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When Teachers Become the Students: Educators Spend Summer Studying STEM Engagement at Johnson
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By NASA
As the hub of human spaceflight, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston holds a variety of unique responsibilities and privileges. Those include being the home of NASA’s astronaut corps.
One of those astronauts – Nick Hague – is now preparing to launch to the International Space Station along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on the ninth rotational mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. This will be the third launch and second mission to the space station for Hague, who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013 and has spent 203 days in space.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Commander Nick Hague smiles and gives two thumbs up during the crew equipment interface test at SpaceX’s Dragon refurbishing facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.SpaceX Hague was born and raised in Kansas but has crisscrossed the country for college and career. He earned degrees from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and he attended the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Hague’s military career has taken him to New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and included a five-month deployment to Iraq. Hague transferred from the Air Force to the U.S. Space Force in 2020 after serving as the Space Force’s director of test and evaluation at the Pentagon.
No stranger to new places, Hague vividly recalls making his first trip to Johnson when he was interviewing to join NASA’s astronaut corps. “I had no idea what to expect, and it was a bit overwhelming. I knew everyone was watching me and judging me,” he said. “Luckily, even though I wasn’t selected then, I got another chance a few years later. It’s a pretty magical place.”
Hague completed his astronaut training in July 2015 as part of NASA’s 21st astronaut class. He was the first astronaut from that group to be assigned to a mission, which launched in October 2018 but was aborted shortly after takeoff. His next spaceflight occurred in 2019, when he joined three of his classmates – NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Christina Koch, and Andrew Morgan – aboard the International Space Station for Expeditions 59 and 60.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague suits up for spacewalk training in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. NASA/James Blair Hague has made many memories at Johnson, but one that stands out is his experience working onsite amid the 2013 government shutdown. “I’m active-duty military so I still came to work,” he explained. “I remember being onsite and the center being completely empty. Being able to ride around an empty campus on the free-range bikes – it was peaceful and surreal.” It was also a preview of what many Johnson employees experienced during the pandemic and how NASA maintains round-the-clock support for spaceflight operations regardless of extenuating circumstances.
Hague now looks ahead to another journey to low Earth orbit. NASA and SpaceX officials currently plan to launch the Crew-9 mission no earlier than Wednesday, Sept. 25. The crew will lift off from Launch Complex 40 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft.
Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov (left) and NASA astronaut Nick Hague during a visit to Kennedy Space Center for training. SpaceX Hague and Gorbonov will become members of the Expedition 72 crew aboard the station. They will join NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, and Don Pettit, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, and will spend about six months conducting scientific research in microgravity and completing a range of operational activities before returning home.
More details about the mission and crew can be found by following the Crew-9 blog, @commercial_crew on X, or commercial crew on Facebook. You can also follow @astrohague on X and Instagram.
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By NASA
Students are recognized for their hard work in STEM-related extended-day programs at their school through a partnership with NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.Credit: NASA Media are invited to the kickoff event of a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Department of Education at 4 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 23, at the Wheatley Education Campus in Washington. The interagency project, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, aims to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education during after-school hours.
During the event, media will have the opportunity to learn about the STEM collaboration, hear remarks from leadership, and have one-on-one interviews with NASA and Education Department officials upon request. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to engage in educational activities, as well as participate in an engineering design challenge.
Officials providing remarks at the event include:
Kris Brown, deputy associate administrator, NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, Headquarters in Washington Cindy Marten, deputy secretary, U.S. Department of Education Media interested in covering the event must RSVP no later than Friday, Sept. 20, to Abbey Donaldson: abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov.
Through the project, NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and the Education Department will align resources to provide STEM activities, professional development, and funding for after-school programs nationwide. NASA will offer staff training, continuous program support, and opportunities for students to engage with NASA scientists and engineers. The initiative also will include student activities that demonstrate practical applications of STEM concepts.
In May 2023, NASA and the Education Department signed a Memorandum of Understanding, strengthening the collaboration between the two agencies, and expanding efforts to increase access to high-quality STEM and space education to students and schools across the nation. NASA Glenn signed a follow-on Space Act Agreement in 2024 to support the 21st Century Community Learning Centers.
Learn more about how NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement is inspiring the next generation of explorers at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stem
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Abbey Donaldson
Headquarters, Washington
202-269-1600
abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Sep 18, 2024 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
STEM Engagement at NASA Learning Resources Opportunities For Students to Get Involved Partner with NASA STEM View the full article
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By NASA
From Sept. 6-7, 2024, NASA’s Johnson Space Center brought the excitement of space exploration to the annual Japan Festival at Hermann Park in Houston.
