San Quentin’s Vocational Machine Shop students have begun training for a new project launched by NASA Ames.
Vocational Machine Shop instructor Richard Sanez and his students welcomed NASA-Ames Laboratory officials Peter Kulper and Adriana Cardenas to San Quentin’s Vocation Machine Shop to inaugurate the cooperative training program.
“This program is the first of its kind that we know of,” Cardenas stated to the classroom of highly focused students. “NASA-Ames is the only space center in the United States with this type of program.”
Kulper spent several hours instructing shop students on the first two chapters from new textbooks donated to the class. The textbooks entitled, “Understanding Space-An Introduction to Astronautics,” are college-level texts, covering topics on Space Mission Architecture, Space System Engineering, and Spacecraft Subsystems. Kulper also used a computerized slide presentation to discuss Space History.
Students walked away with a greater insight into how the space program in the U.S. positively affects their lives. They discussed the large number of satellites orbiting the earth at distances from low-orbit (250-350 miles) to high-orbit (24,000 miles). They include communication and GPS (global positioning) navigation satellites that enable near instantaneous global connection between individuals anywhere on earth.
“Every time you see the news on television, those live, instant conversations between reporters in different countries” are thanks to satellite technology, Kulper told the class. “Those four-color moving weather maps are signals being bounced off the satellites. Even banks use the satellites to move information around.”
Military and spy satellites are mostly in mid-orbit at about 10,000 miles above earth, he said. This is a “compromise orbit” involving military officials and scientists. Not much else could be said, he added, other than that these satellites are not supposed to target the U.S. for surveillance, just other countries.
Guest teachers are being scheduled to come regularly to S.Q. to teach the various chapters on the new text. The goal is to give all involved a broad understanding of the space program that will better support the understanding of the work the Machine Shop will eventually be doing. That work is projected to be the machining of “P-pod” parts. Those parts will be assembled to house certain scientific experiments included in future space missions.
Cardenas told the class that since NASA is no longer flying the Space Shuttle, part of the space agency’s new focus will be to encourage private industry to step up their development efforts and contributions to further the U.S. Space Program. If all goes well, paroled machinists from S.Q. should have a leg up on the competition.
—Staff Writer Micheal Cooke contributed to this story.
