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>> Kylie Clem: Well, hello.

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We would like to welcome you to mission control,
Houston for the Digital Learning Network event

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where we're speaking with
sixth grade students in Texas.

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With me is Amy Brezinski.

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She is a flight controller here in mission
control, and we're going to talk a little bit

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about Amy's background before we
take questions from the students.

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So, Amy, what do you do as a flight
controller here at mission control?

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>> Amy Brezinski: As a flight
controller in ISS mission control,

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I'm responsible for monitoring my
system and performing actions with it.

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My system is the computer
system we call the Command

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and Data Handling System,
and my call sign is ODIN.

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Every discipline has a call sign.

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So my job in particular is to watch over over
forty-eight computers on the space station

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that are running right now and make
sure that they are operating normally

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and then uploading software for all the other
systems, activities and also get certain pieces

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of data down after those activities.

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So the computer systems, responsible for
interfacing with all the other systems

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to make sure that the crew
can get data on those systems

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and that the ground can get
data on those systems.

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>> Kylie Clem: A lot of people may be familiar
with how the space shuttle was operated

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where the crew flipped switches and that's
how things are commanded, but, really,

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with the space station, the computers operate
everything, and they interface with the laptops.

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>> Amy Brezinski: That's right.

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So there are a lot more computers
than there were on shuttle,

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and we do a lot of commanding,
actually, from the ground.

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So a lot of the flight controllers
send commands, but I'm also responsible

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for making sure that those commands go through
and the computers process them correctly.

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And then the crew can interface with the
systems through laptops onboard as well.

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>> Kylie Clem: And what kind
of background led you to here,

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to Johnson's Space Center, Mission Control?

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>> Amy Brezinski: It all
started when I turned about 12.

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I saw the movie Apollo 13, and I kind of fell in
love with human space flight and what NASA did,

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and it prompted me to continue studying space
in general and then also later on in high school

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and college, math and science and engineering.

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So I ended up going to MIT and studying
aeronautical and astronautical engineering,

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and I got my bachelor's degree, and
then I decided that I really wanted

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to get a master's degree and also
co-op here at JSC at the same time.

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So I studied human factors engineering,
looking at how people interface

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with autonomy, with semi-automatic systems.

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And then I co-oped here in the
life support training group,

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and the operations support officer group
that do a lot of maintenance on the station.

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And then once I finished my master's degree,

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I got hired on into the ODIN
group to work with the computers.

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>> Kylie Clem: And the co-op program
is a great opportunity for students,

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we would like to point out, because that's
a great way that a lot of people get hired

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at NASA is starting sort of as an intern
while you're still in school at college.

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You can come here and spend a semester and work
at different areas and learn about what it's

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like to work here before you
actually come and hopefully get hired.

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How was that experience for you?

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>> Amy Brezinski: I really liked it,
especially because you get to work in lots

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of different groups when you're a co-op.

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You can kind of try on the job and find
where you would like to work most in NASA.

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And I had a feeling that I wanted to either
train astronauts or be a flight controller.

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And so I got to do both of those things,
actually, as a co-op, and then I decided

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when I got hired on full on that I
wanted to be a flight controller.

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But maybe I'll get to train
astronauts some day again.

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>> Kylie Clem: And what kind of schooling
did you do at MIT that brought you here?

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>> Amy Brezinski: Oh, studying
aeronautical and astronautical engineering,

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which is kind of a mouthful, so we call
it aero-astro engineering for short.

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I got a lot of basic education in engineering
principles, such as, fluid mechanics,

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structures, thermal dynamics, signals
and systems, how computers work,

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and then I got to work on projects with teams.

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We actually, while I was at MIT, designed a
modular wireless spacecraft, and we designed it,

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we built it, and we worked as a team.

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And that was very important because
flight control is a team sport.

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You're never working on your own.

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You're always working with lots of other people
who have knowledge in areas different than you.

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And if you take all of them and combine them
together, you fly the space station together.