The lively cultural event featured traditional food, dance, martial arts, and more, while Johnson’s booth attracted attendees with interactive space exhibits and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) activities.
Johnson Space Center volunteers share NASA’s mission and student opportunities at the annual Japan Festival in Houston. NASA Johnson employees passed along information about High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS), a NASA-unique program offering Texas high school juniors an opportunity to explore STEM fields.
The program kicks off with an online course and, for top performers, culminates in an on-site summer experience at Johnson, where students can learn from NASA scientists and engineers. Program graduates may also apply for NASA internships and scholarships, including the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™ and Rotary National Award for Space Achievement scholarships.
Attendees enjoy Johnson Space Center’s exhibit booth at Hermann Park in Houston. NASA/Johnnie Joseph Festival attendees explored interactive displays, including models of the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, space food samples, and a real spacesuit glove and helmet. Johnson volunteers distributed NASA meatball stickers, mission stickers, and Artemis bookmarks with QR codes, offering students and space enthusiasts opportunities to dive deeper into STEM education and NASA’s missions.
Johnson volunteers share NASA’s mission and student opportunities to festival attendees. NASA/Johnnie Joseph NASA’s long-standing partnership with Japan was front and center as JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) set up a neighboring booth. JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa delighted festival-goers by posing for photos, signing autographs, and visiting NASA’s booth to greet Johnson employees.
The event highlighted the collaborative spirit of space exploration between NASA and its international partners, who are working together on missions around the Moon and beyond as part of the Artemis campaign. Japan, alongside other global partners, has committed to supporting the International Space Station through 2030.
Festival attendees explore NASA’s booth, captivated by the space exhibits.NASA/Johnnie Joseph View the full article
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By NASA
Manuel Retana arrived in the U.S. at 15 years old, unable to speak English and with nothing but a dream and $200 in his pocket. Now, he plays a crucial role implementing life support systems on spacecraft that will carry humans to the Moon and, eventually, Mars—paving the way for the next frontier of space exploration.
A project manager for NASA’s Johnson Space Center Life Support Systems Branch in Houston, Retana helps to ensure astronaut safety aboard the International Space Station and for future Artemis missions. His work involves tracking on-orbit technical issues, managing the cost and schedule impacts of flight projects, and delivering emergency hardware.
Manuel Retana stands in front of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. One of his most notable achievements came during the qualification of the Orion Smoke Eater Filter for the Artemis II and III missions. The filter is designed to remove harmful gases and particulates from the crew cabin in the event of a fire inside the spacecraft. Retana was tasked with creating a cost-effective test rig – a critical step for making the filter safe for flight.
Retana’s philosophy is simple: “Rockets do not build themselves. People build rockets, and your ability to work with people will define how well your rocket is built.”
Throughout his career, Retana has honed his soft skills—communication, leadership, collaboration, and conflict resolution—to foster an environment of success.
Retana encourages his colleagues to learn new languages and share their unique perspectives. He even founded NASA’s first Mariachi ensemble, allowing him to share his cultural heritage in the workplace.
He believes diversity of thought is a key element in solving complex challenges as well as creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their perspectives.
“You need to be humble and have a willingness to always be learning,” he said. “What makes a strong team is the fact that not everyone thinks the same way.”
Manuel Retana, center, performs with the Mariachi Ensemble group at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. For the future of space exploration, Retana is excited about the democratization of space, envisioning a world where every country has the opportunity to explore. He is eager to see humanity reach the Moon, Mars, and beyond, driven by the quest to answer the universe’s most enigmatic questions.
To the Artemis Generation, he says, “Never lose hope, and it is never too late to start following your dreams, no matter how far you are.”
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This bar graph shows GISTEMP summer global temperature anomalies for 2023 (shown in yellow) and 2024 (shown in red). June through August is considered meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere. The white lines indicate the range of estimated temperatures. The warmer-than-usual summers continue a long-term trend of warming, driven primarily by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. NASA/Peter Jacobs The agency also shared new state-of-the-art datasets that allow scientists to track Earth’s temperature for any month and region going back to 1880 with greater certainty.
August 2024 set a new monthly temperature record, capping Earth’s hottest summer since global records began in 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The announcement comes as a new analysis upholds confidence in the agency’s nearly 145-year-old temperature record.
