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Intro/Outro: 00:30

Fuel and ignition switches. On. RPM switches. Set. PD switches.

Intro/Outro: 00:35

Normal. Doors and hatches. Closed. Lay down. Stroblade.

Intro/Outro: 00:38

On. Research check-in. Complete with your left. Engineer. Start number two.

Intro/Outro: 00:42

Starting to. Wing three one zero ten, pilot project podcast. Clear takeoff Runway 31 left.

Bryan: 00:58

Alright. We're ready for departure here at the pilot project podcast, the best source for stories and advice from RCAF and mission aviation pilots brought to you by Skies Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. With me today is captain Aaron Edwards, an RCAF pilot who is a Canadian capsule communicator or CAPCOM currently working with NASA. Erin, welcome back to the show and thanks once again for being here.

Erin: 01:18

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Bryan: 01:20

Listeners can check out part one to hear all about Erin's experiences within the flight training program of the RCAF. And part two focuses on her time in four two seven special operations aviation squadron, as well as the beginning of her time working with the Canadian Space Agency and NASA. Now for the final part of our chat, we will be talking all about her time down in Houston. So you are now also the astronaut office deputy branch chief for crew operations or operations officer, and it's the first time a non astronaut has held this position. Can you describe the various aspects of this job?

Erin: 01:52

Yeah. So if you think of your busiest, squadron level opso, that's essentially what my job is. So every unassigned astronaut belongs to the crew ops office. At a certain point, we'll hand them over to a different cell that plans their mission trainings, mission specific training. But when they're back here just in their regular flow waiting to be assigned again, or they're brand new astronauts that need to go through training, they all belong to the ops office.

Erin: 02:24

And you'd think for 50 some odd people plus new astronauts like we're getting this year, which will be maybe twelve, fourteen, 16, I'm actually not sure yet. Wow. You'd think we'd have a lot of staff. We don't have a lot of staff. It's me, my branch chief, and two and a half schedulers, one of our folks is part time.

Erin: 02:43

And between us, we manage a lot of different things, but it kinda feels like you are in a wing ops kind of scenario. Like my boss is the wing commander, you might kind of call him, deals with all of the up and out, the strat level stuff, the funding, the budgets, a little bit of timing of our larger training objectives, and then everything else he kind of pushes down to me. So I'll manage the bigger pieces of that planning. So when we're going to do it, the readiness reviews, who's going to go on the training, whether or not that training makes sense. Are there changes I can make to it to make sure it's more relevant?

Erin: 03:17

And then from there, it goes down to my schedulers to make sure that I have bodies that match the requirement to go to that course. So those are kind of like the big things that we manage, the various expeditionary courses that we send astronauts on, but there's also all the day to day planning that we have to manage as well because astronauts, whether you're a pilot or you're rear seat qualified in the T-thirty eight Talon, I think it's a November model here, there's flying requirements we have to do. So we schedule them for that. They have to go do their spacesuit diving essentially in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, one of the biggest pools in the world where they have a mock up of the exterior station. They have to maintain their qualification or do a qualification in that as well.

Erin: 03:57

And there's just hundreds of other discrete tasks that they're required to do throughout the year and maintain currencies and qualifications on. So it's managing a giant puzzle throughout most of the year. And then there's always the odd curve ball that comes up as well. It wouldn't be ops without fires to put out. And part of my responsibility too is part of that CAPCOM job, the capsule communicator job is there's a whole branch of engineer CAPCOMs.

Erin: 04:23

We're not they're not all astronauts, and they're not all just officers like me. We have a lot of people that are dual trained flight controllers that come from engineering trades that are also then cross trained as CAPCOMs and managing that roster of people and their qualifications as well. So it's a big job, but it honestly just feels like like a wing ops job or a squadron ops job. It it doesn't feel too too dissimilar to what I used to do before. It's just the fires are a different flavor.

Erin: 04:49

It's like a space flavored fire as opposed to a a regular airplane kinda ops kinda situation.

Bryan: 04:55

So your time at four two seven definitely kind of prepared you to handle the pressure of this job?

Erin: 05:00

Oh, yeah. I think so. I don't think I would have been successful without the the time pressure experience I had as an operations officer and a pilot at four twenty seven, just because a lot of things here are also very much under time pressure as well when you get the random curve balls and just managing all of the different aspects. It's very similar to standards and training where you have a series of qualifications but only so many resources and people that have to maintain certain qualifications or training and planning training. So yeah, it feels very similar.

Erin: 05:34

Also dealing with a lot of external agencies as well and representing NASA in those conversations is is very similar to soft where you sometimes have to deal with external agencies, and you are the only representation of the command they've ever spoken to.

Bryan: 05:48

Right.

Erin: 05:49

So definitely good training. I didn't know it was good training at the time. I didn't think I'd work at NASA, but it ended up being super helpful.

Bryan: 05:55

Yeah. Probably for me, one of the most exciting of your job titles at NASA is ISS capsule communicator or CAPCOM. You're the first Canadian non astronaut to hold this qualification. What does this job involve?

Erin: 06:09

Yeah. So a CAPCOM or capsule communicator is a flight controller position in mission control. And in mission control, there's various engineering disciplines that are represented by flight controllers. And the person that is in the front room in the actual mission control room that is representing essentially an engineering system is an expert in that system. And they are responsible for maintaining its health and then also managing any issues that come up.

Erin: 06:37

And all of that is reported to the flight director, which essentially is a ship's captain. They own the mission, they own the space station, they run the flight control room. So it's super interesting. And then the capsule communicator sits right next to the flight director and you back them up. And my system is not a hugely technical system, although I did a lot of engineering type technical courses over a year to get qualified.

Erin: 07:00

And you kind of have a good idea of how a station works. It's the most complicated thing I've ever had to learn about. But your job essentially is managing the system that is the astronauts on board. You're their advocate. You essentially are their representative on the ground.

