a year ago, maybe more than that, that a principal investigator, a student at MIT, whoever it might be, had an idea and now you are literally watching these people bring it to fruition. Like, that’s amazing to think of. And you know, all the planning aside, all of the, you know, information gathering that we do, like, that, I think that’s a huge thing to take into account and sometimes gets a little lost in translation when you’re doing it on a daily basis. But that part of it I think is really cool. Realizing that I am at this point in time sitting at home, and I am listening to the crew members that are, you know, what, 250 miles above us working these experiments; another cool aspect. But very busy is what I expect. Very busy, lots of meetings and presentations to say here’s what we did on orbit this week, here’s what went right, here’s what, you know, we had a little bit of trouble with, and here’s how we’re going to make it work in the end.
Host: OK, so you’re really, you’re really just making sure everything is going smoothly. And it sounds like you’re maybe the point person that if something needs to change, whether it is a replan or whether it’s just some maybe issue that comes up, you’re the person that has to make sure that you’re working through it to make sure, safety of the crew, the safety of the station and that the science gets done. It sounds like, and that’s really where those long hours come in.
Mandy Cady: Correct, yeah, if, again, looking at those constraints.
Host: Right.
Mandy Cady: Looking at like, hey, something went wrong. Or, hey, we had a crew member that, you know, doesn’t feel well or doesn’t want to participate in this investigation anymore for whatever reason, how does that affect the science? Is there a loss of science? Can we do something different? How can we, what can we do in this situation? You’re the science expert, go. [Laughter]
Host: [Laughter] So, who, when you say your team, you’re talking about your team, who is the team that you’re working with, and where are they located, because I know it might not just be Johnson?
Mandy Cady: Oh, of course. So here at Johnson Space Center, so I am the IRL, the Increment Research Lead. And then below me I have what’s called an REI…RIE…RIE, sorry, I’m going to get it right here in a second. Research Increment Engineer. So, this is just, this is basically my second in command. This is someone who’s coming along and helping me with documentation and all the planning. So, they’re the person that is in and out of different databases and supporting me in meetings and feeding me data when things get, when things change. And just really my point person when someone comes to me and says, hey, we’ve decided that we might want to change this flight; how does that affect any of your investigations? OK, let me go look at everything, and let’s put a presentation together and explain my impacts. And just the, the weekly reporting that I have to do in order to keep all the different groups of NASA in sync with what’s going on in orbit and what’s happened, what’s not happened, so to speak. That’s my team here at JSC. Other teams that I work with include the international partners. So, there are IRL-like, I would say an IRL equivalent, essentially, at Japan, at Europe, in Canada, with ASI (Italian Space Agency), also in Russia, that we’re constantly in communication with. I’m working with Marshall [Space] Flight Center, so they have what’s called planners. So, these are the guys that I say here, here are all my experiments, go put them in a schedule and “Lego” it and “Tetris” it together and tell me what fits and what doesn’t fit. Which those guys are amazing; I could not do that, I would go blind within a couple of hours. But I have that group of team, or that team that I work with that are an awesome bunch of guys. I also have the actual increment team, which I’m part of. So, you have increment managers who sit, they’re the ones that actually sit in the MCC and are on the loops, and they are doing the — and by MCC I mean the Mission Control Center here in Houston; sorry, I’m getting into that NASA-speak that you talked about earlier. And so, they’re sitting on the comm[unication]s, they’re the ones that when someone does like a Flight Readiness Review, they actually will do a poll, and they’re the ones that get to say, hey, increment 66, we’re a go for flight. So that’s a really cool job. As well as, they look at the other aspects of the increment, because for me, I focus on the science; that is my role, my responsibility is the science. The utilization, so to speak, is what we call it at NASA. This bigger team, this increment team, they’re looking at the systems hardware, they’re looking at planning EVAs (extravehicular activity), they’re looking at everything else that has to get done in an increment that maybe science doesn’t care about or has nothing to do with that. So, so I’m just a small part of a much bigger increment.
Host: But that’s the beauty is that we’re focusing, that’s, that’s what I love about these, these podcast episodes, Mandy, is we get to zoom in on just this, on one aspect of it and really, and exactly what you’re saying where, imagine how much, what you just described is how much work and coordination across agencies around the world has to happen for this part, and then you ended it by saying but I’m just one small part. It’s really fascinating how much has to come together to, to make it all work.
