“A scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of a bamboo plant’s broken surface. The image reveals numerous channels (with different sizes) for water transport by capillary motion that enables the bamboo plant to grow. A porous “composite” structure as seen in the image would help in engineering structural materials capable of carrying fluids or gases internally.”

However, as always, what do you see here??

Have you ever been sitting in your car in the parking lot of the grocery store, minding your own business, when suddenly you see a rogue shopping cart go rolling at full speed, only to be abruptly stopped when it runs into some poor unsuspecting stranger’s car door?  For most normal people, their first thought is, “Oooo.  Bummer.  That’s gonna leave a mark!”  For me, my second thought is typically, “Hmm.  I wonder what the strain field would look like around that ding.”  (But then again, I’ve never claimed to be “normal”.) 

The majority of the work I do here at GE Global Research focuses on measuring “plastic strain” (as in…how much plastic strain did the grocery cart just put in the car door?).  Although I’ve never actually looked at a car door dent in my microscope, the concept is pretty much the same – I use a technique called Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) to look at various metals that have undergone some type of deformation process, then get a general idea of how much plastic strain or damage was introduced into the metal.  (For anyone that read my previous blog entries, these are the same type of measurements I made on the Space Shuttle bolts .)  Being able to measure plastic strain helps our understanding of how metals behave under certain conditions, and can also help us predict when a metal may fail.  I doubt that anyone has ever had their car door fall apart as a result of a shopping cart hit, but for the types of materials we work on here at GE, predicting the effects of plastic strain on things like aircraft engines and nuclear power plants is a pretty big deal!

Last year, my group held a contest to submit some of our work for a 2012 calendar, and I was lucky enough to have two of my images selected!  The January image is a “misorientation map” of a material in which we’re able to see fields of plastic strain produced by a second phase particle in a stainless steel.  What this means in plain English is the following:

I was looking at a stainless steel material when I noticed some weird, linear shaped particles in the matrix of the stainless steel.  (This was kind of a “Sesame Street” moment for me.  Remember the “One of these things is not like the other…” song?  Who knew that something I learned in elementary school would be useful when doing research?!?)  I knew that stainless steels have these particles, so I decided to have some fun and take a closer look at them (Figure 1.)

After getting a better look, I found that these particles had a different crystal structure than the stainless steel matrix, so I decided to collect a map of the area (Figure 2.)  Although the phase map is neat to look at, it doesn’t give me any real information about the plastic strain in the sample.  If I take the same data set and process it with a “misorientation” algorithm (developed here at GE Global Research), I get a different result – one that gives us insight into what the strain fields actually look like!  (Figure 3.)  So what exactly is this mysterious “misorientation” thing?  The term “misorientation” refers to a concept in crystallography where you measure the angles between two crystals.  Going back to our shopping cart and door dent example:  the car door had a certain orientation when it was sitting innocently in the parking lot (let’s call this “Orientation 1”).  Then along came the evil shopping cart and put a big dent in the door (this one will be “Orientation 2”).  The door now has a certain amount of distortion to it – a different shape than it originally was.  If we want to figure out how much the door has been deformed, we can calculate the difference between before and after the door was hit (or the difference between Orientation 1 and Orientation 2).

Misorientation is a little more complicated than this (and it occurs at a MUCH smaller scale!), but hopefully you get the general idea…it’s just a tool for us to measure strain.  In Figure 3 below, an area in red has high deformation (~10° or more), and an area with low deformation is blue.  What we learned from the measurements I made were that 1) we didn’t have a pure stainless steel matrix – we also had delta ferrite.  2)  In addition to having particles in the matrix, we can see from the misorientation map that the delta ferrite particles have a visible “plume” of strain coming off of them.  Ultimately, we learned that this material isn’t the composition that we thought it was, the delta ferrite particles were causing additional strain in the material.

Figure 1 (above): Backscatter electron images of particles.

Figure 2 (above): Phase map of delta ferrite particles (red) in a stainless steel matrix (blue).  This map is showing that the red and blue areas are crystallographically different.

Figure 3 (above):  Misorientation map of the same particles.  Note the red “plumes” of strain coming off of the delta ferrite particles.

Using the same technique, (EBSD for misorientation mapping) I measured a different material for the 2012 calendar’s July image (Figure 4).  This material is made from a cobalt alloy and during testing, the material ultimately failed.  (Cobalt alloys are typically used in high temperature corrosive environments .)  From the map below, we can see that there are multiple crack regions, plus there are areas of localized high strain (as indicated by the areas in red).

In the previous example, we were studying the material to prevent failure.  In this example, the material had already failed, but we needed to understand the mechanisms that lead to the failure.  In either situation, it makes for an interesting and colorful map.  (And I’ll bet that you never look at a grocery cart in a parking lot the same way now!)

Figure 4 (above):  EBSD misorientation map of a cobalt alloy.  Areas in black indicate regions where the material cracked, and ultimately failed.  Areas in red indicate localized regions of high strain.

As I’ve mentioned before, materials are at the core of almost every product and technology, making the materials characterization organization one of the most diverse groups within Global Research.  At the end of 2011, our “fun team” (yes, we do have fun at work) put together a really special project.  We prepared a 2012 calendar full of some of the most “beautiful” images that our group generated in 2011.  Calendars were provided to many of our colleagues, many of which fabricated the samples we analyzed; we also distributed them outside of our cafeteria, with the request for a donation to help support Habitat for Humanity and the Northeast Regional Food Bank.

For the next series of posts, I will be sharing the images from the calendar as well as some information about the materials in the images, the instrument which generated the images, and the team member that generated the image.  I hope you enjoy the photos, at the end of the series we will have a vote to see which is your favorite and we will select one of the voters and mail you one of our 2012 Materials Characterization calendars!

Our first image was generated by Ian Spinelli.  Ian tells us that his image (below) shows “a scanning electron micrograph of strengthening precipitates in a nickel-base superalloy.  Prior to imaging, a chemical etchant was used to remove the surrounding matrix.  The remaining particles are extremely small (the tiny spheres are only tens of nanometers in diameter).  They are formed by a process known as precipitation hardening, where the metal undergoes a heat-treatment in order to precipitate the particles from a supersaturated solid solution.  As a result, the chemistry and crystallography of the particles differ from the surrounding matrix, which makes them effective at impeding dislocation motion – the method by which metals deform under an applied load.  In summary, these precipitates give nickel-base superalloys the properties desirable for parts that are subjected to high temperatures and stresses, such as those found in gas turbines and jet engines.”

But you tell us… what do you see?

GE Global Research in Niskayuna held the first Electrification Week event in late 2011. The event brought researchers at Global Research, and engineers and business leaders together under one roof for five days. The discussion topics included GE technologies related to semiconductor devices and packaging, electrical machines, electrical insulation, and monitoring and diagnostics, which are key enablers to drive growth across many GE businesses – from Renewables, Oil & Gas, Energy Conversion, Energy Services to Aviation Systems, Transportation and Healthcare.

The event also invited new colleagues from acquisitions such as Lineage, Dresser, Woods Group, and Converteam. We exchanged ideas and communicated the latest exciting technologies and products from Global Research and GE businesses, we also shared best practices and synergies across GE.

The first day was focused on educating our customers with invited external speakers. GE internal presentations dedicated to power electronics, devices, machines, insulation and monitoring & diagnostics were arranged in parallel tracks with specially combined sessions focusing on technology interfaces. Poster sessions, lab tours and tutorials were also held in the week.

In future blogs, I will write about some of recent research and development activities, starting with summarizing contribution in Electrification Week, related to dielectrics and electrical insulation performed both at Global Research and around the world.

The workshop was organized by the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Madras, Combinatorial Sciences and Materials Informatics Collaboratory (CoSMIC), Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA in association with Defense Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), Hyderabad. The aim of the workshop was twofold: (1) to educate students and researchers in India about the power of 3DAPT and (2) to develop a national facility for 3DAPT in India.