Erin: 07:16

So a lot of the time it used to be an astronaut that would do that job because they felt that they would have the best ability to represent an astronaut's interests. And then over time we realized with station, it's 20, that thing's been in space for almost twenty six years, if not longer at this point, we don't have enough astronauts to sit at that console position. So we started training other people and we started training engineers and then military members. And then eventually we got to the point where we're like, Hey, if we bring a foreign national, maybe a Canadian here, maybe she could do this job. And so it was a bit of an experiment because we'd not done it before.

Erin: 07:51

And it's also a huge privilege because it's not a position normally held by people that haven't been at NASA for a very long time. So most of the people that are cross trained as CAPCOMs that aren't astronauts have been engineers here for a very long time. So it was definitely a huge privilege, but also a massive responsibility. And it was a lot to get to know. But the capsule communicator job aside from advocating for the astronauts, they have a very tight timeline that they're working with on station as well.

Erin: 08:19

Lots of tiny little items on their schedule every day. And it's up to you to kind of make sure that they're almost always on time, if not early, they are machines up there working on these experiments and the various maintenance tasks that they have. But you wanna make sure that, Hey, I know that this person's been working at this pretty hard. I'm gonna recommend to flight that we maybe give them part of the afternoon off and move that task to a next day. We've been kind of overworking them or working them pretty hard.

Erin: 08:45

So you make those types of suggestions to flight and you work through a lot of the procedures with them as well. If we're going through a maintenance procedure or fixing something, or what have you, you'll open the procedure on your screen. And if they have any questions or they're you're following along, there might be an internal discussion between whoever owns that procedure, the flight director and you, and it could be extremely engineering and technically heavy, but the astronauts are operators. Right? They're not system specialists.

Erin: 09:12

So it's up to you to take in that information, translate it, and make it relevant to the astronaut and then help them through the rest of that procedure. They're super smart. They don't They could probably figure it out, but it's always more time efficient to go straight to the expert, especially if they're sitting in the flight control room.

Bryan: 09:27

For sure.

Erin: 09:28

So there's a lot of that back and forth. And if something happens, especially in our simulations, before you end up in the actual flight control room, you'll probably do about eight simulations. So it's about eight, ten hour days worth of simulations where they break everything on station. There's a mock control room that you're in with fake telemetry and there's people controlling the simulation and they will just make it your worst day. And it's up to you to make sure that you guys can work through those emergencies.

Erin: 09:57

And once you pass your simulations, they're comfortable that, you know what, on the worst day this person can perform their job, but it's pretty interesting how many teams of teams of teams are involved in managing station. So the CAPCOM job is probably the least technical, but one of the most impactful in that you kind of set the tone for the day because you're talking to the astronauts all day. You're with them in the morning when they wake up and you do your morning planning conference and your tone makes a difference. Your ability to connect with them when they're 400 kilometers away from you ripping around at 17,000 miles an hour, they have a hard job up there and your tone and how you banter with them a little bit can really make a difference. So it's an interesting job that way.

Erin: 10:44

But being a member of the flight control team is a huge honor, especially as someone who's an outsider because the level of competency from these engineers, some of whom are very young, is extremely impressive. And it's a lot to take in, but it's also really cool to watch them work through problems.

Bryan: 11:01

Wow. And so it sounds like there's gonna be more and more opportunities for non astronauts to hold positions like CAPCOM and operations officer?

Erin: 11:09

Yeah. We're definitely hoping so. We think this job is a fantastic fantastic way to get space minded folks the reps that they need to bring that back to Canada and help us in our journey at the division and at Space Wing to operationalize certain aspects of our mandate there. So we think it's an excellent training ground. And as much as I'd love to stay forever, I think it's important that I head home in about a year and a half and make sure that the next person gets the same kind of training opportunities that I've had.

Erin: 11:40

Is all of it a 100% relatable to a flying job that I might have later if I go back to flying? I'm not sure. But either way, there's things that I've learned here in terms of how to be a better leader and in work in teams and manage some of these really difficult complex projects and problem sets. I think all of that type of thing is gonna be directly applicable to a next job. And I think some of the technical information can come back with us to a certain extent as well.

Erin: 12:06

So I'd love to see more Canadians down here. And I know that my boss right now, my NASA boss, and he's happy to potentially have another Canadian officer come down here to fill that ops seat. And I think working as a CAPCOM is a fantastic way to push yourself in terms of capacity wherever your background happens to be, whether it's a pilot or an engineering officer or whatever. It's a great way to learn exactly what you're capable of in a moment. Because listening to 15 different people talk in the radio and then try and figure out exactly what it is I'm supposed to be look listening to and come up with a coherent message, that's a pretty unique skill.

Erin: 12:44

And I'm happy that I had a little bit of that from flying before. But, yeah, I'd love to see more Canadians down here in any capacity that we can get them. It's such an amazing opportunity to work with our American partners and do some really cool work and get Canadians, not just to the ISS, but maybe over to the moon at some point too.

Bryan: 13:02

Yeah, that'd be amazing. So we've talked about all this intense training you do to get qualified as a CAPCOM. You go through all that. You're finally qualified as an ISS CAPCOM. What is your first real call to the ISS like?

Erin: 13:19

It's interesting. So when you hit the the button, there's something called a quindar. It's that beep that you hear. And I was so excited to send my first transmission to space. I forgot to wait.

Erin: 13:32

You're supposed to give yourself like a two, three pause. You hit the button, you wait for the quindar. There's this weird beep. And it's like all of these various ground stations are doing switching and then firing things off to a satellite. So you have to wait before you start talking.

Erin: 13:44

I didn't wait before I started talking. I was so excited. So that first call was an absolute trash fire, but I quickly recovered. That's okay. I think it was Matt Dominic I was speaking to.

Erin: 13:53

He's back now. And, yeah, that was just remember being like, oh my god. It's like the first time I spoke on the radio as like a baby pilot. I think I did the same thing. I just blurted everything out.

