This week has been taking a large toll on all of us energy wise, but the morning wakeups just keep on coming! Again, breakfast at the hotel at 6am, on the bus at 6:30am – the routine was becoming pretty second nature by now. The bus ride was filled with more frantic ChallengeX preparations from the finalist teams, while the rest of us were completely knocked out with the need for 45 more minutes of sleep!!

Another random sidenote: the funky road signs in Texas, which I don’t think we’ve mentioned. Some favourites are the ‘yield’ signs- exactly the same shape, colour, size, font and meaning apparently as our ‘give way’ signs, and the classic ‘don’t block the box’ signs at intersections, which have become iconic to our group.

First up today was a movie about an EVA (extra-vehicular activity) mission which had gone wrong. EVA 23 was a mission that was meant to be a ‘boring’ outing to check on an outside element of the International Space Station, however, it ended with much more ‘excitement’ than anticipated. Luca Parmitano was out with Chris Cassidy, when he felt some water on the back of his head. This turned out not to be a leak from his water bottle, but the temperature control layer in his space suit- a clothing layer laced with water tubes for heating or cooling. This continued to intensify, with us audience in the theater getting more and more stressed, while incredibly and somewhat frustratingly, mission control did not seem to take this as a serious threat and had him continue with the mission. It was not until the water, which clings tightly to objects and wraps around them in microgravity conditions, had blocked his ears and eyes, preventing communication and vision, and was heading for his mouth, that he was finally told to head back to the station. Though the movie was very dramatised, it was pretty terrifying to watch (though also really interesting), and taught a few of us that we could never be astronauts if this level of calm in life-threatening situations is required!

After this, we had guest speaker Jessica Vos come to talk to us about her work at NASA. Her areas of specialty were aerospace/spacecraft systems engineering and health science, so she is able to combine this in her job training astronauts and testing various elements of space modules, specifically working as an Orion spacecraft systems engineer. It was inspiring to hear her stories about her journey to work with NASA, as well as the advice that there is not one thing that is sought in an astronaut application or an application to work for this incredible company- it is the things that make you unique that distinguish you from the others and make you more likely to be hired. Unfortunately half of B24, despite valiant efforts, were passed out… Her talk was super interesting- when we were awake enough to process it- but late night Challenge X-capades meant that the finalists were scrounging for any sleep they could manage.

After this we headed outside for our tram tour. We piled into the carriages of a vehicle that seemed like some bus/train hybrid with open sides, and drove out through the gate for an adventure narrated by our guide Steve. On this outing we got to appreciate just how large the Johnson Space Center really is! There are so many different buildings for so many different things- it is almost like a town of its own. Various companies even donated bikes so employees could get around the ‘Space City’ in a more sustainable way without having to drive everywhere.

After an exciting tunnel, through which everyone took great delight in ‘woooo’-ing loudly (if we weren’t eking out any minute of sleep possible), we emerged next to a large green paddock containing Texan longhorn cattle, which are owned by NASA alongside their rockets. These are predominantly kept for educational purposes to allow NASA to have a more involved role in the community.

One of the first sites we visited was a mission control mockup, where a team of people were busy training to be in the real mission control for the International Space Station through use of a simulation. On the way in, we passed a display of the old monitors that were used in the past for mission control- though these had many switches and dials for adjustment, at that point in time, computers were still so huge that they had to be kept in separate rooms! We also passed the real mission control room that is used today, though photos of this room were prohibited and we were ushered quickly past lest we distract them from their calculations! It was really cool to see these setups especially after we did our own flight simulation at the George Observatory- though this was a lot more technical than our experience, the stations had the same names and were more or less carrying out the same tasks.

Next up we ‘mobilised’ at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. This is where various astronauts and engineers collaborate to develop new space exploration vehicles, as well as training for upcoming missions. This was one hall-length full of epicness!! Though we were behind the viewing glass, we got to get up close and have a good look at many amazing pieces of technology, such as Valkyrie (a next generation humanoid robot R5), Orion (a crewed space capsule under evaluation and testing, as well as design finalisation, intended to take astronauts to or beyond low earth orbit) and the Boeing Starliner (another crew transportation capsule for travel to the ISS). Robonaut, another humanoid robot, was also there, along with Gabi’s favourite- spidernaut- a terrifyingly lifelike giant robotic spider that you would not like to have chasing you… Similar to in the NBL, the ceiling also held a giant hydraulic lifting system for moving the mockups around.

The tour finished up with a visit to the Saturn 5 in residence. 13 of these gigantic 3-stage rockets were made and 10 used for missions such as launching Skylab, leaving 3 which are housed at the Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center and Huntsville Space & Rocket Center. The colossal beast was lying on its side in a shed, separated out into its 3 sections so the various engines were visible. Gabi was very knowledgeable about them so we enjoyed all her random facts. She also pointed out that though the whole rocket is about 110m long, the actual capsule (the bit that houses the astronauts and goes into space) is only about 10m long! It was so fascinating to see one of these beasts in real life, especially after watching the Space Race documentary which featured the story of Wernher von Braun, one of its creators. We had a fun time trying to get a good photo- there was some impressive bunching and mobilising from all involved, some of the best yet, but it was still a massive task to try and get as much of the huge rocket in as possible!