The workshop was hosted by Professor B. S. Murty, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Madras. Dr. G. Sundararajan, Director of International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad gave the inaugural address, chalking out a plan for setting up an APT user facility in India. The series of technical talks included:

• Professor Ranganathan from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore who is regarded worldwide for his seminal work on Field-Ion Microscopy
• Professor Krishna Rajan from Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA talked about the need for computational efforts towards interpreting APT results
• Mr. Peter Clifton from CAMECA spoke on the evolution of 3DAPT
• Dr. Balamuralikrishnan from DMRL, Hyderabad, talked about the application of APT to understand atomic scale phenomena in steels and superalloys
• Dr. R. Gopalan from ARCI, Hyderabad, explained how APT helped him understand the magnetic properties of hard magnets
• Dr. Anirudha Biswas from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, described compositional evolution of nano-scale precipitates and precipitate/matrix interfaces in two aluminium alloys
• Professor B.S. Murty from IIT Madras, elucidated how 3DAPT aided in understanding of nanoquasicrystallization of metallic glasses, high entropy alloys and Fe based oxide dispersion strengthened alloys
• Dr. Satyanarayana V N T Kuchibhatla from Battelle Science and Technology India, Pune, illustrated the application of laser assisted APT for chemical imaging of GaN/InGaN multilayer thin films grown on GaN substrate
• Professor Chandan Srivastava from IISc, Bangalore, talked about the different techniques available for preparing APT samples
• The remaining talks centered around application of advanced transmission electron microscopy (TEM) especially with reference to analytical (chemical) imaging (given by Dr. M. Vijayalakshmi, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam) and aberration correction (given by Dr. G. K. Dey, BARC, Mumbai)

Overall, the workshop was very informative; GE could greatly benefit in understanding materials at the atomic scale using 3DAPT. In this regard, efforts are already underway at GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY, USA to collaborate with various facilities having 3DAPT that has so far yield three journal publications:
1. T.J. Prosa, R. Alvis, L. Tsakalakos, and V.S. Smentkowski “Characterization of dilute species within trimethylboron-grown silicon nanowires: protected lift-out specimen preparation for atom probe tomography” Journal of Microscopy – Short Communication 239 (2) (2010) 92 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2818.2010.03375.x
2. R. M. Ulfig, E. Oltman, D. J. Larson, and V. S. Smentkowski “Improvements in Three-Dimensional Compositional Analysis of Complex Alloys” Microscopy and Microanalysis, 15(2), (2009) 294 CD.doi: 10.1017/S1431927609098791
3. M.R. Keenan, V.S. Smentkowski, R. M. Ulfig, E. Oltman, D.J. Larson and T. F. Kelly “Atomic-scale phase composition through multivariate statistical analysis of atom probe tomography data” Microscopy and Microanalysis, 17(3) (2011) 418. DOI: 10.1017/S1431927611000353:

I wanted to provide some background information on Swarna.  She obtained her Bachelor’s degree from the Ethiraj College for Women and her Masters’ degree in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology  Madras .  She obtained her Ph.D. in Surface Science from the University of North Texas working with Professor Jeffry Kelber.  Swarna then worked briefly as a postdoc with Professor Robert Wallace in the development of gate oxides for field effect transistors at the University of North Texas before joining Global Research Bangalore in 2003.

Swarna is a Lead Scientist in the Materials Characterization lab in Bangalore where she serves as the point of contact for surface analysis for both Global Research sites in Bangalore and Shanghai.  Swarna also provides microscopy and microanalysis support to multiple projects at Bangalore.  Recently, she has started exploring positron based methods (PALS ) to characterize free volume (porosity) in materials.

In 2011 Swarna spent a significant amount of time working on: compact fluorescent lamps and linear fluorescent lamps phosphors, membranes, and coatings’ development for Hot Gas Path (in heavy fuel oil environments).

Swarna’s husband works as a General Manager for Human Resources at a company in Bangalore and they have a 4-year old daughter. Swarna is a trained Carnatic music singer, so singing & listening to Indian and western classical and light music is one of her passions.  She also enjoys gardening.

For one, the series kept me wanting to read more and I think it had the same effect externally.  Everyone wanted to learn more.  The blog empowered people to ask the questions they want (how do I get an invitation to attend a space shuttle launch?) and many readers commented that the story helped them (and/or their children) come out of their (shy) shell and realize that sometimes all you need to do is ask.

As well, the blogs also relate the science we do here at Global Research to real life events that everyone is aware of and can relate to.  The blogs show Michelle’s passion for both the research she performs at Global Research and her passion for space flight.   Her blogs also had a personal feeling – people were able to relate to what she was saying and become involved in the blogs – they wanted more content and information, they did not want the blogs to end.  Unfortunately, the shuttle launch was delayed a few times, and Michelle was not able to be there for the launch, however she assembled a final very positive blog –which  explained why she could not be present, again, the personal touch was something the blog readers could relate to.

If you have some time this weekend I encourage you to take a look back at these great blogs you may have missed.

Part 1:  How networking can land you a seat at a space shuttle launch

Part 2:  Trip to see the Endeavour Shuttle Launch

Part 3: Last flight of the Endeavour has been the trip of a lifetime

Inspired by space: From Space Shuttle Columbia to Endeavour to Atlantis

On Sat Oct 29, I flew to Nashville to attend the AVS 58^th Annual Symposium and Exhibition.  The symposium offered  more than 140 oral sessions on a variety of diverse topics, more than 1,300 talks, greater than 250 invited speakers, very heavily attended poster sessions on two nights, a large exhibitor show, a plenary talk (Scientific Discovery and Innovation for the Energy Challenge by Thomas Mason, ORNL), an award banquet, and tutorials.   More than 2,100 people registered and attended the symposium.   As I am the current chair of the Applied Surface Science Division (ASSD), all of my time was spent in ASSD sponsored sessions including the Helium Ion Focus Topic session which I worked with Armin Golzhauser to organize.   I could write a year’s worth of blogs summarizing the talks I attended, however they would only cover 9 of the >140 sessions at the meeting!  The important point I want to stress to the readers of this blog is that attending meetings such the annual AVS symposium is one of the best ways of finding out the “newest” developments in the fields of research.  The most important reason to attend meetings is the scientific discussions which take place during breaks.  In addition to discussing scientific research interests, I also spoke with colleagues about hiring strategies.  I also spent time providing information to vendors of scientific instrumentation and discussing how they should think outside of the box and provide “new” capabilities.   I always encourage people to attend meetings and engage in scientific discussions.  Scientists are very open, and willing to give you their thoughts on any topic you bring up.  As a scientist, it is of importance to keep in mind that people may say your idea is not good; however there have been times I was told “no one in their right mind would try that” – well…. Not to say I am in the right mind, but at least for a few crazy ideas I had did indeed work!

Although the 2011 AVS meeting just ended, the various divisions are now working to outline the 2012 program.  I am chairing the ASSD program committee in order to assemble the sessions for next years symposium.   I am glad to say that I have an exceptional program committee which is helping to assemble the ASSD program; I am also glad to see that each of the AVS divisions are working together, as a team, to assemble the strongest technical program possible.  The AVS 59^th Annual Symposium and Exhibition looks very strong!

While I am writing this blog, I am realizing one thing.  There are two drastically different topics being addressed in the text above.  It is of critical importance to stress that both of the events were successful due to the teamwork of a number of volunteers!

I also want to mention that the senior editor of The Bulletin and Ceramic Tech Today which is published by The American Ceramic Society came across an earlier blog I wrote and asked if I would be willing/able to write a manuscript for inclusion in the Jan/Feb 2012 issue which will be focused on surfaces and interfaces.  I took a few days to think about the opportunity, and realized that there have been a number of exciting analysis that I have performed, but never wrote up for publication as I could not disclose enough content on each of these samples (by themselves) to make a full manuscript (these are real GE samples).  Upon compiling the figures, I realized that they would make a very nice story, hence I have been spending the past few nights writing the manuscript.  I am glad to say that the article is coming together nicely.  The important point to note here is that this opportunity came about after the editorial team came across my blog.   There are many advantages associated with blogging!