Erin: 14:05

I'm starting to see a pattern here. I told you about my call sign as well where I got really excited on the radio. So maybe I should have been better at anticipating this would have been a problem. But it's really cool to know that when you do hit that button and you hear the beep and you're speaking to the astronauts, it's not just you and them that are listening. It's everyone in the front control room.

Erin: 14:25

It's all the subsystem specialists that are working in the back control rooms as well. We have other control centers that are also key in maintaining everything that we do on station. So folks over in Japan at the Japanese Space Exploration Agency, folks in the CSA at our control room will also listen, Moscow, Munich. And it's also public, I realized as well. It's a little different than speaking on a tower frequency or or terminal frequency.

Erin: 14:53

You have to know the frequency and actually want to listen.

Bryan: 14:55

But Yeah. No kidding.

Erin: 14:56

It's a little different when, yeah, hundreds, maybe thousands of people are listening to you and you're very apparently obvious Canadian accent talking to astronauts on a station. So it's something I think about every time I have the opportunity to sit console and work that you are representing everybody at NASA and all of our international partners across the planet and working with our representatives up in space. It's pretty cool. It's a neat kinda thing to think about if you kinda sit back. It's not just chatting on the radio about a procedure.

Erin: 15:30

It's very symbolic in a way, and it's it's neat to be a part of it.

Bryan: 15:33

It's also just straight up amazing that you're sitting there talking to somebody in space. Like, how cool is that?

Erin: 15:40

Yeah. It's pretty cool. And there isn't as much of a delay as you think there would be. It's it's pretty good. Yeah.

Erin: 15:46

It's it's super cool if you sit back and think about it. You're like, my voice is being transmitted through gosh knows how many thousands of kilometers of cable and then up to a satellite back down and then reverse the process and it comes back to me. So it's, it's super neat. And that whole process of managing comms, and the equipment, belongs to a flight control position as well. The ground control person manages a lot of

Bryan: 16:11

that Wow.

Erin: 16:12

To make sure that, you know, voice works and data works. So it's pretty cool.

Bryan: 16:15

Yeah. That's awesome. Mhmm. So you've mentioned that the astronauts are your responsibility as Capcom. What does this mean for you in terms of your duties?

Erin: 16:25

Yeah. So kinda like I mentioned, you wanna make sure that the schedule that you see in front of you makes sense, that we're not seeing any conflicts. One of the big things we advocate for, and it's not that everyone's trying to just ram their schedule full and has no consideration of the astronauts. They certainly do. Everyone is very conscious of their time and the amount of effort that it takes to do a lot of that work.

Erin: 16:46

But sometimes you'll see something just amiss in a schedule. And usually that error is corrected with several plan reviews that happen before the actual plan of the day is executed. People are planning station activities, like, a year in advance, and then it's undergoing several reviews.

Bryan: 17:01

Okay.

Erin: 17:01

By the time I'm sitting on console, I usually look out six days and then work backwards from there as part of your job. One of your console duties is to make sure that schedule makes sense. Like, if we have three different people of the crew are working on separate experiments, that's gonna be very busy on one frequency. So maybe I'll do a little comm plan and make sure that if there's a payload activity that they're gonna work with Huntsville on a different frequency so we can free up the main frequency for other stuff. So you're doing that.

Erin: 17:28

And then one of the big things you're also keeping an eye on is their exercise time. So obviously being in zero G, as your listeners may already be aware, is very hard on your body. And one of the best ways to counteract the effects of being in zero gravity is to make sure you're doing load bearing exercise every day. And so there's about two and a little bit hours every day that the astronauts do some kind of exercise. There's different types of equipment on board.

Erin: 17:52

There's a weighted treadmill kind of thing where you're like bungee down to the tread, obviously, so you don't bounce away. And then it's kind of like a stationary bicycle type situation with extra resistance that you strap yourself down to. And as well, there's a machine that can kinda do it's got like a barbell kinda situation on pistons that can give you up to 600 pounds of resistance. I don't know who's doing deadlifts like that up there, but probably someone. But protecting that time is really important for them because they work on such an insane schedule.

Erin: 18:22

You wanna make sure you're protecting that time and not eating into it. So if you notice that an activity ahead of their exercise is taking a little bit longer, you might start talking to the person who owns that activity and say, Hey, where's a good place to stop? Because I want to give them a break. I don't want them to run into their exercise time, no pun intended. We have to give them that section of time.

Erin: 18:42

It's super important, not just for their health, their physical health, but their mental health too. It's just a really good break for them. So little things like that. And then sometimes they'll have to send up procedures that the astronauts haven't seen before if something breaks or it's a different experiment or what have you. And you'll go through the procedure with an astronaut brain and say, does this procedure make sense?

Erin: 19:03

Because sometimes what the engineers think and what the astronauts think is a little bit different. And so you might make some comments on the procedure like, Hey, I don't know if I were looking at it this way, I don't know if that would make sense to me. Is there another way you can word that? And you send that back to the engineer. So there's a lot of things like that.

Erin: 19:19

And essentially, you're asked to think like an astronaut when you're at that console. So you are advocating for them as best as you can and making recommendations sometimes to the flight director. And sometimes the flight director will ask you like, hey, You know this person's preferences. Are they gonna be okay with x, y, and z today? And you'll give them an appropriate answer.

Bryan: 19:37

Okay. Yeah. So there's a lot to take on.

Erin: 19:40

Yeah.

Bryan: 19:44

Recently, you picked up NG 22 or the Northrop Grumman twenty two ISS resupply lead Capcom assignment. Can you tell us about this mission and why you were assigned to it?

Erin: 19:54

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I was assigned to this mission because I happen to be Canadian and I am an absolute fan girl when it comes to Canadian Space Agency's robotics. So everyone's probably heard of the Canadarm. We have a bunch of other robotics on station as well, but Canadians essentially pioneered that type of technology on station. And we have some folks that are here permanently and an entire section of people that fly down from the CSA to do robotics missions.

