Shuttle research

So I was working at some big, rural on-the-edge-of-a-metro-city high-school gymnasium. [school image is from discussion of class reunion next year with one of my former classmates this evening before bed. We have a school tour as part of our reunion]

Its one of those large steel span buildings, although this one apparently had a retractable roof because while I was working I was able to notice this particularly odd jet flying by (it was kind of flying and sometimes rolling). It was like a flatbed work truck, and its payload was the aft of the Space Shuttle. Not the primary engine bells, but basically the entire back 20 feet of the shuttle, minus the main engines. (so yeah, you are imagining the distinctive back end, with just the two gimbal thrusters..). Well, seeing it I immediately freaked and was all jumping up and down and yelling “whoo hoo Space Shuttle! Yeah! whoohoo” both out of national pride and because,well, its the space shuttle! And it was a flying truck!

[space shuttle image comes from the brief scene of the New York piers where the carrier is docked in the movie “National Treasure” which I had watched the night before. In that image, a vehicle very Shuttle looking is parked next to it.]

So apparantly the driver was low enough to see me, all by myself in this empty, open air gym, so he descended and backed up toward me til I could actually touch the side of it. He actually told me to get on the truck rails and reach up and get onboard (so to speak). While I’m clamping to the edge of the thing so I can touch it better (it felt suprisingly like my folk’s RV..hmmm), the driver is telling me about the materials and a new testing program they are doing. [I don’t know where this is from.]

Well, he leaves, and apparently I was outside this whole time anyway, so when after my excitment disipates I go inside, and my gym is filled with water. But thats okay, because there’s also a 10′ rectangle of soem kind of composite foam floating near the door. It was from the space shuttle driver; I remember seeing him dump it out the back. Well I jump in, swim to them, and climb atop it. The foam was pliable but still rigid enough that I didn’t “crush” it as I climbed on it, and it barely sank into the water with my added weight.

The pilot is there now, and tells me I’ve been selected to perform a research project for NASA and the government. Apparently they are selecting people at random to demonstrate its effectiveness (as in, if any Joe-Blow can survive with this stuff, a trained professional will have no problem.)

So he’s telling me about the foam density and how the composite is layered and blah blah blah. I’m thinking I need to tell somebody about this. Suddenly, I’m floating next to a pay phone in the gym, and it rings. Its a woman from church calling to tell me about some art project we need to work on for church, and ironically she and her husband are Shuttle fans. [actually, they aren’t, at least not that I know of. But this woman looks like a friend Sandy, who lives in Florida not far from the launch site. Maybe thats where I got that.]

About this time, my alarm goes off. When I close my eyes from snoozing it, my gym is dry. But a military nurse looking woman shows up (in Air Force sweater, casual uniform) telling me I’ve been selected to participate in a reasearch program. It is a software based program to help crash survivors eat properly by comparing their previous meals and food selections to that of other people and then utilizing a list of foodstuffs on hand to recommend a meal.

Pretty bizarre stuff, especially for shuttle pilots.

But again, they were choosing me assuming that if it worked for someone who eats randomly as I, then it should work for a trained specialist. So she’s telling me this and takes a blood sample, and then she takes out a long needle and “loads it” (not from a standard syringe) telling me that all she needs to do is inject me with this and the software wll compute my diatary needs.

I realize that its not a liquid, but a medical transponder of some type. So I flatly and politely refuse. I will not accept subdermal identification. Too close to a Biblical horror (or, it IS a Biblical horror). I could see she was disapointed, because it means she’s wasted all this money and time on me up to this point. But I offer that if we could just discuss some answers and fill in some variables in her software by hardcoding instead of remote sensing, we might still make her research valid.

Which is what we did. Then I rushed to get my shower.