Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II May 8, 2007
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration www.nasa.gov Volume 3 Issue 8 June 2007 View Commemorative Issue Royal Visit 2007: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II May 8, 2007 Goddard 02 Special Thanks From Table of Contents Dr. Weiler Royal Visit 2007 Thanks From Dr. Weiler- 2 Did You Say the Queen is Coming to Goddard? - 3 2007 Royal Visit 2007 - 8 Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, Explore with Maryland Students - 12 Cover Caption: Queen Elizabeth II Image Credit: NASA David Friedlander is the winner of the employee photo contest; see his photo on Page 3. Royal Visit Photo credit: Bill Ingalls Caption: NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and Goddard Director Dr. Edward Weiler welcome Her Majesty to Goddard. Mrs. Griffin looks on. On May 8, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). For nearly two hours, NASA and GSFC were on center stage representing our country and our Agency to the world. I am very proud to say that we came through with flying colors representing the best of the present peaceful use of space and the future of exploration. Joining us for the Queen’s visit were members of our Congressional delega- tion, led by Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin, as well as House Photo credit: Paul Alers Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Congressmen C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger Caption: Her Majesty and Prince Philip seated in the and Roscoe Bartlett. Building 8 Auditorium for a special presentation. The NASA delegation was led by Administrator Mike Griffin who was joined GoddardView Info by a number of the Agency’s senior leaders. Throughout the day, NASA shared examples of our missions and science, from Hubble to the Solar Goddard View is an official publication of the Goddard Space Dynamic Observatory, to operations and communications capabilities, to Flight Center. It is published biweekly by the Office of Public science and education with the Queen and Prince Philip. Affairs in the interest of Goddard employees, contractors, and retirees. A PDF version is available online at: Many, many people contributed to the day’s success. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/index.html Managing Editor: Trusilla Steele The GSFC Security staff did a marvelous job in planning and coordinating Editor: Alana Little the efforts of at least six different security organizations and in supporting the Secret Service in keeping our guests safe. It is hard to overstate how Deadlines: News items and brief announcements for publica- complex an operation this was and how well it was executed. tion in the Goddard View must be received by noon of the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month. You may submit contribu- tions to the editor via e-mail at [email protected]. Ideas for new stories are welcome, but will be published as Continued on Page 10 space allows. All submissions are subject to editing. GoddardView Volume 3 Issue 7 June 2007 03 Did You Say the Queen is Coming to Goddard? By Nina Harris Photo credit: David P. Friedlander Caption: Employees anxiously greet the Queen and take pictures as she takes a stroll to her next stop at Building 8. How do you get ready for a visit by Her Majesty the Queen We started having weekly tag-ups with all the leads at Goddard like Roger (HMQ) and His Royal Highness (HRH)? Once they’re here, Flaherty, Project Manager, Space Network Project Office (Code 452) who would make sure the Queen could talk to the International Space Station what do you say to them? Where do you take them? And the (ISS) Astronauts; Preston Burch, Associate Director, Astrophysics Project biggest question of all? Do you bow or curtsy, or simply smile Division (Code 440) who would see that the Duke had a chance to meet and and say “very pleased to meet you, Your Majesty?” talk with the Servicing Mission (SM) 4 Crew and learn about the upcoming Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission; and Liz Citrin, Project What’s the big deal you may ask? We have visitors come to Goddard every Manager, Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) (Code 464) who could tell day, and we provide tours and presentations regularly. Yes, but we don’t Prince Phillip about the exciting science and technology behind the SDO. typically have to work with such large and diverse numbers of people and By the way, SDO is being built and tested right here at Goddard and we’re organizations. Let’s see, first there were the British Embassy folks, and then collaborating with the UK on this mission. there were the Palace folks (yes, as in Royal residence), and then there was Scotland Yard, and our NASA Headquarters colleagues in External Relations, The first thing the advance team from the Palace—a mere 15 or so folks— Legislative Affairs, Public Affairs, and let’s not forget our Maryland congres- suggested after one of their initial walkabouts was, “let’s make sure this is sional representatives. And finally, last, but not least, there were the Secret informal, creative, and fun” for the principals (meaning HMQ and HRH— Service guys and gals. So you see, we have quite a few people who thought that’s what you call them, while you’re trying to keep everything under they were leading the planning of this Royal extravaganza, when in fact it was wraps). We’ll do it, I thought “as only NASA can,” taking into account that we really a very dedicated group of Goddard men and women who did the lion’s will have a window of less than two hours to execute the details for six tour share of the planning and implementing of this historic NASA event. stops, eight when you count the separate tour stops for the Duke. Initial Planning and Implementation Team No problem! The first to “take the reins” was our own Mike Ryschkewitsch, who did an ex- One of my favorite moments during the planning, was when Mark Hess, cellent job rounding up the key players who would make this event happen. Chief, Office of Public Affairs, heard: “Greenbelt, we have a problem.” Continued on Page 4 Volume 3 Issue 7 June 2007 GoddardView 04 Did You Say the Queen is Coming to Goddard? Continued from Page 3 A special thank you goes out to Debbie Hollebeke and Kelly Farrell for 2007 graciously hosting our Congressional guests and their staff. In addition to the royal guests, our British dignitaries included UK Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, and the UK Ambassador to the U.S. Sir David Manning and his wife Lady Manning. The Auditorium session was also a nice place during the day’s events to show off our next generation of scientists and engineers from the Goddard Child Development Center (GCDC)—great job singing “It’s a Small World” kids! We heard that Her Majesty especially likes little tykes; after all, what grandmother doesn’t? A special thank you to Rebecca Elliott, Office of Public Affairs, and her team, Royal Visit who coordinated all aspects of the auditorium event. Rebecca is the reason it Photo credit: Paul Alers all ran so smoothly. Caption: Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke received a special token of appreciation from Senator Barbara Mikulski and Majority Leader, Congressmen Steny Hoyer. Bob Freitas, Lynn Baker, and the Customer Support Office We were notified from Johnson Space Center (JSC) coordinators of the ISS communication link, that the window of opportunity to talk to the ISS received over 2,606 “valid” entries from employees wishing astronauts was greatly diminished because the UK decided to shorten the to take part in the Queen’s visit to the Building 8 Audito- overall time for the visit. As a result, the official agenda for the visit had to be rium. “Valid” is in quotes because Bob had to wean out all reworked (for the umpteenth time). the duplicate entries. Once that was done, he downloaded Who Gets to See the Queen? the e-mail addresses to an Excel spreadsheet. A Web site called www.random.org allowed him to generate 2,606 Another interesting aspect of the visit turned out to be planning for the unique numbers, which were then assigned to each e-mail auditorium session. When we found out our British friends were interested in having a short welcome session in the auditorium, we had to decide how address. After a shuffle, the first 200 names were chosen to we could choose who would attend. It was suggested that the fairest way win a seat in the auditorium. “It was actually fun,” Bob said, was to have a lottery for all 9,000+ employees. Some wondered if anyone “and I got to play HRH the Duke during the rehearsal.” would even be interested in coming? There would be magnetometers (metal detectors) to go through, (please leave your cell phones, PDAs, pocket knives and chewing gum in your office), everyone will have to arrive early and stay in their seats, for a show that will only last about 15 minutes. Who More Planning would want to do that? Here’s the answer—within the first 90 minutes over 900 e-mail replies were received from employees who wished to attend the Mike Ryschkewitsch had some rather pressing NASA stuff that he had to auditorium event! Ultimately, over 2,600 people entered the lottery for about attend to in the few weeks prior to the visit, so another senior member of 200 available seats. the Goddard management team was asked to step in and lead the core planning team.