June, July, and August 2024 combined were about 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit (about 0.1 degrees Celsius) warmer globally than any other summer in NASA’s record — narrowly topping the record just set in 2023. Summer of 2024 was 2.25 F (1.25 C) warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980, and August alone was 2.34 F (1.3 C) warmer than average. June through August is considered meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
“Data from multiple record-keepers show that the warming of the past two years may be neck and neck, but it is well above anything seen in years prior, including strong El Niño years,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS. “This is a clear indication of the ongoing human-driven warming of the climate.”
NASA assembles its temperature record, known as the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP), from surface air temperature data acquired by tens of thousands of meteorological stations, as well as sea surface temperatures from ship- and buoy-based instruments. It also includes measurements from Antarctica. Analytical methods consider the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and urban heating effects that could skew the calculations.
The GISTEMP analysis calculates temperature anomalies rather than absolute temperature. A temperature anomaly shows how far the temperature has departed from the 1951 to 1980 base average.
New assessment of temperature record
The summer record comes as new research from scientists at the Colorado School of Mines, National Science Foundation, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA), and NASA further increases confidence in the agency’s global and regional temperature data.
“Our goal was to actually quantify how good of a temperature estimate we’re making for any given time or place,” said lead author Nathan Lenssen, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines and project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
This visualization of GISTEMP monthly temperatures with the seasonal cycle derived from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office’s MERRA-2 model compares 2023 (in red) and 2024 (in purple), with a transparent ribbon around each indicating the confidence intervals from the new GISTEMP uncertainty calculation. The white lines show monthly temperatures from the years 1961 to 2022. June, July, and August 2024 combined were about 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit (about 0.1 degrees Celsius) warmer globally than any other summer in NASA’s record — narrowly topping the record set in 2023.NASA/Peter Jacobs/Katy Mersmann The researchers affirmed that GISTEMP is correctly capturing rising surface temperatures on our planet and that Earth’s global temperature increase since the late 19th century — summer 2024 was about 2.7 F (1.51 C) warmer than the late 1800s — cannot be explained by any uncertainty or error in the data.
The authors built on previous work showing that NASA’s estimate of global mean temperature rise is likely accurate to within a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit in recent decades. For their latest analysis, Lenssen and colleagues examined the data for individual regions and for every month going back to 1880.
Estimating the unknown
Lenssen and colleagues provided a rigorous accounting of statistical uncertainty within the GISTEMP record. Uncertainty in science is important to understand because we cannot take measurements everywhere. Knowing the strengths and limitations of observations helps scientists assess if they’re really seeing a shift or change in the world.
The study confirmed that one of the most significant sources of uncertainty in the GISTEMP record is localized changes around meteorological stations. For example, a previously rural station may report higher temperatures as asphalt and other heat-trapping urban surfaces develop around it. Spatial gaps between stations also contribute some uncertainty in the record. GISTEMP accounts for these gaps using estimates from the closest stations.
Previously, scientists using GISTEMP estimated historical temperatures using what’s known in statistics as a confidence interval — a range of values around a measurement, often read as a specific temperature plus or minus a few fractions of degrees. The new approach uses a method known as a statistical ensemble: a spread of the 200 most probable values. While a confidence interval represents a level of certainty around a single data point, an ensemble tries to capture the whole range of possibilities.
The distinction between the two methods is meaningful to scientists tracking how temperatures have changed, especially where there are spatial gaps. For example: Say GISTEMP contains thermometer readings from Denver in July 1900, and a researcher needs to estimate what conditions were 100 miles away. Instead of reporting the Denver temperature plus or minus a few degrees, the researcher can analyze scores of equally probable values for southern Colorado and communicate the uncertainty in their results.
What does this mean for recent heat rankings?
Every year, NASA scientists use GISTEMP to provide an annual global temperature update, with 2023 ranking as the hottest year to date.
Other researchers affirmed this finding, including NOAA and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. These institutions employ different, independent methods to assess Earth’s temperature. Copernicus, for instance, uses an advanced computer-generated approach known as reanalysis.
The records remain in broad agreement but can differ in some specific findings. Copernicus determined that July 2023 was Earth’s hottest month on record, for example, while NASA found July 2024 had a narrow edge. The new ensemble analysis has now shown that the difference between the two months is smaller than the uncertainties in the data. In other words, they are effectively tied for hottest. Within the larger historical record the new ensemble estimates for summer 2024 were likely 2.52-2.86 degrees F (1.40-1.59 degrees C) warmer than the late 19th century, while 2023 was likely 2.34-2.68 degrees F (1.30-1.49 degrees C) warmer.
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Last Updated Sep 11, 2024 LocationGISS Related Terms
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