Erin: 20:21

We will use the arm and the other robotics on station, not just to do extra vehicular activities by putting an astronaut on the end of the arm and moving them to where they need to go. But the arm can also sort of inchworm its way across station, which is pretty cool to help us do other types of maintenance. It can move things around for us, including Dexter, which is kinda he looks like Dexter is a robot that has drive arms and that kind of thing and can do small, more dexterous tasks that the arm can't to help us do maintenance outside the station without astronauts. So the arm, in a lot of ways helped build station. It's an incredible technology that Canadians I wish more Canadians knew about how impressive this technology was.

Erin: 21:02

And one of the things the arm does that is super important is it helps us capture certain types of vehicles when they approach station. So an uncrewed vehicle like the Northrop Grumman resupply vehicle will take a few thousand pounds of supplies and science up to station sometime this spring, and it will stop at a certain point close to station, and then the arm will capture it and birth it to one of our airlocks.

Bryan: 21:24

Oh, wow.

Erin: 21:24

So we're talking about incredible tolerances, essentially formation flying at 17,000 miles an hour. And the arm, you know, it's a pretty long device. We'll reach out, capture the free flyer, bring it in and birth it, and allows us to dock these vessels, or birth these vessels. It's pretty cool. So because it involves a fair bit of robotics and I got to do an amazing course in Montreal at the CSA headquarters that taught me how to manually capture vehicles and that kind of thing, mostly so I know what the astronaut perspective is when they're capturing a vehicle.

Erin: 22:00

When they're up in the cupola looking at if they can see it and doing all of the capturing manually, it's good to know what the astronauts have gone through. A lot of our training as a CAPCOM is essentially the ground school version of astronaut training so we know what their perspectives are like. And I was super keen on this robotics course and a total robotics fangirl that my boss is like, This Capcom mission should probably go to the Canadian who won't shut up about robotics. So I'm pretty sure that's why they had me do that. So I'll go through a couple simulations with the NG team, the visiting vehicle people, and the rest of our control room, just to go through any emergency scenarios that might happen with a visiting vehicle.

Erin: 22:40

If we miss a capture or something happens with the vehicle, we like to practice that before it actually launches and approaches station. So CAPCOMs are involved in that because you're very much reporting back and forth to the folks on station before they start their robotics procedure about the status of that vehicle and where it is. So that's part of the job as a CAPCOM during a birthing scenario.

Bryan: 23:02

That's awesome. Is that like the first mission that you've been assigned?

Erin: 23:07

Yeah. So most of the time as a Capcom, you will be assigned some kind of mission, I suppose. You'll be a lead. It's just a way to spread out all of the the work we have to do. So the guy that I did my Spaceflight Academy with, another military officer from the Space Force, he's going to be doing the Axiom four crewed mission.

Erin: 23:25

So that's his CAPCOM lead job. So each of us got assigned something relatively quickly, which is pretty cool. But I'm just happy that I get to to work with the Canadian robotics folks. Well, I mean, there's Americans too. Don't get me wrong.

Erin: 23:37

It's just we developed the technology and I'm super excited about it. So, yeah, I'm hoping I'll get one more probably have time for one more Capcom assignment after NG twenty two.

Bryan: 23:46

Awesome. So can you share what a typical day might be like when you are on the console as Capcom? How do you manage communications and relay what the engineers are saying into astronaut speak?

Erin: 23:58

It's a good question. So it depends on what shift you're on. Generally, CAPCOMs will either work the ship that's aligned with the crew waking up until they're midday, that's called orbit one, and then we'll hand over to the orbit two CAPCOM, which is kind of midday until they're done their workday. We don't normally staff a CAPCOM overnight when the astronauts are sleeping because we're not talking to them. So the flight director, if something happens, would probably call one of us in and then manage the comms until we get there.

Erin: 24:26

So orbit one, orbit two, kind of depends. For some reason, I'm not sure if it's because of 04/27 and how often we worked at night, but I tend to like Orbit one. So I'm showing up to the control center at about 11:45 at night, sometimes around midnight. Setting up my consoles, we have about five screens that show us the health of station and the health of all of our comms equipment as well. And what frequencies are dialed up where on station and a few other things that we like to keep track of.

Erin: 24:56

So we essentially have similar to what you have in an aircraft, the caution and warning annunciator. We have like a big one for station. So I like to have that one right in front of my face in case something happens. Kind of like a pilot, you always wanna have a good view of your caution and warning panel. So I had that.

Erin: 25:12

And then essentially you go through the plan for the day. You make sure that everyone's going to have enough calm assets for what they're doing. If there's a complicated procedure I've not seen before, I'll probably pull that up and see how many times they might be calling down and what I need to expect. If I'm going to need permission for the astronauts to continue, that I might have to prearrange that with the person whose console is responsible for that procedure. So to make sure that they're aware too, Hey, when they're in step 15, that step 18, they're going to call down for permission to continue.

Erin: 25:42

So I need to make sure that we have, I don't know, the power turned off to whatever it is they're working on and safing is in place and that kind of stuff. So you're going through your day. And then just before the astronauts call down for their morning planning conference, the flight director will pull everybody in the room, all the flight controllers, and ask if they have any points. So if there's any deltas from the night before when they had their report to what they're reading this morning, we like to address those because the commander usually to know the health of station. And if anything's changed overnight, they kind of want to know.

Erin: 26:15

They're kind of like their own version of a ship's captain up there. They want to know the health of their ship. So you'll take note of that. Each console will kind of give you information about what their plan is for the day and what might impact other console positions and how that might impact the astronauts. I only really I listen for the context, but unless there's an impact to crew, I'm not usually writing down like turbo detail about it.

