NASA’s homebuilder,
astronaut, EAA member visits AirVenture
By Frederick A. Johnsen
NASA Public Affairs
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Scott Horowitz,
NASA astronaut and associate administrator for exploration
systems, spoke with AirVenture visitors. Photo by Mike Ullery |
When Scott Horowitz comes
to AirVenture, he’s a homebuilder, a jet pilot, an astronaut, and
more. Builder and pilot of an upgraded Quickie airplane (a photo of
which he proudly carries in his wallet), Horowitz is a retired U.S. Air
Force colonel and F-15 pilot who just happens to have four space shuttle
missions under his belt.
Now associate
administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate,
Horowitz leads NASA’s efforts to develop the next generation of
spacecraft that will return humans to the moon and later to Mars and
beyond.
At a forum on Friday,
Horowitz told a crowd how one of his space shuttle missions included an
incredible science experiment, with the shuttle and a small satellite
tethered to each other by a 12-mile-long wire creating a dipole device
capable of generating 5,000 volts and one amp current as the two linked
objects orbited through the plasma in space. Another of his
extra-terrestrial voyages was to service the Hubble space telescope in
1997.
As he spoke with his
audience, Scott showed home movies like no others¾from space.
Offloading bundles of cargo from the space shuttle to the International
Space Station looked like fun as Horowitz and his crewmates pushed boxes
effortlessly through air in their weightless environment. He described
the importance of exercising in space, due to muscle and bone atrophy,
and described spring-loaded weight-lifting machines to replicate the
effects of gravity, and a treadmill with straps to keep the exerciser
from flying off the machine where gravity doesn’t enter the equation.
Scott acknowledged there is much to be learned about the effects of
long-term space travel. A vibrating pad that stimulates the feet might
counteract bone loss in space, Horowitz said. And the secrets to keeping
bones strong in space may also unlock ways to curb osteoporosis here on
earth, he added.
The remaining space
shuttle flights will haul to orbit enough components for the
International Space Station (ISS) to complete it by 2010, when the
shuttles are expected to retire. Scott said the growing space station
will one day be big enough to be visible sometimes in the daylight sky
as it passes 200 miles overhead.
Horowitz complimented EAA
for the educational components of the organization’s museum here on
Wittman Field. A champion of education, he was pleased to see how the
Oshkosh experience motivates people, but he decried a loss of interest
American students have shown in science and engineering degrees in the
post-Apollo era. He gave the audience statistics showing in the last
three decades, science and engineering degrees account for only 33
percent of degree programs completed by students in the United States,
while that figure is 73 percent in China and 45 percent in Korea.
When asked why it will
take longer for Americans to be ready to return to the moon than it did
to go there the first time with Apollo, Horowitz reminded his audience
that the NASA budget was four percent of the U.S. total budget in the
1960s. Today it is somewhere around six-tenths of one percent. That
budget reality, plus the ability to conduct more extensive safety
testing, will stretch the lunar timetable. Another shift in the way NASA
does business will see more in-house engineering performed on the new
wave of lunar space vehicles, he said.
Scott Horowitz has an
important mission for NASA. But he’s more than an astronaut and an
associate administrator. He’s an EAA homebuilt pilot, and he speaks
the language of AirVenture.