Then we returned to the main center for our final tour. This was around various exhibits on the first rockets, manned and unmanned, featuring a cool story from Steve about the first extravehicular activity (space walk) in space, in which Ed White let go of a glove, which stayed in orbit for about a month before finally burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere- luckily it was a spare! Interestingly, the first rocket in the exhibit had its fuel source in front of the nose- not quite sure how that worked! It didn’t get to space (hmmm…) but was a good example of the importance of learning from trial and error in science! In the rest of the tour, we also got to touch a space capsule that had been in space, touch a real moon rock, as well as learn about the process of testing and preserving these, and finally walk through a model of American space station Skylab, another incredible piece of engineering.

A well-needed lunch followed after all that walking and listening! It was the same drill at the Zero G place, and this time Gabi came and had a ‘lunch date’ with a bunch of us Dio girls so we shoved a few tables together to make a big one.

Before we graduated, we were herded over to do a survey in a room outside. iPads had been set up for us to use, and it was good to be able to give some feedback on our awesome SpaceU experience! On the way back, we were ordered into our teams for graduation, and Gabi had us do mini conga lines- only the front person was allowed to have their eyes open, and the rest had to hold onto the shoulders in front of them and trust that they wouldn’t get their head bashed on anything… Ananya was an excellent ‘driver’ for Mariner 4, though we all had sore hands at the end from clinging on for dear life! Gabi had a good laugh and apparently got some good photos of many a worried face!

Finally it was time for our graduation! We filed back into the theater with the giant screen, along with B23 (Wellington) B22 (Aussies) and B21 (MORE Aussies…). Another random sidenote from Arnie: we’ve had a few encounters with the Aussies staying in the same hotel as us. The other day I took my roomie (Izzy from Westlake) to the nurse’s room to get some medication for the dodgy haematoma she had under her toenail after she bashed it on the edge while scuba diving. A couple of Aussies came in and said they liked our accents (something we don’t hear often!) and they asked us to say ‘fish and chips’- which we did, much to their amusement. After that we had to get them to repeat it so we could have our fit of laughter too- such fun! Anyway, back to graduation.
There has been an unofficial competition of enthusiasm between us and the other groups since day 1 when Gabi and Shana got us to cheer really loudly for their introduction. (this was definitely not after an unfortunately thwarted repeat kidnapping attempt from Chris so that their final team Grail member, a cardboard cutout proudly featured in their team photo, to make it to graduation…) Since we were the last group to all go up and get our graduation certificates, we decided this was the perfect opportunity to go out with a bang and outdo their enthusiasm (we’re not competitive at all…) So we cheered our throats dry with a big load of appreciation for all 41 girls in our group- we have become such a family- as well as having lots of laughs over the botched names (we felt sorry for the announcer lady having Ananya, Anneke and Aletia one after the other!!) We also had fun with the ‘walks’ across the stage, our group featuring the ‘worm’ on the ground, a forwards roll and some excellent dabbing. We were each presented with a fancy folder with our group photo and graduation certificate in it, which was very exciting! Next it was time for the teachers. The other groups had cottoned on to our enthusiasm so started cheering with more life for their teachers, but when it came to Philipp, Chris, Gabi and Shana, we nearly lifted the roof- on video it sounded like someone was being stabbed, there was that much screaming!! First, second and third placings were also given overall after the week’s challenges, with the medal presentations also getting more cheering from our team- no matter who it was that won, it was really nice that everyone was genuinely happy for each other!

Finally it was time to go back to the hotel for the ChallengeX finals! The final teams got changed into their blue shirts and got ready to go. The rest of us got busy making posters and getting dressed up with our props- giant sunglasses, pompoms, feather boas and more, ready to do even more cheering (for those of us that had any voice left).

Hi! This is Emma, and I was a part of Lunar Conversions. And it was terrifying.
Other than utterly nerve wracking, it was pretty exciting- getting to present your ideas (and hopefully watertight research?) to a panel of experts is not what I expected to be doing, but was pretty cool! After having to re-do our organisational structure and suddenly thrust into CEO, with some last second budget-fixing… thank goodness that wasn’t questioned… to be honest I felt a combo of totally out of my depth but also ready to get up (and get it over with). It was super exciting to be awarded the best design prize though, especially knowing that a slightly crazy idea of ours was something that people thought was cool too- though I was super glad to get a restful night after!

Though they were full of nerves, with many shaking hands and knees, Lunar Conversions and Karman Beyond absolutely ‘slayed the game’ as we like to say- we were so proud to see them up there doing such a great job with their presentations. The preparation was especially visible when it came to the questioning by the judges, with Emma and Jemima rattling off justifications like pros and leaving the panel speechless- woohooo!!!

And finally we were given the glorious luxury of an early night! A truly early night and a good sleep with nothing more to stress about!

(shoutout to eating through all our excess snacks with netflix!)