Erin: 26:39

So if I hear that, Oh, hey, there's gonna be an interruption on this calm frequency or whatever, that's gonna interrupt my plan for the day. So I might tell the crew like, Hey, you don't have access to this frequency. That's gonna kind of change things a little bit. So you gather all that information so the astronauts have really good context and then you just kind of proceed with the schedule. So translating things into astronaut speak is essentially they want to know what they need to do as an operator.

Erin: 27:07

Some astronauts everyone's different. Some people want the nitty gritty detail as to why specifically this very specific thing didn't act the way that we were expecting. And then some astronauts are like, Okay, cool. What do I do with it? So it's kind of getting to know what each astronaut wants as well and sometimes what the commander wants.

Erin: 27:26

So the flight director needs all of that extreme engineering detail so that they can make an appropriate decision. But the astronauts don't need all of that background stuff. They need the high level context and the impacts to them. So it's up to me to kind of translate what I'm hearing happening in the flight control room and give the astronauts enough context that they're comfortable that they know what's happening, but not so much detail that I'm taking up their day explaining things that aren't really super applicable to them in the moment because they can't do anything about it. It's probably a ground action that has to happen.

Erin: 27:59

So that comes with time and certain consoles are a little easier to understand than others. There's a couple consoles that are super electrical engineering heavy, and I find those ones a little bit more difficult. I have to spend a lot of extra time reading about that console or contact that flight controller on their own personal loop and say, You just said this, what is the follow on impact if you have to do the thing that you're talking about? Like talk to me like I'm five because I don't understand exactly what you're saying. Other consoles a little bit more, I'm a little bit more comfortable with them.

Erin: 28:33

So the biomedical engineering group and the Oso flight controllers that manage things that get broken, they're more like mechanical engineers. So I tend to have a little bit, I'm a little bit more comfortable with those types of conversations when they get super technical. My weak spot, and I think a lot of people's weak spot is with power generation and the very sophisticated comms equipment. When those engineers start talking back and forth, I get a little lost. So I have to very much keep track of what's going on and ask for extra context if I need it.

Erin: 29:05

And it's my job to make sure that I'm getting enough context that the astronauts know what's going on. So that's the difficult part about this job is those engineers are like ten years or six years or five years to get to that position. They've gone through the backroom subspecialties to get there. They're very well versed. And I've been doing this for a year And I have to know a little bit about each of their stations so I can give the astronauts good context.

Erin: 29:31

So it's a little bit difficult, but it does remind me of that relationship sometimes you have with your maintenance folks back from a window squadron where I can describe to you kinda high level what I think is wrong, but you're the expert. I just need to know what to do with it right now. So it kind of reminds me of that relationship a little bit.

Bryan: 29:48

Yeah. That's a great comparison. Like basically, as an operator, you've got like a wider but less deep breadth of knowledge. Whereas, like, your subject matter experts, your SMEs, have typically like a very much more narrow but extremely deep breadth of knowledge on topics.

Erin: 30:07

That's a really good way to describe it. And I'd I'd probably say that's pretty accurate. So it also comes with time. Like I need to remind myself that I've been here since August of twenty twenty three. I'm not gonna be a station expert, but I do study at home to make sure that I can at least maintain that shallower depth of knowledge.

Erin: 30:26

But it's enough that if I know where my weaknesses are and I can always reach out to the other flight directors. But you have to be very precise with what you're transmitting up, even though you're giving them context. Miss speaking on the loops is very much not great. Precision is very important because of what it is we're trying to describe. And I often can't see them and they can't see me.

Erin: 30:48

So as much as I talk with my hands all the time and could be pointing to a point on their procedure, that's not going to help them. So you have to get very good at explaining what you mean and using correct terminology. So it's been a bit of a learning curve, but that's what those simulations are for, is to shake all of that out and to get you used to having to do that quick translation and then jumping in. If you don't understand or something doesn't make sense that you're getting that information right away because the astronauts might be waiting on critical context or instructions during an emergency in those simulations. So you wanna make sure that you have that confidence to say, I didn't catch your last.

Erin: 31:23

Say again, less complicated this time.

Bryan: 31:25

Yeah. That makes sense. So that's kind of an in-depth look at your shift as a Capcom. You do have three official job titles. Can you give us just a broad look at what your week looks like in Houston?

Erin: 31:38

Yeah. So Monday morning meetings, it's essentially an all hands. So the astronauts are there, all of our support staff in the office, and it kinda sets a tone for the week. But my job varies a little bit depending on what it is I need to be doing. So I keep an eye on what my schedulers do, but they've been there longer than me.

Erin: 31:55

They're experts with that stuff. I just keep an eye on currencies and qualifications. And if anyone's coming up to a red line with something like that, but most of my week is in and out of training meetings to make sure that we're lining up training that makes sense for folks. And a lot of, sometimes just fires to put things out. But a lot of my week, the past little while has been taken up with additional training.

Erin: 32:16

So just because I'm an opso and I deal with readiness reviews and essentially writing con ops and stuff like that, I still do a lot of training to make sure that my perspective on what the astronauts are dealing with, especially in terms of their training makes sense. So I've been observing some of their training to make sure that it's fitting with our mandate to get folks ready for the moon. So actually on Monday, I head out to do a field medical training course with the astronauts where we do a five day rotation at a hospital up in Houston. And that's essentially to give them hands on training and practical skills with suturing and stuff and how we can use that to get people ready for the moon where they might have to do more complex medical procedures because they're going to be days away from assistance. They're going to have to be able to rely on themselves.

Erin: 33:04

It's a little easier. It's still complicated, but it's a little faster to evacuate someone from station if we had to. But from the Moon, they're going to have to be self sufficient. So how does that field medical training fit into our bigger picture? I'm heading over to Florida to talk to the folks about the helicopters we're getting to see and make sure that the training that I'm developing for that makes sense for our larger picture when it comes to potential manual control if we need it landing on the moon.

