NASA Engineer Talks About Preparations For Epic Journey
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Since the 1970s, NASA has been working on sending a manned spacecraft to Mars. Now, it’s hoping to do that sometime in the 2030s. Saturday afternoon, Norman Tokarz, chief of operations and test management division for Ground Systems Development and Operations, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, spoke in the Lakeview Middle School auditorium about how NASA hopes to accomplish that. His presentation was part of the Kosciusko County Celebrates Indiana’s Bicentennial weekend of events. Before his presentation, during a short interview, Tokarz said a lot of times the common questions he gets from students are about how astronauts clean themselves in space, how they use the bathroom and what kind of college degrees are needed to become an astronaut. He includes that kind of information at the end of his presentation. “I’ll be talking about NASA’s journey to Mars, why we’re going, some of what we’ve done in the past about that and some of the past rockets we have and what we’re doing in Florida, at the Kennedy Space Center, to prepare for the journey to Mars,”?he said. Asked if people are surprised that NASA is planning to go to Mars in the next 14-24 years, Tokarz replied that they’re surprised Kennedy Space Center is still open and doing stuff. “That’s part of the message too – we’re open for business and we’re doing a lot of work, and we’re doing a lot of interesting things. So that’s part of the message as well. We’re getting ready for that journey, so we’re getting the word out that we’re doing something because a lot of people aren’t aware of that,” he said. Warsaw Community High School physics teacher Melissa Warner introduced Tokarz before his public presentation. “I’m here to talk about NASA is going to Mars,” Tokarz said in his opening comments. “We’re going to send humans to Mars probably in the 2030s, maybe a little later. But we are on the path of doing it, it’s a big deal, and we are committed to doing it.” After showing the first of two videos during his presentation, Tokarz said people always ask about the interesting in sending people to Mars. He said it’s about gaining knowledge and technology, being explorers. He talked about the rockets NASA has used in the past and the ones it’s planning to use for the Mars journey. He discussed past Mars exploration with the use of rovers and what they’ve learned so far. He went into planning for the trajectory of the space rocket and how that had to be calculated. At its closest distance, Mars is 34 million miles from Earth. While it took three days to reach the Moon, Tokarz said it will take seven to ninth months to reach Mars. The planet has four seasons, but the seasons are longer because it takes longer for Mars to orbit the sun. For the young people in the audience who likely will be the generation that makes the trip, Tokarz talked about the degrees they will need and the many different types of jobs NASA has. Many of those jobs are in the engineering field. He concluded his presentation with a question-and-answer session.
