Astronaut Nicole Stott Answers Space Questions From Twitter

Hi, I'm astronaut Nicole Stott

and I'm gonna answer your questions about space, on Twitter.

This is Space Support.

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[keyboard clicking]

From Zara, are we saying then that tanning in space

would happen just in virtue of being in space

because cosmic radiation and unfiltered UV rays?

Well when you're in space, of course,

you're above, you know, the bulk of the atmosphere.

And that makes it a lot more dangerous

to be exposed to the sun's radiation.

So we try to protect ourselves from that.

For the windows that we do look through,

most of them have a UV filter on them,

which helps protect us.

But there are some windows that don't.

So we know in particular what those are

and we try to really limit our time in front of them.

All right, Joey Povinelli.

Is there wifi in space?

Yes, there's wifi in space.

You might not be happy with it because it's not

dial-up slow, but it is pretty slow.

Ah, Kevin Gomez.

Age limit for space travel?

I hope not. [laughing]

'Cause I'd really like to go back.

There really isn't one set.

I think that the criteria is associated more

with your education, with the career and work you've done,

and also from, you know, just a medical

and psychological evaluation.

How can we detect and track space debris?

Which sensors were used and where are they located?

All of that tracking is done from the ground

and through other satellite resources that we have.

They have a whole unit that tracks debris in space for us

and then communicates with NASA about it.

One of my greatest memories of things

that I really remember, is being at the window,

it was nighttime outside, and watching this

streak of light go below me.

And floating down to the other end of the station

and asking my crewmates, hey what, you know,

I just saw this.

Oh yeah, that's just, you know, a micrometeorite,

you know, probably entering the atmosphere,

a piece of debris entering the atmosphere.

And I'm like, a shooting star

is basically what they told me.

And I remember floating there and thinking,

wow, that was really beautiful.

And then I also remember thinking, man,

I'm really glad I saw that

because that means it didn't hit my spaceship.

And that's a really good thing.

I don't want that hitting my spaceship.

Adam asked, what is the coordinate system used in orbits?

And is it the same as non-orbit journeys,

such as that to the moon and Mars?

This, you know, this is a really great question.

On the space station, for instance, we're flying

around the earth, you can see this model here.

And the way we fly, you can see this little

space station at the end, so this whole space station,

this is like forward, the whole space station

is moving around the earth with that

pointing forward the whole time.

And we have a coordinate system associated with that

to, you know, let us know locations

and how the station is moving.

You can apply the same one that we use

with the space station flying around the earth

to fly other like non-orbit journeys.

It can work for you.

There's also specialized coordinate systems,

all different kinds of 'em.

Sam Anderson, do you think eating a large

messy sandwich would be harder or easier in space?

I don't know that it would be harder or easier,

but it probably would be messier.

[laughing]

Things tend to float around, so if you let go

of your sandwich it's probably gonna come apart.

And the bread 'll float,

and the stuff inside 'll float around.

Of course we do silly astronaut tricks with food

and drink all the time.

Vanslater, how long does it take to get to the moon?

And how fast can you go in space?

Now this is a really great question.

You know, it takes about two days to get to the moon

the way we fly to the moon.

So we launch off the earth, we get going really fast,

and we circle the earth and we do this

what we call slingshot method of then accelerating

ourselves toward and then around the moon.

That's all really cool orbital mechanics

that goes on there.

And it's really neat to me how we can

use the gravity and spin of our own planet

to accelerate a spaceship off into space.

On the space shuttle we traveled at 17,500 miles an hour.

The guys that went to the moon, about 24,000 miles an hour.

Hen Baezaert, what do you do if you're an astronaut

and you experience a serious health problem while in space?

Well, hopefully your crewmates

will be able to take care of you.

A number of us trained to be

medical officers onboard a mission.

And we have probably any supply

you could possible need to take care of anything.

And we are in constant communication

with our medical team on the ground.

Worse case, if we needed to get somebody home

we could, we could do that in our rescue vehicle

or the Soyuz spacecraft.

I never received any training about what to do

if somebody dies in space.

I guess you deal with that realtime.

But we can always get somebody home if we have to.

All right, from Sheezus, what happens to astronauts

when they come back from space?

Do they have any health problems

or things they have to greatly readjust to?

Well the main thing that you greatly

have to readjust to is gravity.

Your body just, I think, forgets at first

what being in this load of gravity is like.