I also want to let our readers know that we have a few interesting “mini-series” coming up.  One will be a match the image with the description.   Another will be a set of one or two page visual blogs illustrating the type of information the different analytical instruments can provide.

I want to close this blog by thanking our readers and wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

• 71 individuals received patent awards
• 28 awards for the first 20 filed patent applications
• 14 awards for 25 issued patents
• 10 awards for having 50 patents issued
• 3 awards for having 75 patents granted
• 84 researchers obtained publications awards
• 39 researchers obtained awards for 25 publications
• 15 had 50 publications
• 5 with 75 publications
• 2 had 100 publications
• GE scientist James Pickett obtained an award for 125 publications
• GE scientist Larry Lewis for 175 publications
• GE scientist Peter Andresen obtained an award for 375 publications!

It is of importance to point out that Jim Pickett is now among the top 10 most published authors at Global Research, Larry Lewis is the number two most published author, and Peter Andresen is by far the most prolific researcher with his sum of 375 publications.  It is also interesting to note that 5 of the recipients obtained two awards, and 3 recipients obtained three awards. Congratulations to all of the award winners!

Most people are aware that patents protect our inventions.  Documenting our research and findings in internal GE reports and/or external publications is also of critical importance as this provides everyone with access to the information/learnings.  Publishing results in external journals provides an excellent forum for telling the GE story to the entire scientific community.  I often obtain e-mail messages from colleagues at different GE businesses asking questions about papers (both internal and externally published) that I have written.

The excitement didn’t stop this week. Yesterday, at Global Research Niskayuna we hosted “TechFest” which is an afternoon where researchers highlight their work through poster presentations, video presentations, demonstrations, etc.  For me, this is an exciting day as I get to see how many of the “samples” I obtain for characterization become incorporated into devices/products.  It is also a great forum to become exposed to other projects where we can provide assistance.  Another enjoyable part of TechFest is the casual conversations with colleagues. I assisted at the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering booth. I will be posting content from the characterization team in upcoming blogs as a mini-series, so be certain to check back often! As well, over the next weeks our global locations will be holding their own TechFest events so we will share information on those events as they come.

For now, I wanted to share some photos from TechFest and encourage you to explore our album on Facebook of photos from the Technical Awards ceremony. Enjoy!

The main difference in the new instrument, vs.  the older instrument (which will be 10 years old on Sun Sept 11) is the low energy, high current density ion source which we utilize for erosion of material during dual beam  depth profile measurements.  The low energy feature of the ion source has allowed us to successfully depth profile through certain organic structures/interfaces with less degradation of the molecular structure.  The high current density has enabled us to erode to a depth of about 40 microns during an overnight depth profile analysis with surprisingly good depth resolution (the erosion rate of this material was very high).   CdTe based solar materials still remains a very hot topic at our facility and the faster erosion has enabled us to measure 3D depth profiles in a fraction of the time, which has resulted in more data sets that need to be carefully analyzed on a weekly basis, data work up is now our rate limiting step!  The 3D ToF-SIMS depth profile analysis allows us to measure contaminants both within the films and at the various interfaces.

Exciting developments are taking place in the field of ToF-SIMS, including new ion sources with a smaller spot size and higher sensitivity; these will be discussed at SIMS XVIII which will take place Sept 18-23 in Trentino Italy.  Unfortunately, I will not be attending SIMS XVIII.

In the Aug 2010 blog I mentioned that Albany NY region had the highest number of IonTof ToF-SIMS instruments in one metropolitan area with a quantity of 3 and that NY had the highest population by state with a quantity of 9. Another instrument was recently installed at GlobalFoundries hence both of these numbers increased.

The 2010 PRISM Awards for Photonics Innovation is an international competition that recognizes cutting-edge products that break conventional ideas, solve problems, and improve life through photonics. In 2010, over 100 applications were reviewed and scored by an international panel of experts.  The awards are presented at a reception held on Wed Jan 26, 2011.  There were 27 finalists from 9 categories.  The GE team won for the TrueSense Personal Water Analytics system in the Detectors, Sensing, Imaging, and Cameras category.  Additional information on TrueSense Personal Water Analytics is provided below.

Radislav Portrailo, Ron Wroczynski, and Terry Leib from GE Global Research as well as Kevin Milici from  GE Water & Process technologies attended the awards ceremony.  The team included: Ron Wroczynski,  Cheryl Surman, Duncan Pratt, Bill Flanagan, Bill Morris,  Andy Leach Vikram Upadhyay, Steve Hayashi, Martin Lee, Tim Sivavec, Mark Dausch, Greg Bradtke, Scott Quirion, Amy Linsebigler, and Terry Leib. as well as former Global Research employees: Marc Wisnudel, Lamyaa Hassib, Peter Miller, Jim Cawse, David Whitt, and Kasiraman Krishnan. The team also included Peter Kalish from GE Transportation and Alan Agree, Kevin Milici, and Scott Boyette from GE Water & Process Technologies

We congratulate the team on this prestigious award!

The TrueSense Personal Water Analytics (PWA) system is a self-contained, easy-to-use offline water testing system that ensures accurate results, quickly and reliably.  The system is comprised of a reader that performs routine measurements and stores data, consumable cards, and desktop manager software. Used with the cooling water card, the TrueSense PWA system evaluates a single 3 ml sample of water and provides simultaneous, easy to read results for multiple chemicalparmaters critical to cooling water in just minutes. Simple, on-screen instructions guide the user through all of the steps necessary to conduct test that produce reliable, accurate results every time with minimal training.

I would also like to report that Radislav Potryrailo was also elected a SPIE Fellow for achievements in fundamental breakthroughs in optical sensing and innovative analytical systems on Monday Jan 24^th.  Congratulations Radislav!  Many of our blog readers know Radislav from his blog postings: Commercializing RFID technology with Avery Dennison , Developing new bio-inspired sensors: breakthroughs from butterflies , Wearable RFID Sensors to Detect Airborne Toxins , New General Platform for Highly Selective Wireless Chemical and Biological Sensing , GRC’s sensor research highlighted in the news , GE.com features Nanotechnology Lab , and Discovery of selective vapor response with nanostructures of butterfly wing scales .

I wanted to write a quick post to let you know about a neat photo journal that you can now find in the online edition of The Atlantic. I think that this compilation of photos gives you a great behind-the-scenes view of what it is like at Global Research.  You should explore the photos and our Tumblr feed where we will be posting these images as well.

Enjoy!

On June 13, 2011, the story of GE’s battery research using synchrotron radiation was posted at DOE’s website, titled “GE Uses DOE Advanced Light Sources to Develop Revolutionary Battery Technology ”.  What you will read below is the story behind the story, more of a personal account, about our battery work at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS).  It’s about how we at GE Global Research work with national laboratories using their advanced characterization techniques to solve our important technological problems.

The NSLS is a user facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory, located almost in the geographic center of Long Island, about 50 miles east of New York City, and four-hour drive from GE Global Research in upstate New York.  The NSLS, as the DOE article described, is a “football field-size” facility, which can be easily spotted from Google Map.  It produces powerful x-rays called synchrotron radiation, which are several orders of magnitude more intense than laboratory x-rays and much more penetrating.

Synchrotron radiation was discovered at the GE Research Center in 1947, as mentioned by my colleague Ernie Hall in a previous posting.  At present time, there are more than 60 synchrotron light sources worldwide used by researchers from universities, national labs, and industries.  GE has been a synchrotron user since the 1980s, and has seen more applications in advanced materials characterization since 1995.  Prior to the battery research, we worked at many beamlines at the NSLS on a wide range of materials, most notably on hydrogen storage materials funded by DOE, and have collaborated with many scientists at the facility.  I spend a significant amount of time each year at the NSLS. So much so, that the lady at the Brookhaven housing office recognizes my voice when I call to make a reservation, which makes me feel special.  

