Ansley Browns, Payload Facilities Integrator, International Space Station Programs Office, NASA- Johnson Space Center
Our guest speaker was Ansley Browns, who was Zooming in from Houston, Texas where she is on the staff of NASA- National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Ansley started her interest in science at a young age including space camp in 7th grade. She joined NASA in 2001 and worked in Mission Control from 2003 – ’13. She now serves as the payload facility integrator at the Johnson Space Center.
Ansley filled our minds with many facts about the current space program. The International Space Station (ISS) travels at 17,500 miles per hour and takes 92 minutes to orbit the earth! Currently, astronaut Christina Cook has the longest duration in space at 328 days. She and others are involved in experiments that are done in zero gravity.
All astronauts travel to and from the International Space Station via the Russian Soyuz rockets which are launched from central Asia. There are 15 countries involved in the space station and astronauts have been rotating to the “ISS” since 2000. The astronauts usually have a six-month stay on the space station. It is truly a peaceful, international collaboration.
This summer the Spacex Dragon Endeavor, a private entity, transported astronauts to the ISS and had a successful “splashdown” upon return. This was the first splashdown for the US space program since 1975. There is another private entity coming this fall built by Boeing and dubbed the “Starliner”
A new program called Artemis (sister to Apollo in Greek mythology) will launch in 2021, 2023, and 2024 with an eventual goal to make it to Mars.
Written By: Scott Burleson