And so you feel really really heavy.

There are other things that go on with our bodies

that we try to counteract while we're in space

so that we're healthy when we get home.

Like your, you know, bones and muscles

really starting to, you know, go away because you don't

need them when you're working in space.

So we exercise a couple hours a day up there

to try to stay in shape so when we come home

we're feeling good.

And there are things that we really don't

quite understand yet about the way radiation

affects us, and also, you know,

we're seeing things with people's eyes

where vision is changing.

And we think it's because of this pressure

that you get on the back of your eye.

But we're really trying to figure that out too.

The question is, how can I be hired in NASA

and what is it like?

I strongly to encourage you to apply for a job at NASA.

Working at NASA was absolutely,

it's the best job I could think of.

I started out at the Kennedy Space Center

working on the shuttle program

and helping getting the space shuttles

ready to fly for crews.

And in that one job I got to move around

Kennedy Space Center and work in the launch control center.

And then move and work in the orbiter processing facility,

which was like this big hanger

where the orbiter came back in

and you got the vehicle ready to fly again.

And so through that one job with NASA

I got to see all aspects of how

we get spaceships ready to fly.

And then before becoming an astronaut

I moved out to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

And for two years I got to work on

the shuttle training aircraft, which was this modified

corporate jet that we used to basically dive at the runway

and train astronauts how to land the space shuttle.

And in doing that job I got to wear this really cool helmet

in the T-38 trainer jets,

and in the shuttle training aircraft,

as we flew and trained astronauts.

And then applied to be an astronaut, and was selected.

And for 15 years I worked in the astronaut office

and had the opportunity to fly in space twice,

and spend over three months living

and working on the space station.

Everything about it is ultimately about

improving life on Earth.

And I think there's no better place to work

than one where you know you're doing

some kind of greater good work

for not just yourself and your family,

but for everybody that we share this planet with.

So, highly recommend it.

How often are additional supplies sent up to aid the ISS?

Okay, pretty regularly actually.

And we do that with a number of different cargo ships

that get sent to the station.

I would say it's once every couple months

that we're sending things.

We've got two US vehicles that we use

to get supplies to the space station.

One of them can actually bring things home, too.

We have a Japanese cargo vehicle.

And a Russian cargo vehicle.

So there's pretty regular resupply going on.

The five space programs that are involved

with the International Space Station

are the US, through NASA, the Russian Space Agency,

the Japanese Space Agency, Canadian, and European.

It's really great because we have

this international partnership.

We share food, we share supplies,

we distribute that across the station as necessary.

And the Russians can fly things on

the US vehicles, and the same is true

for all the other countries as well.

This is from Danny Skarka, and he asks,

what will power SLS once the old

shuttle engines are used up?

That is an excellent question.

You know, sadly the way SLS is being developed

those engines wouldn't be reused.

So I think that right now they're looking at,

how do they build more of them?

And the amount of time that we'll have between SLS missions

I think they'll have the time to build

new engines to power SLS.

And hopefully we'll have new kinds

of propulsion coming along as well.

Michael Moreno, wondering if the astronauts

on the International Space Station ever get bored?

I hope not.

I was never bored in space.

There's the window to look out, see Earth below you.

Sharing stories with your crewmates.

Floating around flying.

And you can even bring things that you enjoy doing on Earth.

I had the chance to paint while I was in space.

My crewmates played music in space.

This is not a place where you get bored.

When a ship blows up in space, where do the pieces go?

Do they just float around in the abyss forever and ever?

Well some of them might, I suppose,

depending on how fast they went away from the explosion.

But ultimately, like if something blew up

in low earth orbit, it would orbit for some period of time,

would eventually slow down and get dragged

into the atmosphere, and burn up.

So this is my helmet that I wore when I flew

in the T-38 trainer jets, which are the little NASA jets,

it's a air force trainer jet, two seats.

It's got a visor that is like a sun visor,

and also a clear visor, you always wanna keep that down.

A lot of times in the movies you'll see

the actors without their oxygen mask on,

there's not a time, unless you're on the ground,

in a jet that you don't wear your oxygen mask.

NASA was really great, they would provide

these helmets to you, and they kinda customized 'em to you.

You could pretty much get anything you wanted on the back.

I just did my name, which I thought was simple and nice.

And I really like the color blue.

Thanks for watching.

I'm astronaut Nicole Stott.

And I hope you learned a little something about space.