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So that experience of building a spacecraft

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in college really prepared me
for the team environment here.

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>> Kylie Clem: That sounds great, and I think
we're ready to take questions from the students.

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>> What is human supervisory control of
multiple autonomous vehicles all about?

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>> Amy Brezinski: That's a good question.

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So that actually goes back to my days at MIT.

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I think somebody has been doing their homework.

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So what that means is, when
you have multiple vehicles,

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and you can make them partially
autonomous, so they can fly themselves.

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Because we understand how
to do that with software,

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and so you can have them fly themselves,

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and you can have a person giving them
high-level instructions, such as,

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you know, go here, or go do that there.

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And so if you can give them
high-level instructions,

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that means that you can probably have one
person supervising more than one vehicle.

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However, if you get a lot of
vehicles and one person supervising,

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that can pose some pretty interesting challenges
to make sure that the person is keeping track

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of all the vehicles, what they're doing.

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And if you're in a situation where there are
time-critical things that need to happen,

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you need to make sure that the person can make
good decision about what the vehicles are doing.

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What my research looked at
was tools that I could provide

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to a person supervising high-level multiple
vehicles in a time-critical environment

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and giving them tools to help
them make decisions for things

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that were going to happen into the future.

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So if something unexpected came up, to be
able to give them the decision-making tool

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to change what the vehicles were doing.

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>> Why did you choose to become an
ODIN, and who was your inspiration?

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>> Amy Brezinski: I like
to say that ODIN chose me.

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I wanted to be a flight controller, and at the
time, they really needed people to be an ODIN

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and to monitor the computers, so I
actually ended up...ODIN actually chose me,

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but I really liked it.

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I work with a fantastic group of people.

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We do really complex things like changing out
the software on the computers on space station.

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Actually, recently, we changed out the
hardware on the computers on the space station.

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The Expedition 30 crew helped us out with that,

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and it was kind of like performing
brain surgery on the space station.

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We changed out seven computers' hardware
and almost half of the computers' software.

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And that's very exciting.

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It's very complex.

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And it's very satisfying.

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It went very smoothly.

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In terms of my inspiration, I think I've
been inspired by all the flight controllers

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and flight directors and
astronauts that have come before me.

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And, in particular, I had a very good
mentor when I started here at NASA.

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His name was Colin Peterson, and he taught
me a lot about being a good flight controller

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and gave me a lot of lessons
that I still use to this day.

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>> How many computers are
needed to run all the networks?

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>> Amy Brezinski: That's a very good question.

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So right now, there are forty-eight computers
that are powered on, forty-one computers

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that are running the space station systems
and getting data and sending commands,

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and then we have seven computers, laptop
computers, that the crew can interface

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with through other computers, and they can
send commands and get data from those laptops.

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So that's on an average day.

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Sometimes we can have more computers
running, but it's quite a few.

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[Silence]

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>> What do the multiple autonomous vehicles
do if you lose communication with them?

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>> Amy Brezinski: So that's actually an
interesting question, and one that I didn't look

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at when I was studying multiple autonomous
vehicles, but I think that it's one

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that people will need to research later.

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I can tell you what we do when
ISS has lost its communications.

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Those are usually understood
ahead of time and planned.

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We aren't in contact with the ISS all the
time, but we usually know ahead of time

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when we're not going to have
contact with the ISS.

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And when that happens, we can't
actually talk to the crew,

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and we don't get data down,
and we can't send commands.

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But the space station, with all
its computers, is pretty smart,

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and it can continue flying
and monitoring its systems.

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And if anything would happen while the
ground can't talk to the space station,

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the crew would receive notification,
and they're trained

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to take action based on those notifications.

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So it's a pretty robust spacecraft.

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It can fly itself.

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>> And if ODIN develops a
problem, how do you fix it?

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>> Amy Brezinski: That's a very good question.

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That's definitely a big part of my job
is if there's anything that happens

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in the computer system, I'm the person
who is supposed to make sure I can fix it.