The challenge for in-situ x-ray measurements of the battery cell is its sheer size, 3.5 cm square in cross-section and 23 cm long, and its steel casing.  Even synchrotron x-rays cannot penetrate through the cell unless they have very high energies.  Beamline X17, which is equipped with superconducting wigglers , is the only beamline at the NSLS that provides such high-energy x-rays and has the potential to be used for in-situ work.  There was another important attribute that made X17 unique: the strain-mapping facility located inside the B1 hutch, co-developed by Rutgers and the NSLS.  This facility, taking advantage of the intense, high-energy, white beam from the superconducting wigglers, can define a small probing volume inside a bulk metal sample such as a turbine blade, and accurately measure the lattice strain distribution non-destructively.

While X17B1 is the most ideal choice for the battery measurement as we can see now, it was not obvious at beginning.Our initial test measurement was more curiosity  than part of a grand plan.  In one of my trips to Brookhaven, I told Zhong Zhong, a brilliant physicist at the NSLS and the beamline scientist at X17, about our battery work at the FRM-II , a neutron research facility in Munich Germany.  He simply suggested that we could try it at the X17B1 beamline using the strain-mapping facility, because synchrotron has much higher flux than neutrons, and usually better spatial resolution.  He could “squeeze” a few hours out of Rutgers beam time to test a GE cell.  The key questions to answer were:if the x-ray beam could penetrate through the cell, if the measurement time would be fast enough for in-situ cycling, and if the data quality would be decent for phase analysis.  Zhong thought we had a good chance to succeed; from our long history of working together, he was right most of the time.

The feasibility test took place in October 2007 and went very well.  Soon after that, we went back to Brookhaven during our own beam time, equipped with furnace and battery cycler, to run the experiment at the operating temperature of 300°C and during charge or discharge cycles.  Since then, my colleagues and I have taken a few trips each year to Brookhaven, having about four days of beam time each visit, working days and nights at the beamline X17B1.  It was hard work but extremely rewarding, as we were capturing unseen phenomena as the cell was being cycled, which was not possible by other means; we learned new insights during each trip.  Our work there helped our colleagues back home to better understand the chemistry inside the cell and optimize the chemistry and materials processing.  As the synchrotron work went so well, we eventually stopped the neutron work at FRM-II after some preliminary measurements.

Of course, amid the hard work, we tried to have some pleasure as well, a balancing act between work and life, so to speak.  One of the critical decisions to make each evening was where to have dinner, (yes, a decent meal was allowed even during the beamtime): steak, seafood, Chinese, or Japanese.  No, we never went to McDonalds; that would have been bad for productivity and detrimental to enduring the long night hours ahead.

The battery team is a large multi-disciplinary team with mixed skill sets including chemistry, computational modeling, materials science, mechanical engineering, and so on. Many people have contributed to the synchrotron work at Brookhaven, either directly or indirectly, and they deserve special thanks for making this ongoing project successful.  In addition to the indispensible role played by Zhong Zhong as mentioned before, Prof. Mark Croft of Rutgers helped us with data management.  Inspired by the success on GE’s sodium metal chloride battery, Mark expanded the beamline to investigate  other battery system such as Li-ion battery.  Now Mark is leading an effort to propose a similar but more powerful high-energy beamline for NSLS-II , the new synchrotron source at Brookhaven (which was also mentioned in Ernie’s blog).  My GE colleagues Job Rijssenbeek and Guillermo Zappi, a chemist and an electrochemist respectively, spent many sleepless nights at Brookhaven over the past few years.  Their deep understandings of battery chemistry were essential to designing intelligent diffraction experiments.  GE’s Energy Storage Platform Leader Glen Merfeld , who values highly our external collaborations with the national labs, has been a strong supporter of the Brookhaven work from beginning.  It’s because of Glen and his counterpart at Brookhaven, Jim Misewich, this battery work got attention and progressed into DOE’s spotlight.

Reflecting on my experience of working at various national labs over the past many years, if there is something to be learned, it’s around communication. People working at national labs don’t quite know what problems the industrial folks are facing, and vice versa, the industrial people couldn’t keep up with the technical progresses made at the national labs.  For example, even though the strain-mapping facility at the X17B1 had been around for many years, it had never been used for battery research till we connected the dots, at least to my knowledge.   In O. Henry’s short story “ The Gifts of the Magi” , a young, money-stricken couple traded Christmas gifts with good intension but poor mutual understanding: the wife sold her beautiful long hair to buy a chain for her husband’s pocket watch, while the husband sold his pocket watch to buy a set of combs for his wife’s lovely long hair.  I know this was not the point O. Henry wanted to make, but you know what I mean. Like the young couple in the story, industry and national labs may wish to stick (work) together, but they need to communicate better and understand each other, in order to form the “perfect union” and get the most out of the relationship.

Part 1: How networking can land you a seat at a space shuttle launch
Part 2: Trip to see the Endeavour Shuttle launch
Part 3: Last flight of the Endeavour has been the trip of a lifetime

I’ve been back in New York for a couple of weeks now, and I’m finally beginning to catch up with the many things that need attention since I was out of the office for my Florida trip.  While I was out on vacation, Spring apparently sprung with a vengeance, and has since turned into Summer (with or without my permission) and has left me beating back the jungle that somehow passes for my yard.

I’m continuing this saga-worthy blog of my “Journey to see the Space Shuttle Launch”, not because I’m starved for attention or because I have a massive amount of free time to scribble out my idle ponderings, but because I have an interesting update to the story…

When I finally returned home from my vacation, I made sure to take some time to write a proper thank you note to my NASA hosts (Bob and Sandi) for the invite and the opportunity.  After all, it’s not exactly their fault that the Endeavour didn’t launch on schedule…  Just for grins, I included links to my previous blog posts in case they were interested in taking a peek at them.  (Or, perhaps, in the event that they needed a literary equivalent to Ambien.)  Bob sent a very nice reply to my email, again thanking me for my contributions on the Columbia accident investigation, and expressed his regrets for the Endeavour launch delay.

The morning of the actual launch (May 16^th), my plan was to get to work early so that I could grab a quick breakfast, then sit quietly in the cafeteria and search for a live internet feed of the event.  In typical fashion, I was running a little on the late side, and I was inaudibly yelling (at least I was in my own head…) at the traffic to get out of my way so that I could proceed to the cafeteria for my personal “breakfast and shuttle launch” date.  When I arrived at my office, I raced to the cafeteria with my computer before anyone even knew that I was there.  Got my breakfast?  Check.  Got my coffee?  Check.  Got an internet feed?  Dang.  This one was a showstopper.  I frantically searched for a live feed for about ten heart-stopping minutes until I found a site that our network would allow me to visit.  (By the way, to our IT teams – well done!  It’s difficult to get to websites that y’all don’t feel are work-related and necessary!)  When the video feed that I clicked on came alive, I saw the countdown clock at 57 seconds until launch.  SUCCESS – I’ll be able to watch the launch!

So I’m sitting there in the cafeteria, feeling my heart rate go up just from listening to the live commentary, watching the crowds go wild with anticipation, and waiting to see the awe-inspiring signature cloud of exhaust mushrooming from below the beast, less than 30 seconds to liftoff, when suddenly… PING! What the…?!?  Instead of hearing the roar of the engines, I hear an email coming in.  In my haste to get everything in order for this almost perfect moment, I had neglected to shut down Outlook so that I wouldn’t be disturbed.  Partly peeved at myself for my absentmindedness, and partly irritated for the intrusion, I indignantly tried to ignore the email so that I could return my attention to the launch.  Only 14 seconds left to go until liftoff…  The only problem was, out of the corner of my eye, I happened to notice who the imposing email was from.  It was from Sandi – my uber-organized NASA contact!  (Just seeing an email from her at that precise moment made me laugh out loud over how annoyed I was about getting an email during the launch.  Oops!  All is forgiven…)  I figured that she was just sending a “sorry you didn’t see it” courtesy note based on the thank you email I had previously sent, so I went back to my live feed.  3…2…1…LIFTOFF!  Even at the remote location of the office cafeteria, it was so beautiful that it literally brought tears to my eyes.  Double dang.  I really wanted to be there to experience it.  Oh well, I tried.

