Because if you study hard enough, you might get to do what John Herrington did in 2002. He wanted to turn a wrench in space, and he got his wish.
To a rapt audience of Hellgate Elementary School students Wednesday, Herrington explained the benefit of ignoring the teacher who once told him he wasn't smart enough for ninth-grade algebra. He eventually became an astronaut, and got to construct part of the International Space Station.
When you space-walk, eat a big meal beforehand, because you'll spend the next nine hours or so zipped inside with no lunch break. Toilet facilities are self-contained (diapers).
You'll do a lot of work with power wrenches. But remember to hang onto something else while you work, or the wrench will spin you instead of your bolt. The idea of hanging onto the edge of a space station 220 miles above the planet, with nothing but open space on the other side, is exciting - not scary.
You can work a week in a workday, as the Earth spins beneath you a full rotation every 90 minutes. There's no pizza in space, and accidentally snorting cookie crumbs into your sinuses can be hazardous to your health, but you can suck floating blobs of orange juice from the inside out.
When you're done for the day, zip yourself in a sleeping bag on what used to be the ceiling of the space shuttle: Remember to Velcro your head to the pillow.
But first, you've got to get comfortable with math. Herrington told the students he had little use for the subject in school, and eventually dropped out of college in his first year because he wasn't motivated to study.
Instead, he put his rock-climbing skills to work as a surveyor who could take measurements on cliff faces. He'd hold a little mirror to the rock while his partner would bounce an infrared beam off it. Then they'd use the speed of light to calculate the distances involved, and trigonometry to determine the angles and dimensions of the cliff.
“I started having fun with math, because I understood what it was for,” Herrington said. He joined the Navy, where he discovered many of the space heroes he'd revered in childhood had been naval aviators. He earned a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering. He also became a naval test pilot and instructor. In 1996, he became an astronaut.
He's logged 3,300 hours flying various aircraft, but the fastest he's ever gone was 17,500 mph while hanging onto the side of the space station. Do the math: That's five miles a second.
About two out of five Hellgate Elementary students have trouble seeing the value of math lessons, fifth-grade teacher Karen Peterson said. Hellgate is part of the NASA Explorer School program, and uses the space agency resources to make the subject more intriguing. Getting visits from real astronauts is one of the benefits, she said.
“Making these math and science connections are key, especially since so many aerospace industries are getting ready to retire so much of their staff,” Peterson said. “Plus, it's so motivating to see different kinds of heroes besides sports and Hollywood people. It seems all the kids want to be NFL stars or rock stars. This gives them a chance to meet a different role model.”
Sixth-grader Noah Eslick grabbed his chance during the question-and-answer period. After watching Herrington's videos of water blobs floating around the space shuttle, Eslick wanted to know what would happen if you trapped one in a jar. Would it fall down because of the air pressure?
No, Herrington said, because it was the lack of gravity, not air pressure that kept the water floating. But because water has surface tension, it would stick to the side of the jar. Rocket scientists work on these kinds of “microgravity” problems all the time during shuttle and space station missions.
Because it costs so much to blast things into space, there's very little up there that's not necessary for some mission or other. The Russian cosmonauts in the space station have a little shrine to first man in space Yuri Gagarin, and a toy hula dancer. Herrington brought an eagle feather (he was the first Chickasaw Indian in space) and a wooden flute (whose finger holes must be mathematically positioned or they won't play right). He also carried a flag from the Crow Reservation, which he is returning to Lodge Grass later this month.
He'll be in Lodge Grass, because it's on his way from the Washington coast to Cape Canaveral, on the Florida coast. Herrington's making the journey by bicycle, stopping at every reservation school and NASA explorer school (such as Hellgate Elementary) he can.
He's pedaling between 50 to 90 miles a day. Once in space, he worked out on an exercise bike and noticed it took him just 22 minutes to pedal across the Pacific Ocean.
For Hellgate Middle School Principal Bruce Whitehead, visits like Herrington's make math easier.
“This is a way to enrich the curriculum in these days of testing,” Whitehead said. “And there may be a future astronaut in here.”
In the air, on the Net
Follow NASA astronaut John Herrington's cross-country bike trek and check out the math puzzles he's developed along the way on the Internet at www.rocketrek.com or www.johnbherrington.com
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com.
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