Erin: 33:29

So there's all those little tiny things that are kind of impactful that all kind of add up throughout a week and you attack them as best you can amongst your other stuff. And on occasion, I'll hop into training. Like last week I was on a lunar geology course to make sure that I understood the type of content our astronauts were getting and then it made sense. And it was a super fantastic course. But a lot of that feeds back into the other training we're doing too.

Erin: 33:53

So are they getting enough field geology time? Is there a way we can add that into the astronaut candidate class this year that makes more sense in terms of the flow and the extra information that they're gonna have to know? So it all kind of It's like a typical ops job in that there's a million things happening all the time, but all of them are in the same vein and that we're trying to make sure the training makes the most sense for our folks as we pivot back to the Moon. So I wish I could give you an actual answer. It's different every week.

Erin: 34:22

The only thing that's consistent is that I'm very busy. Yeah. It's nice sometimes to take a break and go sit on console or go hang out with a bunch of astronauts giving people sutures. Like, that's gonna be interesting too watching them do that. But it's all in service to the same thing as making sure that our training makes sense for the hard jobs that they have to do and that we're buying down risk by making sure that they have appropriate training.

Erin: 34:44

Yeah.

Bryan: 34:45

Yeah. Sounds super busy, but sounds awesome.

Erin: 34:49

Yeah.

Bryan: 34:50

You mentioned this a couple times. NASA is pivoting back to the moon with the Artemis program. How will this round of lunar exploration differ from previous missions?

Erin: 35:00

This one, we're using different technology. Right? We've pretty much redesigned everything from the capsule to the spacesuits to the traverses that they're doing on the surface to the type of information we're trying to collect. And when we go back to the moon and we land on it this time, we're going to land in the South Pole. It's a place we haven't been before.

Erin: 35:19

It's different geology. The terrain is more rugged. So we're gonna be looking for different answers out of the geology there. So the problem with the South Pole or one of the issues they're gonna have to manage is illumination. So the South Pole is a little bit more difficult to get solar power.

Erin: 35:36

They're gonna have to move it around. It's just the way the things work in terms of shadow and that kind of stuff. And because of the terrain they're working on, the suits are different and astronauts are being trained right now in different types of tools and that kind of stuff. So the mission is the same in that we wanna go to the moon and learn as much as we can because the geology of the moon is important in telling us a story about the earth's formation, believe it or not. So it's important to do, figure out if we can find some water there.

Erin: 36:05

So the mission's the same, like I said, but how we're approaching it's going to be different just because of the technology and we're doing it fifty years later. But how I fit into this is just to make sure that the astronauts, because we haven't done this in a while, there's lots of really smart folks that have been here a lot longer that are involved in larger pieces of the specific planning that they're doing. But is there anything that I can do as the operations officer to help manage that pivot and make sure that the training that we're doing both helps them get ready for the ISS as well as be useful for our return to the moon as well? So it's finding those efficiencies where I can. And some of those things crossover, like learning how to fly helicopters as an astronaut, we get a lot of questions about that.

Erin: 36:51

But the side by side nature of being in a helicopter is very much like being in a crew capsule. The cognitive loading is actually a little bit different in terms of when you're getting close to the ground and you're landing visual illusions, degraded visual environments with dust balls and that kind of stuff. Your physical communication between each other when you become task saturated with someone who hasn't flown helicopters before, sometimes they just stop talking to you because they don't hear anything anymore. They're so task saturated. So finding ways to use these devices that we have to get people ready for some of the hardest things we've ever done as a human race is land people on another celestial body.

Erin: 37:30

How can we use the tools that we have now to help not only for the ISS mission, but for the moon as well? So we're incorporating some things that were different than last time we did this, and it's cool to be a tiny, tiny, tiny part of it. I'm not designing, like, all of the training plans. It's just the stuff within my ops office for unassigned astronauts. We're trying to make sure that it makes sense for the next pivot, and that's kind of my job.

Bryan: 37:51

That's awesome. Yeah. And do I have it right that this time they're looking to actually, like, establish a base on the moon?

Erin: 37:58

I think the the moon to Mars program, that's one of the goals, I believe. I don't remember, like, where on the list of objectives that is, but we'd like to prove that technology on the moon because it's difficult to live somewhere other than on this planet. The station, we know we can do it on station, but setting up a permanent facility on the moon is gonna be very challenging, but will help us build the base of knowledge that we need in order to do this on Mars. So I think that's part of the overall kind of spectrum of things we're doing there on the Moon to make sure we have the skills figured out solid before we go millions of kilometers away Yeah. To to Mars.

Bryan: 38:37

The fifteenth anniversary Northern Lights Award Gala for Canadian Women in Aviation was held in Toronto on 10/05/2024, and you were presented with the Elsie McGill award in the government category. Why do you think you were presented with this and what did it mean to you?

Erin: 38:51

I was super surprised to have been nominated for that award. When I was called by the organizer that I was invited to come up and receive the award, I was like, That's very nice. I wonder who nominated me. And it turned out it was two different groups of people, Josh Kutrick and some folks, and then an old coworker of mine in one of my flights at 04:27 and some folks that he knew. And it was nice to be recognized, although I'm kind of a more of a humble person.

Erin: 39:22

I like to try and stay in the background a little bit. But I think it was because of this explosion of duties and things that I've taken on. And I do take the responsibility and the opportunity to represent Canada in a very unique way, both as a CAPCOM and as a branch chief, deputy branch chief for operations. I get to represent Canada and use some of the best training that I've ever received to help kind of inform some of the training that we're doing down here to send people back to the moon, which is pretty cool. So I think it was just a recognition of that.

Erin: 39:58

All of this stuff is new for Canada and I'm hoping that we can continue this work, but I think it was a great way to maybe highlight that honestly, someone like me, as many difficulties as I've had throughout my career and had to kind of rejig and find new plans and all that kind of stuff that you can still You still have a lot to offer, even though you might not be perfect the first time you try something that you can rally all of your skills and do some really cool stuff. So it was nice to be recognized. Huge honor. It makes me a little teary, to be honest, to be recognized in a national forum like that. But I hope it serves to prove to anyone that you can really honestly reach for what you want to do if you put your head head down and just just work at stuff.