I composed myself enough to chat with a few friends and colleagues in the cafeteria on my way back to my office.  There’s no way that I could’ve expressed to anyone what I was feeling at that moment – few people would understand or relate to the significance of it all.  When I got back to my office, I closed my door and called Maura (who’s still in Florida with her dad).  I knew that she would “get it”.  After talking to her and cycling through an entire gamut of emotions about the launch, we said our goodbyes and I proceeded to start my workday.  First order of business was to attack my emails to see what the day had in store for me…

Oh yeah!  I had forgotten that I had an email from Sandi.  I took a deep breath and opened it up.  Like I said, I figured it’d be a consolation type of email, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Apparently, she actually had taken the time to read my blog posts (which provided insight into why this launch was so meaningful to me), and she liked it so much that she and Bob were extending an invite to the last launch of the shuttle program – the Atlantis!  Oh…my…GOSH!  Did that really just happen?!?  Is this really a possibility?!?  To be honest, I never expected either of them to look at the blog posts.  Like everyone else in the world, they’re busy people.  I know that I don’t always respond to things in a timely fashion (unless there’s a fire emergency call on my pager), and it would’ve taken me a couple of weeks to even think about looking at someone’s blog post – especially if I didn’t know them very well.  Fortunately for me, they operate differently than I do!  I promptly called Maura back to see if she was up for “Shuttle Launch Adventure Part II”.  There was a long pause on the other end of the line.  I could completely visualize the gears in her brain whirring into overdrive while she factored in all the variables before giving an answer.  And then…”Of course I’m still interested in doing it!”  What a day of roller-coaster emotions.  I was exhausted before I even started my workday!

In the days since the launch, I have very much enjoyed every tidbit of information that I’ve seen on the news, or read on the internet, regarding the mission of the STS-134 crew.  Some of the mission was scientifically interesting, and some of it was just plain fun to learn about:

• The delivery/installation of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer 2, designed to look at the origin and structure of dark matter.  (This one is quite literally worlds above my level of understanding…)
• Delivery of a new “Materials International Space Station Experiments” (MISSE), and the subsequent return of an older MISSE.  (Being a materials analyst, this one is more my speed.)
• Playing with LEGOs to see how building models in a microgravity environment presents various challenges.  (Okay, this one is definitely more my speed!)

I can’t imagine that a typical “day at the office” is ever dull for these guys.

I have now officially accepted the kind offer to see the Atlantis launch.  Already the launch date has been changed from late June to early July, and I’m already having anxiety-filled Mr. Bill type moments here.  (As in…”Oh noooooo…not again!”)  I’m not exactly sure how to plan this time, but I’m thinking that I might just wing it.  After all, we had very carefully planned every detail of the last trip, and the end result didn’t exactly cooperate with the “plan”.

Although I couldn’t possibly be more grateful for this new opportunity, I’m still going to allow a tiny part of my memory to be just a little bummed about not seeing the Endeavour – mostly because of GRC’s remote connection to astronaut Greg Chamitoff.  Yes, I know that I will most likely never meet him (or any other astronaut for that matter), and that’s okay.  I don’t personally need to meet someone to feel inspired by them.  In fact, sometimes it’s just the idea of a person and what they represent that is the most powerful inspiration.  (I never had the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa, but her inspiration is alive inside of me.)  For me, it’s the same irrational feeling of having a connection with the shuttle Columbia simply because I physically saw it when I was a child – the experience was now a part of me.  I didn’t need to climb into it and fly around to know what an incredible marvel it was.  I knew it just by looking at it and by understanding what it was designed to do.  Listening to Greg at Global Research last year was the same thing – even though I was outside of the room and I didn’t actually even get to see him, the inflection in his voice said it all.  He literally sounded as if he were exploding with joy talking about his job.  That’s the experience that I now take with me and truly appreciate.  The bottom line is that in a perfect world it would’ve been nice to experience the launch while knowing that the guy that gave me so much inspiration last year was actually inside that distant machine on his way to the International Space Station.  I have no words to describe what a remarkable feeling of coincidence that would’ve been.  Now that the crew of STS-134 is due to return in a few days, I’ll just stay focused on their safe return home.  Once that happens, I can slowly start the process of getting amped up for the STS-135 launch.

Since I’ve been home for a while now, I’ve had many discussions with people regarding my trip.  A few people tell me things like, “You did WHAT?”, “Why would you do that?”, “You spent HOW much vacation time on it and you still didn’t get to see it?”, and “I don’t get it, but whatever.”  That’s okay.  For every unsympathetic comment I’ve received, I’ve easily collected ten or twenty really supportive comments.  At a fundamental level, I work at a research center.  Most good researchers know that some of the greatest inventions were either born from accidents, or from the “what if” factor.  What if we could make a device that creates light inside of a glass bulb to brighten a room when the sun goes down?  What if we could build a machine to carry humans to the moon?  What if we could make jet engines quieter, lighter and more fuel efficient?  Research is based on dreams, (whether they may be whimsical or practical – it doesn’t really matter), and it takes the collective effort of many hard-working individuals to turn these dreams into a concrete reality.  I am part of this collective effort.  I once read that the average adult is confronted with over 30,000 choices per day in our everyday lives.  I suppose that’s possible.  (What time should I set the alarm?  Can I get away with hitting the snooze one more time?  Of the twelve emails that require action items, which one do I answer first?)  For me, one of these choices could’ve easily been to become jaded at my failed attempts to accomplish a goal (such as my not seeing the Endeavour launch).  Instead, I choose to stay a dreamer.  Among thousands of other blessings in my life, being a dreamer has secured me invites to the last two remaining launches of the US Space Shuttle program.  Who knows where else it may lead?  I’m very much looking forward to seeing what the next generation of dreamers will come up with, not only in regard to the US space exploration efforts, but also right here in my own “playground” at GRC!

Stay inspired (in whatever form you may find it), and wish me luck on my next attempt at seeing a shuttle launch!

If you would like to apply for one of the positions or learn more you can visit our careers page on the top right.  Only submissions to the GE Careers web site will be considered.

Lab Manager for the Emissions Systems Lab:  view job description.

Chemical Processing Specialist in the Pilot Development Facility: view job description.

So here I am, stuffed into a seat with a hundred other Southwest Airlines passengers, with the reality of the end of my vacation beginning to sink in.  No, I didn’t get to see the launch.  In fact, when I was flipping channels last night, I think I saw that the Endeavour launch was once again delayed to May 16th.  And no, we didn’t get to drive the Mini Cooper back up to New York (hence the flight I’m on), but that’s a whole other story…

I suppose that I should start off with the part of the trip that was the most exciting – the day of the launch attempt on April 29^th.  Although my blog may not really reflect it, I actually try not to let my anticipation of events get too out of hand so that I’m not terribly disappointed if things don’t somehow meet my overinflated expectations.  This said, no matter how hard I tried to keep my heart rate in check, I was CRAZY excited on launch day.  Every part of that day was memorable – even eating breakfast in the hotel was exciting.  The lobby was loaded with waffle-eating tourists wearing their commemorative “I saw the last launch of the Endeavour” t-shirts, everyone was in a good mood, and there was a weird kind of camaraderie in the air just knowing that we all had the same goal…to see the launch in all its glory.

