Angie Franzke...

Hello from NASA!! I don't know why you clicked on my name out of all the co-ops here, (I'm not fooling myself, you're probably someone who already knows me that I told to check this out and you already understand how big of a dork I am), but hopefully I'll be able to keep your attention long enough to read this somewhat rambling account of me and what co-oping at NASA is all about.

I grew up in east central Wisconsin, in the little town of Omro, population of just over 3,000. (That's right, I drink from a bubbler, water fountains are things that spout water from little ponds) I go to school at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and am planning on graduating in December 2006 with a degree in Engineering Mechanics and Astronautics and a certificate in Technical Communications.

I graduated from a small high school with a graduating class of 86 people. I was fairly involved, mostly in playing sports. Moving to Madison, a city of about 200,000 was a bit of a shock for me, and it took me awhile to adjust. But now I love Madison and have to admit that it's the best school around!! Go Badgers!! I'm very involved in the school, mostly in Polygon (PITMFS!!!!) which is our Engineering Student Council. I wasn't sure how I'd manage adjusting to Houston, with a population of about 2,000,000, but there is a ton to do in this area and I'm having a great time!

Like many people here, I've always loved space, and NASA has been the only place I've really ever wanted to work. When I found out that JSC was going to be at a career fair the week after Thanksgiving break my sophomore year, I made sure to go. That evening, I got a phone call to set up an interview. I was sitting on the couch in my apartment and after hanging up, I jumped off the couch and hit my head on our ceiling fan. I was just a little excited. But after my interview, I had to wait over 3 months to hear back. I was just starting to give up all hope when I walked through our front door the Wednesday before spring break and saw 'NASA called' written on our white board. I just about passed out, especially because Bob Musgrove, the head of the co-op office here, was out of the office until the next week. That weekend went by slower than any weekend could possibly go as I waited until the next Monday morning when I could call him back. Needless to say, I was offered a job and moved down to Houston Texas about a year later.

I found out where I would be working a couple days before I left to come down here. I was really nervous at first because I'm in ES3, the Thermal Analysis branch of the Engineering Structures Division. The people here work on computer analysis of heat transfer - I haven't taken Heat Transfer, and my computer analysis class was probably the most detested class I've taken. I shouldn't have worried; the first week or so was pretty hard because I had a million new terms and acronyms thrown at me, but it got better fast.

I have three projects that I'm working on down here. I'm doing thermal analysis for the PEVIT (Portable EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) Videoscope Inspection Tool. where else but NASA will you find an acronym inside an acronym?), which is basically a camera that can be snaked into little openings so astronauts can check out problems like divots in the heat tiles. I built a simple computer model of the camera casing and I'm seeing how hot and cold it gets as a result of the inner circuitry, as well as heat from the sun and cold from space. For my second project, I'm taking pictures of some heaters I ordered with an infrared camera to see if it can tell whether the heaters have been misinstalled. The heaters are basically pieces of scotch tape that get stuck on things and warm them up, but if there are little air bubbles in the adhesive, the heater can get too hot and burn out. This happened on the International Space Station, so I'm making sure they can be tested for misinstallation before they get up into space and burn out. For my third project, I'm modeling a component that was tested in a low pressure environment. The low pressure approximates a vacuum, but it's not exactly the same. My computer model should show what the difference would be between a low pressure test and a complete vacuum so we'll know if the test was good enough.

Well that's 40 hours a week of my life, so what do I do with the other 128 hours? Unfortunately, I do sleep away 40 - 60 of them, but there's just so much fun stuff to do! I've taken a couple road trips: San Antonio to see the Alamo and the Riverwalk, Austin to see Phantom of the Opera, New Orleans for Mardi Gras, Huntsville for camping and SCUBA certification. There is so much to do in Houston; during the week, I hang out with other co-ops, going running, playing sports, going out to eat, to plays, to concerts, there's rock climbing, movies, dancing, just about anything you want to do.

So that's what its like to be a NASA co-op! If you have any questions about anything, or just want to talk to someone who is already here, you can email me during the spring or summer at angela.k.franzke@nasa.gov, or anytime at akfranzke@wisc.edu. Any other correspondence however, especially complaints, can go to Greg at gregory.w.mattes@nasa.gov.