Bryan: 40:50

Yeah. What are some of the most important lessons you have learned so far at NASA?

Erin: 40:56

Interesting question. Most important lessons. I think it's to ask questions and just be confident to apply your knowledge. I think my most important lesson, because it still strikes me as odd that I'm in this position that as a not just as a CAPCOM, but also as the deputy branch chief for crew ops after not being at NASA very long, is that if NASA thinks I have the capacity to do this job, I should probably think that I have the capacity to do this job. So from a personal sense, I think the most important thing I've learned is that it may have taken forever, like I'm 40 years old, but it might finally becoming a little bit more confident in myself.

Erin: 41:41

And I've had the ultimate sort of external validation that NASA thinks I'm competent to do some of the stuff that I'm doing, so maybe I should as well. And I think that's probably my most important personal lesson. And then in terms of a professional lesson, even though I'm a captain and I come from a special forces background, a very small community, I've never really worked in the conventional air force before, People are excited to want to help when it comes to space stuff. GRCC was excited. Three CFFTS was excited.

Erin: 42:13

The CSA actually has been excited to get a little bit more involved as well in areas that they haven't been involved in because they have some random captain that's willing to invite them down to do stuff. So it's like, you don't have to necessarily stay in your little box if you're polite and you have a good reason. You can reach outside of that and get some really cool stuff done. So it's to think, continue to think outside the box, but also reach past some of those traditional barriers we sometimes just put in front of ourselves by talking ourselves out of stuff to begin with. And that probably applies to my ops job here as well.

Erin: 42:49

I've had a few ideas that I thought, you know what? Someone's just gonna say no to this. I don't even think I should bring it up. And then you bring it up and your boss is like, you should run with that. And you're like, oh, okay.

Erin: 42:59

So learning to trust yourself that you're there for a reason and that you might actually have ideas that can benefit an organization even like NASA as a new outsider. Those have been some pretty cool lessons to learn here.

Bryan: 43:12

I like what you said about the kind of the validation of, hey, NASA thinks I can do this. I should also think I can do this. I think that's something that pilots can't well, and many people of many walks of life can use I think back to the the pilot world, let's say the first time you get sent solo or upgrading to aircraft commander and you get that stamp in your logbook, you know, there's a whole group of people. There's a whole bunch of, like, a whole system that is saying, hey. You are qualified to do this.

Bryan: 43:45

Like, go forth and do this. And really, we should be believing in ourselves as well once when you have that validation.

Erin: 43:52

Yeah. I agree. I just there's probably been enough points across if we look at the arc of Aaron Edwards here from getting my private pilot's license and the ship's team diving qual and passing Mars training and getting selected for soft and blah blah blah blah blah. It's taken me a long time. And usually I have to look back at those things to be like, Oh yeah, I did that.

Erin: 44:14

So the external validation thing is obviously we should all be internally validated with what we do, but sometimes it takes looking back over a history of the things that you've done to to put it all together and say, no. You know what? Actually, at this point in my life, I am capable of some pretty cool stuff. I should just probably go with that. So it's an interesting interesting thing to do when you look back at that sometimes.

Bryan: 44:38

For sure. So what are your future plans after your current posting at NASA is complete?

Erin: 44:43

That's a really good question. Honestly, I think my my career so far has been me trying to do things that seemed really interesting and challenging. I haven't actually had a career plan before. So this whole concept of trying to figure out exactly where I should end up is kind of new for me. I've just always just tried stuff and kinda wanted to see where it would end up.

Erin: 45:07

So I think it makes sense that given the opportunity that I've had, that this training and the information and what I've learned here, we should find a way to kind of plug it back into Canadian military space. So my guess is I'll probably end up somewhere within seven wing space, that would make sense, or back at four twenty seven flying and also maybe working to advance the space liaison portfolio that we have out there too. So I think that's probably the best two places I could end up again. I still fly now. Actually, go back every quarter, very fortunate to stay current.

Erin: 45:43

I think that's because the plan had been when I left, when I left a little earlier than we normally have our aircraft commanders leave, that I would come back and do another flying tour. So I maintain a utility category right now and it has turned out to be very useful for the work I'm doing down here. But I think it would one of those two places makes the most sense of trying to find a way to combine those two things, but there's a lot of stuff I've learned down here I think could be beneficial back in the air force. And you know what? Think I might still have one more flying tour in me, we'll see.

Erin: 46:16

But honestly, I'm happy to go where I'm gonna be best suited for helping. I'm not too fussed about where I get posted so long as I'm able to to be used effectively in advancing our missions.

Bryan: 46:31

Yeah. I mean, again, you know, that's the perfect attitude. Right? Like, those are the people who end up happy wherever they end up.

Erin: 46:38

Absolutely. I think, like, Ottawa area would be nice, but I'm honestly happy just to to be contributing how best I can. So Mhmm. My guess is probably back to '47 or somewhere in the in the space space world in Ottawa.

Bryan: 46:52

Okay. Why specifically should pilots consider a career in aerospace and space exploration?

Erin: 47:00

I think it's a natural progression. Like, at some point, those skills are gonna be needed for more consistent flights to low Earth orbit. Space is, I mean, aside from being super cool, I think it is our next leap. We might not see people fly into space regularly in the military or anything like that for decades, but it's a domain that literally touches the aerospace domain. Space is above the air.

Erin: 47:26

They are one in the same. So I think it's important that maybe we don't pursue careers in them necessarily, but as a pilot, I think you need to have a good understanding how space affects you. Whether you're military or civilian, doesn't really matter. But space, especially now, we mentioned it a little bit before, super important to everything that we do. So if you're a pilot, it's definitely an area you should be aware of at the very least.