We made sure to leave the hotel with plenty of time to find the NASA bus (or to get lost along the way), and we arrived at the meeting area (at a mall parking lot) about 45 minutes early.  Perfect – everything was going like clockwork at this point.  Apparently several companies use this parking lot as a meeting spot to bus people to various viewing locations, so there were literally hundreds of people looking for parking spaces, and for their correct bus.  As we watched other people scrambling into their buses, we felt pretty special – we didn’t have to worry about wrestling with beach chairs, umbrellas, etc. since the folks at NASA were going to have a tent with chairs in the shade for us to use until launch time.  It doesn’t get much better than that!

(This wasn’t our bus – it was reserved for people that purchased tickets from Kennedy Space Center.)

We circled the lot a few times and finally found our bus – a small tram-type of thing, with no real markings on it.  (The small size of the bus made us feel pretty special again…)  We met with our NASA contact (Sandi), thanked her non-stop for the invitation, and then happily jumped into the second row of seats at the front of the bus.  As others were arriving and getting on the bus, the excitement was growing.  The couple sitting next to us was from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.  The Native Texan in me kicked in and we struck up a conversation.  Before I knew it, we were chatting like old friends, and getting recommendations on where to have dinner.  (Gotta love Texans – super friendly, and love to eat!)  Another memorable guest on the bus was this little guy:

When all the guests had shown up, Sandi handed everyone a cool NASA “Launch Guest” button, then announced that we were going to start driving over to the viewing area.  With my excitement building again, I start giving my Twitter-thumbs a workout to send updates of the events as they were happening.  We had literally only made two turns out of the parking lot when Sandi got a call on her cell phone.  Since we were close-by in the second row of the bus, we could hear most of the conversation:  “Really?  It’s a scrub?  Are you sure?  What’s going on?  Oh…the APU.  It’s going to take HOW long to fix?  Hmm.  Okay.  Thanks for the info.”  And then…the dreaded announcement, “Everyone, the launch has been scrubbed!”, followed by a collective, “Awwwwwwww”.

I think it goes without saying that everyone was disappointed.  Some folks weren’t going to be able to stay until the next attempt on May 2^nd so they were really disappointed.  Some folks could stay for the next attempt, but they didn’t have a room booked for the extended length of time, and it would be nearly impossible to get a room for the additional time frame.  However, WE had done our homework.  We had looked up when the next possible launch date would be, just in case the launch on the 29^th would be scrubbed, and we had booked a hotel accordingly.  We were all set!  Our “worst case scenario” was that we’d be forced to hang out in Cocoa Beach for a few days until the next try.  On what planet is that a raw deal?  Certainly not this one.  The bus promptly turned around and we went back to the parking lot.  The interesting thing was that when we returned to the lot, the other buses were still loading up with passengers.  They clearly hadn’t received the word that the launch had been scrubbed.  (Yup, still feeling special about being on the NASA bus at this point…)  As everyone was ambling out of the bus, Sandi promised to send email updates to anyone that wanted to stick around for the next attempt.

My reaction to the whole thing surprised me.  I still remember sitting on the bus, hearing the news of the scrubbed attempt, listening to everyone groan at the news, and the first thing I did was… smile.  I don’t know anything about Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) systems, but I quickly learned that the problem had something to do with a thermostat on the fuel line which regulates the temperature of the hydraulic fluid and prevents it from freezing.  As it was explained to me, frozen fluid may not be an issue when the shuttle is docked at the International Space Station, but it presents a huge problem upon re-entry to Earth as it is part of the mechanism that helps to steer the shuttle.  Look, let’s face it – the entire reason I received this wonderful invitation in the first place was because I performed detailed materials analyses that help determine what went wrong with the Columbia upon re-entry.  I literally have hands-on knowledge of what can happen when things go wrong, and I can quite honestly say that I don’t ever want another “opportunity” to look at Shuttle parts again.  By all means…scrub the launch, fix whatever needs fixing, and let’s get give the astronauts the best possible chance of having a successful mission and safe return home.  I’m all for it!

Unfortunately, this was the part of our trip that started to resemble the end of “Thelma and Louise”…

About two hours after the launch was scrubbed, Maura (Remember her?  Cool physicist, and BFF.) received a call from a family friend saying that her dad had suddenly become very ill, and was there any way she could come down to Ft. Lauderdale on short notice?  (He’s a NY snowbird currently in FL.)  Seeing how Ft. Lauderdale is only ~3 hours south of Cocoa Beach, we packed up the car and drove down immediately.  I’ll spare the details here, but we wound up working around the clock for the next week and a half to make certain that her dad had proper health care, and to make sure that he knew that we were taking care of every detail so that he wouldn’t have to worry about anything.

Even though we figured that it would be nearly impossible to go back for the next launch attempt, we were trying to keep an eye on the news to see if it was still on schedule for May 2^nd, but we saw that this date was also scrubbed and that the next attempt would be no earlier than May 8^th.  By Tuesday, May 3^rd, I had received email notification from Sandi (from NASA) saying that since there were only three people left from the original list of invitees that were still sticking around in Florida, they wouldn’t be able to justify the expense of renting a bus or van to take us to the launch.  Although I completely understand the logic of it all, that’s when it really sank in for me…I’m not going to see the launch.

Being as busy as I was with Maura’s dad, I didn’t really have a spare moment to feel a little sorry for myself.  The truth of the matter is that I really don’t feel all that sorry for myself.  Yeah, it’s a bummer that the launch was delayed on the 29^th, when I could’ve easily seen it.  It’s also a bummer that it kept getting delayed further.  But now that it’s been delayed so far away from its original date, I can come home feeling like “it just wasn’t meant to be”, and I’m oddly okay with that.  My NASA contact (Sandi) was so efficient, and I was so impressed with how well she coordinated everything, it would be difficult for me to feel any differently about the whole thing.  My only real regret was that I didn’t have the foresight to grab a cool commemorative NASA polo shirt, or “Last flight of the Endeavour” shirt before we had to leave the area.  If nothing else, we were pretty excited about the experience that we did have, and we got a cool button to prove we were there.  Really and truly, I’m just completely intrigued by the amazing coincidence that we were only three hours away when Maura’s dad needed us.  This is a guy that has been my surrogate Dad since I’ve been away from my own family in Texas.  He’s taken me in with open arms for holidays when I can’t be with my family, and has always made me feel welcome and loved.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  Or who knows…perhaps it was an answer to one of my Mom’s many prayers that I used to scoff at in my youth.  So…yeah, I didn’t get to see the launch, Maura and the Mini Cooper are still in Florida, and we didn’t get to take our long road trip home.  But I got to be a hero to someone that I love, (which doesn’t happen every day), and that makes every second of this trip worth it.

My best to the crew of STS-134!  Once again, I’ll be watching it from afar and wishing you well.  And to anyone still reading my babbling commentary, thanks for doing so.  Even though I won’t be able to see the launch, it certainly was a lot of fun to relive some great childhood moments and be really excited about the space program again as an adult.

Totally worth it

This last image was taken at a demonstration where children were able to see Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images. Some of the images they looked at are below, of a fly head, a fly wing, and a tick:

The SEM images sparked some discussion. A number of children were surprised to hear that you could line 4 ticks head to tail on one grain of rice.  Images of pollen (not shown here) sparked creative thinking.  A number of the children thought that Ragweed pollen should make you sneeze when it’s bouncing around in your nose since it has so many pointy spikes on the outer surface.

As always, the children are always impressed with the scientific equipment we have and ask 1001 questions – which is great.  I heard one student say “I want to work at GE”.  When they were asked about salary, they said they would do it for $1.00/day since the work is so interesting and the tools are so good.  I also overheard one student telling one of my colleagues a story from school.  While learning about electricity, the students were asked to connect light bulbs to a battery.  The student decided to connect multiple batteries and light bulbs.