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You can have two types of
problems in the computer system.

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You can have a software problem or
you can have a hardware problem.

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And we can actually address most of
the software problems from the ground.

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We can send commands to fix the software
or we can cycle the software if needed.

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And for hardware problems, we have
some ability to deal with that too,

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to address particular hardware problems.

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But sometimes if something would really
really fail, one of the computers,

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and we might need to change that
with a spare we have on board.

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And so in that case, we would
ask the crew to help us

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out since we can't go do it ourselves here from
the ground, and they're trained to do that.

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And they would go, and they would take out that
piece of hardware and put in one of the spares.

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>> What is a typical day of what it's
like on the International Space Station?

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>> Amy Brezinski: I think that was...I think you
just asked, what is a typical day like on ISS.

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So I'll try to tell you what the
crew, what a typical crew day is like.

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They're doing a lot of science right now.

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They do a lot of experiments,
multiple experiments every day.

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They work Monday through Friday.

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And then when they're not doing
experiments, they're exercising.

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They exercise two hours every day, and sometimes
they also do some maintenance tasks for us,

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you know, just like your house at home,

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you got to clean the space
station, so they do some cleaning.

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And there's some regular maintenance they
need to do to keep the systems running.

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And then sometimes if something breaks or
if something's not working quite right,

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we'll have them go take care of that
as well and fix it or replace it.

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>> What do you do for fun on the ISS?

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>> Amy Brezinski: So I think the thing
that the astronauts do the most for fun

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when they have free time is look out
the window and watch the world go by.

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If you haven't had a chance to receive pictures
from the space station, there's definitely a lot

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on NASA.gov, and pictures of Earth in the
daytime and nighttime are just beautiful.

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They take a lot of pictures, and
you can see cities lit up at night.

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You can see major structures
that humans have built.

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I think they can actually
see the Great Wall of China.

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So they like to spend a long time looking
at the Earth because they only get to look

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at the Earth while they're up there.

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But I do know they do things for fun
that you would do at home, you know,

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on your weekends, like they
like to watch movies.

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They talk a lot to their family and friends.

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They can call them.

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They can also do video conferences.

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They read.

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They blog.

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They tweet.

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They write emails.

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So kind of similar things that
you would do at home for fun.

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>> A normal day but in space [inaudible]

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>> Amy Brezinski: I'm sorry.

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Can you repeat that question again?

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>> Like so it's pretty much like a normal
day like on the weekend, except for in space?

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>> Amy Brezinski: Exactly.

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Exactly.

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>> What are some things that you can say
that you miss on Earth that are not in space?

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>> Amy Brezinski: I think the
first thing that astronauts say

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that they miss most is they miss
their families and their friends.

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So when astronauts go up to the space station,
they're up there for about anywhere from four

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to six months, so it's a pretty long time away
from your family and friends even though you get

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to call them and you get to see
them on the video conferences.

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So I think that they miss that the most.

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I think that they also probably
miss, you know, being outside.

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You can't open a window on the space station, so
they probably miss fresh air and wind and rain.

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The weather is always the same every day
on the space station, same temperature.

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There's no rain on the space station,
so they probably miss that too.

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Then they probably miss, you know,
things like certain foods that they like.

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They do have a very wide variety of food, but if
you're, you know, craving a certain type of food

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that you didn't pack for your
trip, then you're going to have

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to wait until you go home to eat it.

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But they do get a lot of
different kinds of food,

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but then sometimes they miss certain
restaurants from home, from Earth.

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[Silence]

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>> How are accidents prevented on the ISS?

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>> Amy Brezinski: I'm sorry.

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Can you repeat your question one more time?

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I didn't quite get that.

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>> How are accidents prevented on the ISS?

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>> Amy Brezinski: Okay.

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That's a very good question, how
are accidents prevented on the ISS.

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So one thing we do is, we do a lot of
planning, and we do a lot of training,

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and we do a lot of assessing things
that we are going to do on space station

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to make sure they're safe because
safety is our number one priority.