Mandy Cady: Completely agree with you. When you step back and really look at the full picture, it’s, it is really amazing just what this program as a whole can accomplish. And we’re just talking the International Space Station. I mean, NASA’s got a ton of other programs going on that I’m not part of. So it, it really is amazing.
Host: Well, let’s, let’s focus on the amazing that is increment 66 by highlighting some of the great science that we can expect. Now you have a lot that you’re tracking. So, if you had to pull out just a couple of them to say well, I’m really excited about X, Y and Z, as well as everything else, right, to make sure it’s fair, but just a couple of key examples that, that we can look forward to for this upcoming increment.
Mandy Cady: So, oh gosh, yeah; so out of the couple hundred of investigations that will occur in increment 66.
Host:[Laughter] No small task. I’m sorry.
Mandy Cady: No, no, no. You’re good. You’re good. So there’s a couple that do stick out in my head. So one of them being an experiment called rHealth. So basically, it’s a small device; think of it…think about when you watch “Star Trek” or heck, even “Star Wars.” I’m not a Trekkie, so I’ll go with the “Star Wars” example.
Host: All right.
Mandy Cady: No offense, Trekkies. So, think about you’re, you’re in outer space, you know, you’re flying around in your Millennium Falcon, and there’s no doctor’s office. There’s no, you know, quick ER that you can jet around to if you think you might be coming down with something. rHealth is designed to be the small unit that looks at the properties of your cells, so you’ll give it like a little sample of your cells or your blood, I’m not exactly sure what the sample is, and it’s able to read the properties of your cells in that sample and tell you, hey, you’ve got the flu or hey your iron’s a little low, you need to work on that. And it’ll be able to give you those results in a short, in a short timeframe. So, you’re not having to send samples of to, you know, Quest Labs and then get them back in a couple weeks. You have a machine right there that reads your samples, says here’s your issue, go forth and fix it.
Host: So, it sounds like how I would imagine that would be super-valuable is precisely that: when you need that kind of data quickly, and particularly I’m thinking on missions to Mars, future missions to Mars, if you had to wait to, you know, download your results, downlink them to a, you know, to the ground that could be up to 20 minutes away and then wait for a response and then get, you know, that, and you need to find out what’s, you know, what’s happening in your body, you need that quick, and you need that sort of instantaneous feedback. And so, this sounds like a technology demonstration a little closer to home to get ready for those longer and farther flights.
Mandy Cady: Definitely. So not only is it to prepare for those long-duration missions, just like Mars, which are very, very important, but then also we can translate that back to the everyday Earthling who’s here on Earth that maybe, maybe they’re in a country where medical aid is not rapidly available to them. So wouldn’t it be great to test this technology out on ISS, not only use it to further us into the universe towards Mars, but also to benefit those Earthlings here that, you know, maybe just don’t have ready medical access? We can give them something like this and the ability to read it or maybe even videoconference a doctor and say, hey, these are my results. What do I do? So, there’s so many benefits.
Host: Yeah, yeah. And I love that. It’s the farther out, and it’s the closer to home. I didn’t mean to overlook that, but that’s a super important element. Let’s do one more if you can think of one more to highlight.
Mandy Cady: Of course.
Host: Yeah
Mandy Cady: So, another one, of course, since we’re living in the world of technology, so there’s another one called, we refer to it as FOP-2, which is Fiber Optic Production-2. So, fiber optic cables, you know, everyone wants fiber at their house; they want the quicker, faster internet. So, they’ve realized or, let me say they theorized, since this is the second iteration of this experiment, that you can build better fiber optic cabling in a microgravity environment. So, there’s less bubbles, there’s just a more perfect product that can be spooled and created in a microgravity environment, which would lead to a better product here on Earth. So better fiber optic cabling for everybody.
Host:[Laughter] Not bad, faster speeds, faster speeds for everyone. And it sounds like it’s the microgravity that’s really the interesting part here because it doesn’t matter where you produce it on the ground; it’s really the lack of gravity that helps it to, to be more perfect. So, continuing that investigation sounds like it’s, it has to be done on the space station.