This year was Global Research’s 8^th annual event; see last years blog (Blog on GRCs 2010 BYCTWD) for additional information on Bring Your Child To Work Day.  A number of other employers posted stories on their Bring Your Child To Work Day program including iVilliage, National Institute of Health, UConn Health Center,and the Pentagon (with Video).  Michelle Obama hosted kids and answered questions – see Michelle Obama BYCTWD story and video

On Wed, April 27, 2011 the Huffington Post issued a blog – it had a title of “It Starts With You” which addressed the question “Why take our children to work?” In Ilene’s blog, she mentions “Bringing your child to work can spark new thoughts about their future. This can impact the choices they make at school and later in life as they enter the business world. Along the way, it can influence the choices of the people around them”; these are all very true statements. She also states “You are a powerful role model for the next generation of girls and boys. This Thursday, show them that they can be anything they want to be. The future is theirs — but it starts with you”.  An important point that I would like to stress is the importance of the last four words… “it starts with you”.   Parents need to take the initiative.

Events like this are indeed very important to give our children a sense of what we do at work and how the items they learn in school are applied in the real world. Being a scientist, I get to show my daughters some “neat” experiment­s and instruments. Bring Your Child To Work Day is a day that many remember for a lifetime. The bonding experiences that have taken place between the children and the parent as part of Bring Your Child To Work Day makes the event a success in itself. Throughout the day, I head numerous colleagues talking about past years events and how even now (children in college or starting jobs) they still talk about past events.

If your place of employment is interested in participating in future BYCTWD events, you may want to check out the BYCTWD Ideas and/or  Tips and ideas from Education today web pages.

It’s the day before the launch and I’m so excited that I can’t even think about going to sleep (maybe the long nap I took earlier has something to do with it, but my excitement is certainly still a factor.)  I’m so amazed and humbled by the outpouring of support from family, friends, colleagues, complete strangers and an astronaut! Yeah, I said it…an ASTRONAUT!
We were in Washington D.C. at the National Arboretum when my buddy Vin called me. I figured that it must be something important because he wouldn’t call me on my vacation otherwise. My mind was racing: Was there an announcement that the shuttle launch was being delayed? Did my microscope crash? What’s up?!? I cautiously answered the phone and Vin says, “You’re not going to believe this, but Greg left you a message on your blog!”

Immediately, I got goosebumps, but my practical side kicked in and I think that maybe this is some sort of elaborate joke, and that I’m being punked by my officemates. “NO WAY”, I answered. Yes, he did! Vin promptly read me Greg’s note while I rudely interrupted him with my frequent squeals of delight. I can’t believe it! Thankfully, the only ones present to witness my “meltdown of joy” were Maura and a ton of fantastically beautiful azaleas. Not that the azaleas needed any additional help, but everything was more beautiful in the National Gardens after that phone call!

Seriously, folks…I very much appreciate the all the amazing comments and feedback that I’m getting regarding this blog. Y’all are making me feel like I’m the one stepping into the shuttle tomorrow! I’ll only be a small speck in the crowd of 700,000 expected viewers at tomorrow’s event, but it’ll be a great feeling to experience it with so many other similarly passionate people.
I’m keeping a close eye on the weather system that’s moving into the area – it’s the tail end of the same system that produced the many tornados that devastated America’s South. I sure hope the launch isn’t delayed, but equally important, I hope we all bond together to help those most affected by these deadly storms. Perhaps people will consider donating blood at this month’s Red Cross Blood Drive?
According to the NASA website, everything is still on schedule. Also according to NASA’s website, I found out that Greg Chamitoff has a degree in Planetary Geology. Rock on, my Geo-Brother! I can only imagine what it feels like to see the big blue marble from space. What an amazing reward for studying the mechanisms of the planets! My sincerest thanks for taking the time to send a comment my way – I’ll be closely following your mission to experience a distant Earth through your eyes. (And by the way, I’ll be relocating your picture to a more prominent location in my office when I return!)
The goosebumps are beginning to swell again, but I should probably squelch them and work on catching some Zzzs soon. After all, it’s going to take a lot of energy to excitedly hop up and down for several hours tomorrow! This Texan has been in upstate New York for too long and I’m already finding Florida’s heat/humidity a bit oppressive. I’d better start digging around for my sunscreen, hat, bug spray, Purell, etc. (when did I become a germophobe?!?)

Again…is it all worth it? You bet it is!

Without further to do, here is part one of Michelle’s series.

Hi folks – I’m Michelle Othon, and I’m a Materials Analyst with the Micro & Nano Analysis Lab at GE Global Research.  I recently received the offer of a lifetime to go see the Space Shuttle Endeavour launch from the Kennedy Space Center.   How on earth did I get this opportunity?  It’s a bit of a convoluted path to answer that…

Like most people of my generation, it all started in 1969 with the first moon walk.  Even though I was just a baby and I don’t really remember the actual event, I carried my “Astronaut Snoopy” doll around everywhere I went for years afterwards.  We all did the “zero gravity slow-mo” walk across our lawns to simulate Neil and Buzz .  We all drank Tang because the Astronauts drank it.  If there was something I didn’t want to eat, all it took was my parents telling me that “the astronauts ate their broccoli”, and down the hatch it went!  Growing up in San Antonio, my family visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston many times, which only increased my fascination with the space program.  Even at a young age, I couldn’t believe that people would actually get blasted into space inside a craft that looked like it was made out of something my mom wrapped our dinner leftovers in.

In 1979, I was in grade school and my father took me to work with him one day.  He didn’t tell me why I was going, but I figured that a day out of school was a good thing.  It turned out to be a GREAT thing.  The reason he took me to work was to give me an opportunity to see the recently built Space Shuttle Columbia (riding piggyback atop a 747) come in for a pit stop at Kelly Air Force Base en route to the Kennedy Space Center.  I still remember standing on the tarmac, watching this spectacular plane come in for a landing – feeling every hair on my neck standing up…hearing the roar of the engines, and watching the tires of the 747 expertly contacting the tarmac…being completely amazed that something that large and heavy could even get airborne…feeling the rush of knowing that the craft right in front of me would soon be in outer space.  It was the greatest thing I’d ever witnessed in my life!  At the time, I thought that it was the closest I’d ever get to the space program.

Naturally, I was devastated, along with the rest of the country, by the ultimate fate of the Columbia in 2003.  I felt even worse that the event took place over my beloved home state of Texas.  Although my career path had never converged with NASA, I’d always felt connected to the Columbia because of the really special day that I had shared with my dad so many years ago.

Fast forward to 2005.  I was sitting in my office, when Mike Henry (retired GE metallurgist extraordinaire) came in and said, “Would you be interested in analyzing some hardware that came off of the space shuttle?”  I have no idea what I said to him.  In fact, I may have blacked out…I’m not really sure.  Whatever I managed to mumble back to him apparently made him confident that I was 100% committed to his project.

As a result of the Columbia disaster, NASA was assembling Independent Technical Assessment/Inspection teams including the Columbia Accident Investigation Board to better understand what had gone wrong.  Because of GE’s immense experience with low temperature exposure embrittlement of deformed superalloys, Mike Henry and Mike Gigliotti (current GE metallurgist extraordinaire) had been asked to participate as part of the team dedicated to studying materials.  One of the objectives was to conduct a study to assess the structural integrity of panel hardware for debris impact events that may occur during the ascent of a shuttle.  (In similar fashion to what happened on the Columbia’s ascent.)

My contribution to this program was conducting residual plastic strain measurements on bolts, and other pieces of associated hardware.  On the surface, this seems like “Big deal – you looked at stuff you could’ve picked up at Home Depot”, right?  Wrong.  These weren’t just any bolts…these were bolts from the Space Shuttle Discovery.  These bolts had actually seen flight time.  They were from Panel 9R, on the left wing – the same location that was impacted by foam debris on the Columbia’s ascent.

