This page details many of the different experiences we've had as HPNs!

Donald Pettit at the Baker Institute

Donald Pettit, a former NASA astronaut, gave an extremly interesting presentation on April 11, 2006 at the Baker Institute concerning his scientific research experiments that he conducted as part of the ISS Expedition 6 (click here to see a Baker Institute PDF that includes a description of the event). He discussed the different experiments that he conducted in null gravity and showed us pictures of cities at nighttime, taken with a specially designed camera setup. He even showed us a shot of Houston! We were excited to learn about the continuing research that takes place on the ISS. (Click here to see pictures of the presentation!)

Trip to Johnson Space Center

We visited NASA on November 28th, 2005 to get a tour of Johnson Space Center, go behind the scenes, and learn more about how our project fits into the rest of what NASA is doing. We were able to tour many interesting buildings, including three different mission control rooms (for the Apollo missions many years ago, ISS, and the shuttle).

Visit to Texas Orthopedics

We visited Texas Orthopedics on November 7th, 2005 and met with Dr. Gugenheim to see how current devices are being used to fix bone and help bones heal. He assisted us in many ways, including helping us find articles and giving us sample materials as well as evaluating our (then) current prototype.

Seeing Mars

On November 2nd, 2005, we visited the Rice Space Observatory to get a look at Mars up close! Right now, Mars is really bright in the sky; it won't be this bright until 2018, so now was our chance (and yours) to view Mars up close.

Click here for a writeup of our experiences at the Rice Space Observatory and with Dr. Gugenheim.

Visiting Dr. Skoracki

On October 7th, 2005 we visited Dr. Roman Skoracki, a plastic surgeon at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, to talk about how fractures are healed. He gave us significant insight into how bones are set, the conditions under which you might use certain techniques, and the complications associated with setting fractures.