Mandy Cady: Definitely, yeah. You have so, much, so many fewer defects when you’re in a microgravity environment than you would here on Earth. And you know, that’s going to lead to, you know, being able to transmit on a broader spectrum, that you don’t have to have as many signal boosters — I don’t know about you, but I’ve got so many signal boosters in my house it’s a little crazy, I’d love to not have so many.
Host: I feel you. I’m trying to get a mesh Wi-Fi because there’s little weird pockets here, you know, and just little things.
Mandy Cady: That’s so weird.
Host:[Laughter] I know. You know what, let’s see if we can squeeze in one more if you’re OK with that, Mandy.
Mandy Cady: OK.
Host: To squeeze in one more example.
Mandy Cady: Let’s see. How about XROOTS. So, I know a lot of people think that growing plants is kind of, kind of boring. But it’s very vital, again, we talked about going to Mars; we got to be able to grow our own food if we get there. So that’s why plant biology is super-important. So, what XROOTS is, and XROOTS is it stands for the eXposed Root On-Orbit Test System. So that’s an experiment that’s going to look at different ways that plants can be grown with or without soil or even with just a growth media in a microgravity environment. So, and I just think that the plant biology experiments just have the best pictures. It’s really —
Host: I know.
Mandy Cady: — neat to see, to see, you know, we’ve got hatch chili peppers up there right now that are growing. That during increment 66, our crew is going to actually be able to consume; I mean, how neat is that to be able to say that you ate space peppers.
Host: Yeah, peppers grown in space. And you’re right, it’s sort of just visually, even just, I mean some of them have like really cool LED lights, which are fascinating in their own way. But just, I mean when you just look at a plant in orbit, I mean it takes you back and you’re thinking, wow, that thing successfully grew in space. And that’s huge, right? And it kind of goes both ways. I love your example of showing the exploration benefits and the benefits on ground. Exploration, now you can grow plants for, for, you know, those long-duration flights; the better we get at this the better, you know, we can probably produce food, and that can be put into the regular cycle of things that the astronauts are eating. Even on the ground, it helps to make the plants grow more efficiently, understanding when you take microgravity out of the equation just how, how plants interact with certain things might make things a little bit more efficient on the ground.
Mandy Cady: Definitely. So really cool. And also, the reason it sticks out to me is this is a long-duration experiment. So, I mean this is like 120-day grow out. So, we’re going to constantly be looking at video and checking these plants, so we’re going to be continuously looking at these guys throughout increment 66, so that’s another reason why it really sticks out for me.
Host: Well, it sounds like you’re going to be pretty busy. An increment, like we said, is about six months, so it sounds, you’ve got a lot stacked up for you for that amount of time. What happens after the increment? What are some of the things that you’re doing to wrap up your time as the lead?
Mandy Cady: Vacation. No. [Laughter]
Host: Well-deserved. [Laughter]
Mandy Cady: I say that jokingly. I say that jokingly. So definitely my team and I will take a break. We will recharge.
Host: Cool.
Mandy Cady: And then we’ll start kind of closing up. We’ll do quite a few documents, quite a few presentations that says OK, here’s what we did in our increment, here is all the science they accomplished. Here’s what, here’s what we executed, here’s, you know, some areas of improvement, here’s some lessons learned. And then we will begin working on our next increment as well as, you know, passing it off to, you know, increment 67, which will start up right after ours. So, a lot of work afterwards, but definitely a little bit of time off and then just gearing up for the next increment. I know after 66, I know it’s early, after 66 I’ll be working increment 69. So, got to get ready for that.
Host: Is that typical then, that, that spread between increments? It takes about that much time to debrief from the previous increment, do lessons learned, all the documentation, and then spin up in preparation for the next thing. Is that, is that pretty normal for increment leads is you guys are, you guys are staggering by maybe three increments at a time?
Mandy Cady: Right now, it is.
Host: Cool.
Mandy Cady: We’re working on kind of shortening that gap. So, you know, like I said, we work three months, sorry, we work six-month increments; we are working to make things a little bit, a little bit more cohesive to where we might have two IRLs working an increment, so you’d have three months on, three months off. And so, there’d be a little bit more takeback. I just happen to be the last IRL that’s doing a full six-month rotation, so. But we’re working on those.
