Cookies and Stories

       Photo From astronaut Christina Koch via Twitter

COOKIES IN SPACE:  Apparently we here at MPA aren't the only ones making cookies lately. Would you believe they've been baking on the International Space Station, as well. 

Last week, when a SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific, on board was a batch of space-baked cookies!

They were baked, one at a time, in a Zero G oven, which was engineered to work in the microgravity environment aboard the ISS. NASA astronaut Christina Koch was the head baker, and used cookie dough provided by the DoubleTree hotel chain.

DoubleTree, which actually has a Cookies In Space website, promises more photos and video soon. In the meantime, you can watch their promo here. 

You can even order your own Cookies In Space, if you're so inclined: https://www.doubletreecookies.com/shop.html

STORYTELLING: This week in his English 101 class, CJ is learning about the art of storytelling. What makes a 'good' story? What are the elements and building blocks.

One of his pieces of homework was to listen to Ira Glass, an American Public Radio personality, talk about the art of storytelling.

Another part of his homework was listening to a gentleman share a story on Ira Glass' radio show, "This American Life." If you need a good belly laugh (and who doesn't?) we can't recommend this highly enough. It's just SUCH an entertaining story. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen.

"Squirrel Cop" on This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/115/first-day/act-two-0

TO THE MOON, MAYBE: There was a nice story in the Seattle Times about a Washington woman among the latest graduating class of NASA astronaut candidates, Kayla Barron. 

NASA astronaut candidate Kayla Barron is helped into a spacesuit before underwater spacewalk training at NASA Johnson Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston. (Robert Markowitz / NASA) 

A native of Richland, Barron now lives down near Johnson Space Center, awaiting her first flight assignment. That gig could be a stint on the ISS, or as the first woman on the moon. 

The 2006 Richland High School grad went to the U.S. Naval Academy, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering. She then went on to become a Gates Cambridge Scholar, and earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge in England.

While in the Navy, Barron was one of the first female officers assigned to the USS Maine, a nuclear submarine home-ported in Bangor, Kitsap County. Barron was just one of 12 people selected for NASA training in 2017. There were a record number of 18,300 candidates that year. As part of her astronaut training, Barron has trained everywhere from under water to the scrubby deserts in Arizona.