Erin: 47:54

It's important to your job.

Bryan: 47:56

Okay. So we're into our final set of questions. We always try to ask these questions. What is something you do to stay ready to do your many complex jobs?

Erin: 48:06

You know what? For me, it's usually been sports. I think you need to have a break from all of the insane stuff you're doing, Whether you're like me and you take on too many jobs at NASA or you're a pilot or some other aerospace trade, it's really easy when there's so much work to do to get to dive right in and wanna attack everything all the time, but you become less effective over time if you're not physically ready for that challenge. So pretty much everywhere I've ever been posted, I end up joining some kind of team. So for me, sports as a break and sports as a means to stay fit are kinda how I'm able to maintain my output.

Erin: 48:46

If I didn't play rugby and I wasn't sort of dedicated to running and lifting, I know where I'd be. Probably completely burnt out is my guess. But even back in Petawawa, I was very consistent about the climbing club. I climbed a lot, I ran a lot, and that was sort of a forced break. And also for me, back at four twenty seven, I'm a relatively small individual, maintaining a really high level of fitness was important to me because of the nature of my job.

Erin: 49:15

I had to work at a pretty high percentage of my body weight when I had all my stuff on and I wanted to make sure I was still effective. So, I mean, for me, every day is leg day. That happened at 47. So I try and maintain that as best I can here. So that's, I think how I'm best able to maintain my effectiveness and being forced by my friends and family sometimes to take actual leave, not that kind of fake working leave.

Erin: 49:43

I think that's important too. You can't be effective over a long period of time if you're just tired and burnt out.

Bryan: 49:50

Yeah. No. No matter how much you love the job, no matter how much you enjoy what you're doing, you gotta take a break.

Erin: 49:55

Yeah. For sure.

Bryan: 49:58

What are some essential skills and traits that make a great Capcom?

Erin: 50:02

Good question. I'd say probably the ultimate listening skills. You're listening to the astronauts. You're listening for their tone, not just the words. You're listening to everything that's happening, whether it's on their frequencies or over the air, like flight director to flight director over the console, or you're listening to multiple different conversations happening at one time.

Erin: 50:24

I think that's important. And also a concept of understanding that the job you have is extremely important. You might be the person telling the station that there is an emergency and you have to be able to jump on that and moderate your tone to indicate to them that there's something going on that they really need to pay attention to. So I think it's actually probably more than the technical skills that everyone can learn a little bit more easily. There's a lot of soft skills involved in interpersonal stuff.

Erin: 50:52

So I think being humble, understanding that you are just one person in a very important team, but you are an individual that is important, but you are part of a team and you have to understand that. So between listening skills and interpersonal skills, I think those are probably the most important ones.

Bryan: 51:11

Okay. What advice would you give to young people who are interested in careers in aerospace and space exploration?

Erin: 51:19

Just just do it. Find something within those sectors, whether it's geology or test piloting or engineering. Find something that you really enjoy that you can get really good at. And usually, you'll find from that, there is some direct line into space. So I think that would probably be my best advice is you want to be passionate about the thing that you're studying and hope that it can kind of get you into space because space requires a lot of passion, but also a lot of patience.

Erin: 51:49

So the thing that you're doing or the sector that you've involved yourself in within that whole space architecture, you want to make sure that you enjoy what you're doing. So be passionate about what you're studying.

Bryan: 52:01

So finally, I've got to ask a phrase you use often in social media posts is ad Astra nerds. What's the story behind this?

Erin: 52:11

I'm surprised you caught that, and I probably have to take it out of my signature block now. But, yeah, I like the motto. I've always enjoyed that even when I was a kid and in grade eight when we had to learn Latin. I'm like, yeah, pathway to the stars. And then obviously the or through adversity to the stars and the RCF motto is similar.

Erin: 52:31

And I feel like in a lot of ways, I've been a kid that has always wanted to go to space or be involved in space and have had my own adversities along the way. But if there's one thing that stayed consistent through that entire time is the fact that I am a giant nerd. You can't see all the Lego behind me, but it's all space related. And I think just reminding yourself of where you've come from and who you are is kind of encapsulated in that little slogan there at Astroneerds. Yeah.

Erin: 53:01

Because I think it's just become my byline at this point.

Bryan: 53:04

Yeah. I love it. That's awesome. And for what it's worth, I totally connect as well with Perardo at Astra. The idea of through adversity has always really spoken to me.

Bryan: 53:15

It's especially spoken to me since I ended up with a mental health injury and going through medical release and all that kind of stuff. I just keep that that phrase in mind and it it really speaks to me. So I love it.

Erin: 53:28

Yeah. I totally agree.

Bryan: 53:31

Okay. Erin, this has been such an interesting conversation. I really wanna thank you for your time, but and your insights, but also for your hard work. Canadians are known as hardworking and dependable at NASA, and you are obviously keeping up with that tradition. So thank you so much, and thank you for being here.

Erin: 53:47

Alright. Well, I appreciate the time. And you know what I'm gonna say next. Right?

Bryan: 53:51

Yeah. Go for it.

Erin: 53:53

At Astra Nerds.

Bryan: 53:56

Okay. That wraps up our chat with captain Aaron Edwards down in Houston working with the Canadian Space Agency and NASA. For next week, we'll be taking a break. There will be no episode next week as we are on vacation. For the following week, we'll be sitting down with lieutenant colonel Francois Pasquale, lieutenant colonel Luke Coates, and major Dan Fox for a special on location interview we did in Comox, BC for an in-depth discussion on the c two ninety five Kingfisher.

Bryan: 54:27

Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show? You can reach out to us at the pilotprojectpodcast@Gmail.com or on all social media at at pod pilot project. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF aircraft. As always, we'd like to thank you for tuning in and ask for your help with the big three.

Bryan: 54:49

That's like and follow us on social media, share with your friends, and follow and rate us five stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you.

Intro/Outro: 55:02

Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.