As I previously mentioned, I’m a Materials Analyst and I’ve been at GE Global Research for the past 13 years.  My expertise is in Electron Back-Scattered Diffraction EBSD, but in plain English, this means that I look at the crystallographic information of materials in a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and then quantify the amount of deformation that the material has undergone.  Ultimately, this information is valuable in predicting the lifespan of a part, or to help determine why a part has failed.  (Have you ever wondered how much you deform a nail every time you hit it with a hammer?  I can put a number on that.  Yes, I’m thrilling to have around at cocktail parties…)

The first few bolts that I looked at were brand new “out of the box” pieces of hardware, in order to establish a baseline of what they looked like.  After these analyses, I measured two different types of bolts (T-head and T-seal bolts) from Panel 9R of the Discovery.  (I still remember when I first got my hands on these samples – I took a few moments alone in my lab to contemplate on the fact that the work I was going to be performing was going towards helping understand what went wrong with the Columbia.)  These bolts looked vastly different than the baseline ones.  They looked like…well, they looked like they had withstood the temperatures, pressures and strains of being on 30 flights back and forth from space (which they had been).  This said, at the end of the study, my data aided in determining that the flight hardware showed no evidence of aging-related failure mechanisms – the cause of the problems with the Columbia’s re-entry were likely not due to a failure of the bolts and hardware that the GE team studied.

Last year (2010), the local chapter of ASM held their annual Spring Symposium at GE, and one of the speakers was Dr. Robert Piascik of NASA Langley Research Center.  I was very much looking forward to hearing his talk “The Space Shuttle – Lessons Learned”.  As chance would have it, I was walking over to Steinmetz Auditorium when a pleasant man with a visitor tag walked up to me and asked for directions.  When I looked at his name, I realized that he was our NASA speaker – I couldn’t believe my luck!  I asked him if he was familiar with the work that the GE team had performed in 2005.  As soon as I mentioned the team leaders’ names, he immediately remembered the work we had done.  I tried to sound very casual when I mentioned that I was the one that had performed the EBSD work on that study, but in reality, I may have been hopping up and down throughout our short conversation.  Later that day, I had lunch with Bob, and we had a short technical discussion regarding the capabilities of quantifying residual plastic strain using EBSD .  Somewhere towards the end of our lunch break, I blurted out, “So, how does one go about seeing a shuttle launch?”  I was partially mortified at my own forwardness, but mostly proud of myself for asking – I didn’t want to regret having such a captive audience and not asking.  Fortunately for me, he didn’t seem to mind my asking.  He said that if I were willing to take care of my own travel expenses, he would see about getting me into the NASA facility for a launch.

Time passed, and I didn’t hear from Bob.  I didn’t really mind since I figured that people like me are probably constantly bugging him about this kind of thing.  Besides, there were so few launches remaining, it’d be like winning the lottery to get an invite.  I was content on knowing that my small contribution to science had helped the space program – I’d always have that memory.

In October of 2010, Global Research was lucky enough to have Astronaut,  Greg Chamitoff come onsite to give a talk.  He apparently went to graduate school with one of our researchers, and they had maintained their friendship over the years.  There was a huge audience for this talk – there were so many people that turned out for it, there were chairs and screens of his slides set up outside of the auditorium for those of us not fortunate enough to be inside.  It was such a great talk – Greg’s enthusiasm for his job was infectious.  I swiped one of Greg’s promo pictures for my office bookshelf, and went back to my own work with a renewed sense of enthusiasm.

A few weeks ago, the improbable happened.  I had just walked into my office, and I was secretly grumbling under my breath at all of the emails in my inbox, when I spotted an email from Bob Piascik.  I cautiously opened it, and there it was…an invite to the April 19^th launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour (which has since been rescheduled for April 29th)!  Since the launch is in the not-too-distant future, I’ve been in hyper-planning mode.  Looking for hotels near Kennedy Space Center (not a trivial task since it seems the entire population of Florida will be attending this launch), making concession plans in the event of delays with the launch (how much vacation time do I have?!?), trying not to set high expectations just in case more delays prevent me from being able to see it, planning on how to set up my instrument to run the entire time that I’m out of the office, etc.  So far it’s been a whirlwind of activity, and I haven’t even left yet.  Is it worth all this trouble when there are no guarantees that the launch will actually happen?  You bet it is.  I’ll take that chance willingly – I’ve waited a long time for this.

During the massive amount of research that I’ve been digesting in preparation for my trip, I noticed that Greg Chamitoff will be on this mission.  Godspeed, Greg.  Your picture inspires me every day.  I’m certain that the entire GE Global Research population will be hoping for a successful mission, and a safe return for you and your colleagues.  (And would it be too much to ask for you to come back to GE to talk about your experience?  Maybe next time I can be INSIDE the auditorium!)

As I look back on my many years of fascination with the US space program, I’ve realized several things:

• You don’t have to be an astronaut to live your dreams.  Although I’ve talked an awful lot about my love for the space program, I’ve worked on so many programs in my day-to-day work at GE that touch the lives of far more people than my space bolts ever would.  I’ve had the opportunity to work on programs involving MRIs, lighting, aircraft engines, power generation, etc.  My dream was to have a job that challenges me every day, and to have my work make a real difference in people’s lives.  I have that, and I try not to ever forget how lucky I am for it.
• You don’t have to be a test pilot to contribute to the space program.  Let’s face it…my degree is in Geology.  I do weird stuff for a geologist.  I have a couple of other colleagues that are also geologists, and we sometimes laugh about how we never thought we’d be doing the type of work that we’re doing.  You never really know where your skills will come in handy.
• Network, network, network.  If I hadn’t made the effort to step out of my comfort zone to talk to complete strangers, I wouldn’t have met Bob, and I definitely wouldn’t have received this fantastic opportunity.

So…I’m still frantically trying to tie up loose ends before I leave.  I’ll be heading out with my BFF, Maura, (a physicist, who’s as nerdy as I am…but in a cool way) in a Mini Cooper for what may be the trip of a lifetime.  I’m thinking that it’ll be part “Thelma and Louise”, and part “Oprah and Gayle go to Yosemite”.  No matter what happens, we’re going to enjoy every second of this trip.

For anyone interested, here’s a link to NASA’s website that talks about the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that the Endeavour crew will be delivering to the International Space Station:

Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer

There’s also a countdown clock to launch time at the bottom of the page. 

Stay tuned…I’ll be posting back here when I return from my trip to share videos and photos.  Let’s hope the Endeavour goes off without a hitch!

As predicted in a recent GE Reports interview presentations covered advances in surface analysis instrumentation/data collection methods, novel applications of surface analysis, the use of multiple techniques to provide complimentary information in order to provide for the best description of a materials system, and/or opportunities for surface analysts.   The scientific program, including a compilation of abstracts, can be found at Surface Analysis 2011 program (click on the full program with abstracts link).  Five best student presentation awards were granted, two for contributed talks and three for poster presentations – see the upcoming Spring AVS Newsletter for a list of the award winners!  A critical part of meetings such as this is the networking opportunity – this meeting provided ample time for stimulating scientific discussions/debates.

I have been obtaining a lot of positive comments from attendees – below I include an excerpt from an email message I obtained from a student:  “Just wanted to tell you that the conference was great this week, I met some great people and learned a lot.  I know you put in a lot of work to make it happen and go off without a hitch, and everyone appreciates it.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present my research as well.  It’s always nice to see it well received by people who do surface analysis for a living.  AVS really does a great job promoting student presenters, and I think that’s fantastic.  Thanks”.

Many people ask me, why do you take on tasks such as this?  My response is that we need to work as a scientific community to train the next generation of scientists – obtaining feedback such as the email message listed above indicates that students do indeed value the mentorship and opportunities provided by senior scientists and hence keeps me involved.  I am also glad to hear that students value the opportunities that technical societies such as AVS provides.

I would like to close this blog by thanking the numerous people that helped make this meeting possible – see page 3 of the abstract book.  I also need to provide a big thanks to all of the meeting exhibitors, not only do they provide significant financial backing for the meeting, they also bring a wealth of scientific knowledge; a list of the meeting exhibitors can be found in the abstract book, the meeting web page, as well as the ASSD sponsors web page . I enjoyed co-chairing this event with Professor Alain Diebold, it was a very rewarding process.