Have you ever tried to plan something a month or even 6 months in advance? Did everything go as planned? If you are married or have previously planned a wedding, try to think back to that planning process where 6 months or even a year in advance you were trying to plan out the entire day. Instead of just planning out a day, try planning out 6 weeks, now THAT is a real challenge! But that is exactly what NASA wants us to try to do with our November 11th launch date. I previously wrote about planning for everything that needs to be supplied in the office and laboratories (The Blank Slate Part 1 & The Blank Slate Part 2), what I hadn’t mentioned was the onerous task of trying to premeditate what days you will be in which buildings at what times. Yes, you read that correctly, we have to estimate what time we will arrive to which buildings. This is required as a NASA escort will have to be with us at all times. If some of our team members are in the offices, while some are in the animal facility, and others in the wet laboratories, this will require 3 separate escorts. Thus, NASA needs to understand their staffing needs to obtain budget and scheduling approvals. In my future blog, I will discuss our tentative time line and the people involved so you can better appreciate the complex scheduling and the enormous personnel-associated costs both from our end and from NASA’s end to prepare for spaceflight investigations!
Written by Melissa Kacena
Image courtesy of vectorolie at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