Host: Oh, OK. Well you know what, it is changing times, so that makes sense. It’s a lot faster paced. And we just went through, right, an increment used to be Soyuz handover, right, so it was, and even before that was shuttle, but now you’ve got all these other things thrown in there that just make it, there’s a lot to it, and like we said, we talked that with more crew on board there’s more science, so there’s more stuff.
Mandy Cady: Yes.
Host: You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, and that makes sense to make it more efficient, because, and I think that’s really what’s exciting about having you on today, and it makes me think maybe we should have some of these other increment leads in the future on later to talk about that transition from six months to lower, or to less amount of time, because what’s interesting is just how fast paced this world is. There’s just so much going on. There’s so much to do, and it’s all super-exciting and new. And it’s just a really cool time to be in the space industry.
Mandy Cady: And it’s constantly changing too. I mean during increment 66 you’re going to have the first PAM mission, the first Private Astronaut Mission. That’s huge. That’s absolutely huge. And they’re going to bring their own science. They’re going to bring their own, you know, their own people. I mean that’s, and we’re going to continue having these PAM missions, you know, throughout the rest, throughout the next couple of years. So that, I mean, that in itself is a huge accomplishment.
Host: Yeah, and it’s, and really what it is it’s gearing up for the future. I mean it’s happening right now, like you’re saying. And the future is going to be private astronauts and NASA astronauts in low Earth, this is what we’re trying to build right now: private astronauts and NASA astronauts, international astronauts, all working together in space. And it’s just, this is the, this is where we’re at. It seems like it’s the future, but it’s now. It’s pretty cool.
Mandy Cady: Yep, I would totally agree.
Host: [Laughter] Well listen, I feel like I’m taking up a lot of your time, and you have a busy, busy schedule ahead of you. So, Mandy, I really appreciate you taking a small chunk of your time, and I know, especially coming up, you’re going to have to really get into it, so just to come into our podcast and talk about some of the great work that you’re doing and really the entire team, it seems like it’s a very widespread team. So really appreciate your time today, Mandy. Thank you.
Mandy Cady: Definitely. Thank you so much, and hey, if you ever have any questions about science or what’s going on, my team and I are always at the ready to help. You know, I think it is incredibly important that even though we’re, you know, working this on a daily basis, that we don’t forget that we still have to talk about these awesome things that we’re doing. I feel that we are advocates for the science and that if we don’t talk about it, who else is going to? So, we got to keep the spark alive.
Host: Yes, and you’re welcome back any time, too. Maybe afterwards and after your well-deserved vacation.
Mandy Cady: No problem. Well thank you very much for having me. It was really great talking to you.
Host: And great talking to you, Mandy. Thank you.
[ Music]
Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around. I hope you enjoyed listening to Mandy Cady today and diving deep into her role. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? There’s so much to just her role, but it’s just one of many things that are coming together to, to make ISS operations and all the activity on board, make it all possible. I loved getting a chance to chat with her today and understanding more about her role, and I really am looking forward to maybe talking a little bit more about this role on the backend and see how things change over time. It’s just a crazy, busy time that we’re in right now. You can check it all out at NASA.gov/ISS if you’re interested right now to see some of the research on board. There’s a subsection if you go to that website called the research and technology; I implore you to check that out because they update that site regularly with weekly activities on what’s happening on board the space station and you can really get insight, especially now. There’s a lot of science happening on board. And we’ll talk about it here on this podcast as much as we possibly can. But we’re just one of many across the whole agency. You can check us all out at NASA.gov/podcasts. If you want to talk to us, we’re on the Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Just use the hashtag #AskNASA on your favorite platform to submit an idea for the show or ask a question. Just make sure to mention it’s for us at Houston We Have a Podcast. This episode was recorded on October 4th, 2021. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Pat Ryan, Norah Moran, Belinda Pulido and Rachel Barry. And of course, thanks again to Mandy Cady for taking time to come on the show. Give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you’re listening to us on and tell us what you think of our podcast. We’ll be back next week.