Jay Buckey

I was very appreciative of the opportunity for astronaut Jay Buckey to come speak to our class. I thought it was beneficial in a few different ways—plus it was fun and I thought it was great to have a guest speaker.

One thing I really enjoyed learning about were all the different animals that were brought along with Spacelab. I thought it was impressive that they managed to keep oyster toadfish, which of course need water—an aquarium in microgravity! I was also intrigued by the experiment with the space rats versus the ground rats. The space rats, after returning to the earth, were able to adapt and walk normally, even though they had developed in space. So microgravity did not really affect their development, except that they had more difficulty than the ground rats in flipping themselves over when turned on their backs.

Furthermore, it was interesting that Dr. Buckey talked about Neurolab as being the most scientifically intense shuttle mission. He seemed rather disappointed that NASA has not sent up any more missions like Neurolab—and now the shuttle program is ending. But Dr. Buckey talked about his interest in long-duration spaceflight, particularly to Mars. He said that the three major issues would be bone loss, radiation, and the psychosocial effects of such a long flight. However, he would like to see NASA become more goal directed in regards to the International Space Station, and I can agree with that. We need firm dates plotted along a timeline to ensure more productivity.

Additionally, I really like what he said about investing in the spaceflight program: if every investment is a winner, then maybe we are not investing enough. We cannot be scared to send humans into space just because there might be some risk involved; we cannot know all the direct benefits of human spaceflight. And I agree with what Dr. Buckey said about demonstrating our reliability by continuing to send humans into space. Then, we can maintain our capability to travel into space, and I certainly think that is beneficial to us.

Plus, the United States needs to be the forerunner of the "next new industry." Maybe that means commercial spaceflight—Obama seems open to that, based on his new vision for spaceflight. Obama would rather push forward towards Mars or an asteroid instead of continuing with missions to low-earth orbit, leaving room for commercial endeavors.

Thus, Dr. Buckey basically solidified my argument for human spaceflight—and I thought he was very eloquent about it. It was clearly very interesting to hear about an astronaut's perspective on the United States space program since he is the one actually involved in it.