Astronauts answer questions from Iowa 4-H members

AMES — NASA flight engineers and astronauts Nick Hague and Matt Dominick aboard the International Space Station Expedition 72 answered questions from Iowa 4-H youth and other students via live downlink Oct. 21.

The event, sponsored by the Iowa 4-H Youth Development Program, Iowa State University's Space Grant Consortium and The World Food Prize, was streamed live on YouTube, NASA TV, the NASA smartphone app and the STARS website.

An audience of Iowa students viewed the downlink interchange as it was beamed from the International Space Station to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and then to Iowa. The questions were prerecorded, and the conversation took place as seamlessly as a cellphone conversation anywhere on Earth.

4-H Team Neutrino FIRST Robotics club member Laura asked, "How efficient is the water recycling system on the International Space Station?"

"Water recycling is super important to us here. Water is very dense, and so if we were not efficient with the way we handled our water, we'd have to be launching more, and it's pretty expensive per kilogram to launch things," explained Dominick.

"We're in the mid to high 90s for water recycling, and we keep working on it more and more to eke out that last few percentages. The farther we go from Earth, you know, to the moon and Mars, the more efficient we're going to need to be with managing our water as we transit."

Hague said advancing research in space related to food production is necessary to allow long-term exploration toward the moon and onto Mars. He explained that they were in the Columbus module, a laboratory where they grow vegetables.

"Soil is a little more difficult [because] it can spread around and it's difficult to control in a microgravity environment, so we typically focus on hydroponics and how we grow plants with water absent the soil," Hague said.

"We want to develop the technologies up here in zero-G that allow us to be more efficient in how we grow food. We're able to recycle the same water over and over again in the growth cycle there," Dominick added.

"So just [recently], we spent a lot of time focusing on how to move water around in tubes to grow plants and to do it in an efficient way.“

"Food production is an important part of what we do at Iowa State. Not just in Iowa but working with groups like the World Food Prize and colleagues around the world to imagine a future where there's enough food for everyone," said Jason Keith, senior vice president and provost at Iowa State University.

"Space exploration also plays a role in solving this challenge, and that is what brings us together today."

Another high school 4-H Club member, Fyona, asked, "How does robotics improve your daily life on the International Space Station?"

"Robotics is everywhere, and I'll expand that just to … human task versus computer task,“ Dominick said.

“The more tasks that we can shed from humans to computers [and] computers to robotics, allows us to be more efficient with our time and move humanity further into the solar system."

Automation integration greatly impacts their ability to allow NASA professionals to focus on doing more science and experimentation, Dominick said.

The International Space Station “is run by computers and robots everywhere, and we step in, and each of our tasks as we go to the moon [and] to Mars, we're building more robots to take things away from humans and put them into computers so we can get more done."

Lily, a Story County 4-H member, asked about microgravity and how the astronauts have experienced it aboard the International Space Station.

"I think I envisioned and dreamed about what it would be like to float, but until you were immersed in it, you just don't truly appreciate how fascinating it is,“ said Hague.

“One of the things that I love to do is to just look at water."

Dominick floated closer to the camera to demonstrate to listeners how water behaves when released from a contained bag.

"The magic of the space station is the fact that we can expose experiments to long-term microgravity. It's not a fraction of a second. It's not multiple seconds or a minute, but it's potentially years," Hague said.

"This water floating here demonstrates we can just take away gravity from this — from this equation, and when you take gravity away from these experiments, you start to … understand some of the nuances that drive big changes inside of materials, inside of reactions, and that helps us understand things at a deeper level and make breakthroughs in scientific fields."

Dominick encouraged attendees to think about how much gravity impacts their lives.

"When you go outside in your backyard or on your college campus or wherever you happen to be, try and look at mechanisms and think about how much gravity helps you out and you don't even think about it. Something as simple as a fence latch. You know, when you close a gate on a fence, and it goes up a little over a little gradient and then drops down over the side of the latch, gravity puts it in position.

“Or if you're in agriculture, and you're baling hay, the bale that comes off the back of that hay baler falls off onto the ground conveniently — there's no mechanism to force that to happen.

"We have a lot of those problems up in space when we're doing, you know, for example, hydroponics. Bubbles don't go to the top of the fluid, right? So, a lot of those little things to think about in everyday life.

“So up here, we are testing ways to do things efficiently and grow things and reuse the same water. That [sort of mindset] is going to help us be more efficient in drought-stricken places," Dominick said.

"Through this downlink, students were able to think creatively about the intersection of science and technology and addressing food production challenges both on Earth and in space,“ Jon Wogman, director of global youth programs at the World Food Prize Foundation, said.

“As we face growing global populations, climate change and resource limitations, the need for innovative solutions has never been more urgent."

"In both 4-H and NASA, the journey of discovery is fueled by hands-on projects, where reflection, evaluation and goal setting transform experiences into profound learning opportunities," said Sara Nelson, Iowa 4-H state science specialist.

"Both organizations encourage innovative thinking, constantly seeking new and more efficient ways to achieve their goals."

4-H members were also among those participating in The World Food Prize Global Youth Institute, where they heard from NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson in person, watched the educational downlink, engaged in Plant the Moon activities and heard more about the NASA Deep Space Food Challenge.

For more information on the Iowa 4-H Youth Development program, contact your ISU Extension and Outreach county office or visit the Iowa 4-H website.