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So anything that the crew is going to do,
anything that the ground is going to do,

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remotely, we take a look at and make
sure that it's going to be safe.

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And then we also do a lot of training on certain
activities to make sure that they are safe.

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Then if anything comes up that surprises
us, like an emergency, we have procedures

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that we train a lot on the ground, and
the crew also trains to know what to do,

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exactly what to do in an emergency, kind of
like you do for at school with a fire drill.

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You know, you have fire drills, and you
know which way you're supposed to leave

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and where you're supposed to meet and
so forth, so the crew does that as well.

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They have a set pattern of what they do if
there was a particular type of emergency.

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>> Was there ever a time in mission operations
when there was a critical life and death moment?

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>> Amy Brezinski: There have been times
where there has been critical and life

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and death situations, and
if you study space history,

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you'll earn that there have been
times when we have lost astronauts.

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Apollo 1, for example, and Challenger in the
1980s and Columbia not too many years ago,

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and we remember these times, and we learn
from them, and we miss these people very much,

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and we're never going to forget them.

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We think about them every day.

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But, again, you know, we try our
best to make sure everything is safe,

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and we have these procedures and plans in place.

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So we make sure that if there is a critical
situation, we can react to it on the ground

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to help out the crew, and the crew
can react to it appropriately.

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So that's something you never really
want to run into, and we do our best

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to prevent those types of situations.

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[Silence]

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>> What breakthrough or research
findings have you found

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through the International Space Station?

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>> Amy Brezinski: This is a really exciting
time because we are doing so much research

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on the space station, and this
particular expedition, Expedition 30,

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they have been doing thirty-five hours a week of
research on space station, and that's a record.

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That's a target that we set for
ourselves, and we made that target.

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We could probably talk about all the
different kinds of research for hours,

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but I'll focus on some of the human research,

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some of the human health
research that we're doing.

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So one thing that we're working on is
looking at doing experiments to try to come

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up with a vaccine for salmonella.

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So salmonella is a type of bacteria that
you can get, that can make you sick.

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It's a food-poisoning type bacteria,

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so it's possible that we could
prevent that with a vaccine.

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So there's work on ISS being used
to try to develop that vaccine.

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ISS is kind of a unique place because you can
grow protein crystals differently than on Earth.

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They actually grow in a completely
different structure.

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So we can use those protein crystals
to try to come up with treatments

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for certain diseases, such as, cancer.

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And then finally, we have a lot of
really cool robots on the space station.

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We've got a robotic arm, and we've
got a robotic hand called Dexter.

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And we also have Robonaut.

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And so we remotely operate those
robotic arms and equipment.

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And that knowledge of how to remotely operate
robotics can actually help people on Earth,

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doctors in particular, learn how to conduct
surgeries remotely with robotic arms.

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So you could have a doctor in one city
and a patient in a very remote area

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in a different city or, you know, out
somewhere where there isn't a city,

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and you could have the doctor conduct
surgery on that patient with use

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of a remotely operated robotic arm.

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So those are just some of the cool
examples of the really neat research

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and technology development going on on the ISS.

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It's a very exciting time.

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[Silence]

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>> Since we have like space junk in space
[inaudible] a way to clear the space junk?

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>> Amy Brezinski: Yeah, this
is some stuff up in space.

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Some people call it space junk.

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We call it debris.

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It is a concern for the space station, so we
haven't developed any ways to try to eliminate

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that space debris yet, but
people do work on that.

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But what we try to do on the
space station is, we avoid it.

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So if we see a piece of space debris
might be coming close to the station,

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and we have certain parameters that tell
us what means close to the space station,

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we'll do what's called a reboost.

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We'll take the space station,
and we'll fire some thrusters,

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and the space station will move its orbit
higher, and that will avoid the space debris.

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So we do a lot of tracking.

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We track a lot of space debris to make sure
that's not coming too close to the station.

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And then if it is, we do a reboost.

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[Silence]

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>> What is your vision for human space flight?

