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    5.1

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    The crunch of the red lava rock up on Mauna Loa, crisp air hitting my face and I step put of the car. I’m a little nauseous from the hour-long car ride up the steep terrain of bumps and uneven road. I look out to see nothing but sharp lava rock blanket the slopes of both Mauna Loa and the sun kissed Mauna Kea with snow sprinkled on its top. I turn around to find this dome, like a snow globe, covered in a red cameo sheet. I am overwhelmed with excitement. This is my project and I’m really standing right in front of it. Walking up to the white metal door with a red sign with white letters reading, HI-SEAS my heart beats faster. This is moment ill be meeting the extraordinary NASA HI-SEAS crew for the very first time and seeing exactly where will be trapped for the next 8 months. I hear Dr. Bill call out my name as I walk inside. Hailey is standing next to me. I am in awe with the realness of It all. I am helping NASA with a mission to Mars. I look around at the dome and all I can see is monitors streaking the walls, hearing the wind causing the back door to flap. I am now taking notes in my book. Shaking with excitement I can barely draw a straight line. More and more questions come flooding to my head about the mission. My thirst for the answers almost causes me to interrupt Dr. Bill from talking to the crew. I am holding my tongue but letting my mind wonder. The possibilities are endless with this project. Who knew that I would be able to make such a close friendship with this crew and the projects they are doing. I talk to each of them about their projects and their eagerness to allow me to help.

    Am I crying? It feels like I am. But I’m not. Its just sweat, anxiety and stress overwhelming my senses. I feel like no one would know what I’m talking about if I scream out for help. I look over next to me. Hey Hailey, how does this look? What should I do now? Her response is, “it looks amazing! Good job!” my heart drops. Thank you for your words my friend. Little did I know what I was getting myself into with the multiple emails from people I didn’t even know in addition to the NASA HI-SEAS crew asking me to do all sorts of things for their personal dashboards and school and tests and…. Breathe. Take a deep breath. Remember what Hailey said. She helped me by just saying the simplest thing as, Good Job. Even though she was not apart of my project Hailey was the one who helped me stay calm and work through it all. Knowing she would be sitting to my right every class allowed me to know that I always had someone to go to and say, what do you think?


    I monitor the telemetry for the NASA’s mission to mars located on Mauna Loa. I have been working on communications and personal data dashboards for the crew. Each of them has a job and my overall job is to make sure everything is working up there. I want to take all of my knowledge of telemetry to the next level of science.