Despite Shutdown, Astronauts Still Run Up Walls

The current government shutdown has severely impacted NASA. According to The Verge: 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration will see over 90 percent of its civilian workforce immediately furloughed: 17,701 out of 18,250 total employees, according to the shutdown plan the agency filed last week. As President Obama put it in an emergency address last night, "NASA will shut down almost entirely, but Mission Control will remain open to support the astronauts serving on the Space Station."

The shutdown plan link in the article no longer works, since all of NASA's websites and social media accounts have beeen shut down. The good news is that the astronauts on the ISS will be supporrted.  One way they can deal with the stress is to run up a wall! 

Creepy photo, huh? I took the above photo of the treadmill that astronauts use to stay in shape while on the International Space Station (ISS) during my trip to NASA Mission Control in Houston, TX earlier this year.  Using the port and starboard nautical terms for left and right, the treadmill is essentially on the wall.  But in a weightless environment of space, the terms up, down, left or right have no absolute meaning. 

Here's a photo of the actual treadmill, which was named after Stephen Colbert after he won a naming contest. As you can see his smiling face in the photo above, the treadmill is officially called the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT).

Astronaut Karen Nyberg posted this video recently of her experience on the treadmill. She needs to be tethered so she doesn't float off, and the treadmill itself can't be fixed completely onto the wall - it needs to be able to move so that the forces put on the treadmill by the runner don't affect the flight path of the station.  Remember, this is space, and there is no drag or wind resistance to prevent movement - any little push can seriously set you off course. 

The video is set up so that it looks like the treadmill is on the "bottom" of the ISS, but if you look closely at the orientation of other objects, you can see that we are actually on the "wall". 

In addition to seeing the treadmll, I was fortunate enough to meet Karen and the other current residents of the International Space Station before they departed on their trip as Expedition 36. Of course I'm right next to Karen because she loves me.  Here's one of my favorite pics ever!

Fyodor Yurchikhin, Karen Nyberg, me, Luca Parmitano

Want Women in Tech? Change the Culture

My college engineering circuit board. My hope is that a diverse group of people get to deal with the all nighters and circuit burning that I did.

I use this site not only for cool science stuff, but also as a proponent of diversity within the sciences. It's critical to understand that simply improving numbers of women and minorities within the space isn't enough. The culture itself needs to be changed so that elements such as misogyny and racism are not acceptable by anyone. Making a welcoming culture is a huge step in attracting underrepresented groups into a situation that they previously saw as hostile.

In the tech space, events known as hackathons are quite popular.  These events require collaboration from teams of folks to develop a solution to a stated problem, usually involving software or hardware.  The results are typically presented to an audience by the collaborators themselves, and winners are chosen. Since a hackathon can show both technical aptitude as well as the ability to explain and demo your solution to an audience, this is an important space that needs to be culturally sensitive so that all feel welcome to contribute their brainpower.

A hackathon during an ongoing conference entitled TechCrunch Disrupt allowed several offensive presentations to pass its supposed screening process, including a joke app called TitStare centered around staring at women's breasts.  There were several other offensive presentations involving jokes about masturbation, shrinkage, etc. All of this was in front of an audience that included young children. TechCrunch did apologize after facing heat, but it was the usual halfhearted empty apology that only comes after being barraged by social media influencers.

You'd think that hackathons and similiar events would attract women and minorities because as long as you have great ideas and you can present well, you should be fine, right?  It's true, as long as the culture welcomes them as people as well as tech resources. Putting on the greatest demo in the world suddenly seems low on the totem pole when you are dealing with being demeaned in a personal way.

Sadly, this culture has existed for a very long time, as seen is a recent documentary about women in the chemistry indu

stry. This is why it's important to have schools that take diversity seriously, and to celebrate initiatives like International Women's Day. 

I wasn't going to write about this initially, but I felt compelled to. We all need to stand up against this crap, and it needs to be a united effort, not one limited to women.  Any jokes that disparage women and the contributions that they've made to society harm us all. Having groups that don't represent the true diversity of America harms us all. 

Check out the Storify below for a great discussion on the Disrupt issue and its aftermath. 

Wu-Tang and Science Are For The Children

Courtesy of I Love Hip Hop

I love science. I love rap. The Science Genius B.A.T.T.L.E.S. (Bring Attention to Transforming Teaching, Learning and Engagement in Science) competition combines both science and rap gracefully.  Teams write raps about science topics such as DNA structure. Kids learn science within the competitive spirit and creativity of hip hop culture.  

Best of all, the Wu-Tang's GZA is one of the judges. He's been involved with other science initiatives with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, which I blogged about earlier.

Many of songs are are included on RapGenius which you can find here.

NPR's Code Switch blog has a great quote which sums up my feelings about STEM education.

"Not every student is going to be a straight-A student, and go on to college and declare a science major and be the next Einstein," he says. "But through this project we definitely are going to have more scientifically literate young people."

Check out a 7 minute documentary from NPR's Science Desk. 

White House STEM Efforts are Full Steam Ahead

The White House continues its STEM initiatives by hosting Champions of Change for Tech Inclusion. According to the website:

All across the country, ordinary Americans are doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. Every week, we will invite these Champions of Change to the White House to share their ideas to win the future.

This panel discussion, hosted by Baratunde Thurston, featured a number of influential folks promoting STEM in their communities, including Kimberly Bryant from Black Girls Code.

The government also streamed  the discussion live and took questions using the Twitter hashtag #WHChamps.  I ... may have sent my clone to answer a question.

In addition, the White House hosted another addition of its We The Geeks discussion, entitled "Intelligence is Our Real Superpower". The video featured scientists talking about inventions being worked on to "enable real-life “superpowers” such as invisibility and super strength." I've had my issues with the lack of youth involvement in We The Geeks, but the videos are still fascinating and a great watch. Check it out below.
 

Darius Simmons, Trayvon Martin and Barriers to STEM Diversity

Why would a young child be interested in a field such as science where they will be consistently seen as "the other"? 

As an advocate for STEM, I'm always looking to get more folks involved in science. As a Black man, it feels the most rewarding to help contribute to more women and minorities involved in scientific disciplines.  The science space lacks gender and racial diversity, which can bring judgments, stereotypes, and reactions that are often not based on truth.  During my career journey, I've often had to worry about being the only Black person around. If I make a mistake, I have to worry about it being attributed to just me or to generalized perceptions of the Black community. 

Both Trayvon Martin and Darius Simmons were young, unarmed, Black teens that were murdered because of what they looked like. They were profiled as dangerous, regardless of their actual intentions, and they paid the ultimate price when confronted by someone who believed in the profile. 

It's important to realize that in the case of Trayvon, Darius, and numerous other youths, its the barrier to LIFE, not just diversity, that has proven to be impenetrable.  Just like other children who have lost their lives, we don't know what contribution to society they may have made. How many future scientists, presidents, historians, or artists are being eliminated? 

Why would a young child be interested in a field such as science where they will be consistently seen as "the other"?  Because the dream of America is to be a real melting pot, where individuals can truly succeed regardless of their background. America strives to be a place where fields such as science accurately represents the broad diversity of the population.

One thing is for sure - many activists are being created and emboldened by this horrible situation. Let's make a change. I know I won't stop reaching out to make sure that the STEM community is diverse as it can be. #ScienceLooksGood indeed.