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>> Amy Brezinski: My vision is that in
my lifetime I will see humanity go back

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to the moon, go back to Mars, and
maybe even have a space station someday

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around another planet.

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I think that would be pretty neat.

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Excuse me.

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I really hope that I get to go into
space someday, and I hope that all

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of you have the ability to go visit space
someday because I think it's a really cool place

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to go visit, and I think we're going to
start seeing further and further exploration

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out from low Earth orbit, go to
asteroids, and we'll learn more

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about our universe, and that's very exciting.

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[Silence]

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>> When the International Space Station
starts to decommission and slowly lower down,

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how do you plan to safely lower it?

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>> Amy Brezinski: So the space station partners,
all the international partners and NASA,

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have agreed to operate the space station
until 2020 and maybe even longer.

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But someday we will have to say
goodbye to our space station.

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And what we'll do then is, we'll
use thrusters to kind of go

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in the opposite direction of a reboost.

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We'll use the thrusters to lower the orbit
of the space station, and we'll bring it

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down in a very controlled, planned
manner, probably in an ocean.

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[Silence]

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>> Have you ever wanted to go to the ISS?

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>> Amy Brezinski: Yes.

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I would love to go to the ISS.

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I think it is one of the most
amazing places off this planet

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because I can't say it's on the planet.

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In fact, when people ask me, you know,
where...if you could go anywhere in the world,

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where would you go, and I always
say, well can I go off the world?

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Is that an option?

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It's really an amazing place.

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It's very big.

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It's bigger than, I think, a
three or four bedroom house.

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And it's amazing that we built it.

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You know, I remember when it was, the
first pieces were launched back when I was

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in high school, and it's been neat
to see it continue to build up,

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so I would love to visit someday.

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[Silence]

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>> Since you're a coordinator, how difficult
is it to handle the issues in space?

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>> Kylie Clem: Could you repeat the question?

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>> Since you're a collaborative coordinator,
how hard is it to handle the issues in space?

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>> Amy Brezinski: That's a very good question.

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It's a very good way to describe being a
flight controller, collaborative coordinator.

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So it's not difficult to work issues.

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We all learn how to communicate with
people that do the different systems,

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and we learn about how our system, in particular
my system, the computer system interfaces

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with things like a life support
system, the thermal system

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that keeps things cool, and the power system.

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So when an issue arises, we're all trained to
work together to figure out what the problem is

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and then what the impact is to the entire
team and the space station as a whole

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and the mission objectives and the crew, very
importantly, and then what the work around is,

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what do we need to do to try and fix the issue.

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And we practice this.

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We always say in our heads, we always think when
we see an issue, failure, impact, work around.

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And so based on that, we actually can work
very easily together to come up with a solution

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to issues that affect multiple systems
in a very collaborative manner.

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[Silence]

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>> When will we be able to
launch a spaceship from the ISS?

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00:24:20,096 --> 00:24:21,106
>> Amy Brezinski: That's a good question.

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Right now we don't have any plans yet
to launch spacecrafts from the ISS,

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but we do have some spacecrafts
that are launching to the ISS

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that are very new that are coming this year.

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You may have heard about one of them.

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It's called Dragon.

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It's a resupply spacecraft that's been...being
launching by Space X, which is a US company,

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and we hope to see that resupply
spacecraft visit us this month.

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And then later on, later this year or
next year, we'll see the Cygnus resupply,

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an unmanned spacecraft, visit, and that's
another spacecraft that's produced by Orbital.

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It's another US company.

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So it's kind of exciting because we're having
new vehicles come to the ISS and getting more

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and more groups and companies involved with
space exploration and ISS in particular.

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>> Kylie Clem: I understand that was
our last question from the students,

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so we would like to thank the
students for joining us today.

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We hope you learned a lot, and you
had some really great questions.

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Amy, did you have any closing remarks?

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>> Amy Brezinski: Thanks so much
for your wonderful questions,

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and it was very good to talk to you today.