Peter Plavchan

NASA astro nerd dreams really do come true. So honored to be leading an amazing team as we enter Phase A development of the NASA Landolt mission.

Victory is mine!!! My car had two misfires after a long drive on a hill, with close to 150k miles on original spark plugs. I knew it was the most likely culprit of the misfire and they were 2x overdue for replacing. A week later, I decided to tackle the job myself and push my comfort zone. Three of the sparkplugs are easily accessible, but the other three require removing the upper manifold. Watched a couple of YouTube videos - turns out their videos don't start until the hard part is done. I then replaced all six spark plugs, and put the upper manifold back together. I saw I had broke the ceramic on one on the difficult to reach and see back three. However, I didn't realize that was a *bad thing*. I thought it wouldn't matter, but I was very, very wrong. I also happened to break two wires to I think the 02 sensor (that I had replaced before), so I was pretty proud of disassembling the connector (where the wires broke) and soldering in new wire. My car idled and accelerated rougher than before, and I felt so defeated. All that effort getting outside my comfort zone, and I made things worse. I tried to reason through what was wrong - it wasn't the wiring job I did, or a badly reconnected hose or anything. ChatGPT confirmed it had to be the cracked spark plug. So, I resolved to take it apart again and remove that one cracked spark plug shown below. I was too stubborn to give up and go to a mechanic. Taking everything apart a second time went super smooth. The upper manifold had some melt marks where it rested against the ignition coil, which confirmed for me I was right about the cracked spark plug being the primary reason for the rough idle. However, this spark plug became a major PITA to remove. I spent almost the entire day trying to get it out without success. The broken ceramic prevented me from getting my socket around the spark plug. I was using my iPhone for periodic snapshots. I tried vacuuming, pliers, suction from a shopvac, and blowing it out from a shopvac, and then rigging a 1/4 inch hose onto it. I tried grinding some of the ceramic down with a brief use of a hole dozer. I did not know at the time, but a set screw came loose and also wedged itself in the deep pocket. I just could not get a socket to grip the spark plug. In my iPhone pics it looked just like some ceramic debris. I could see that I could move it. I asked ChatGPT for help. It suggested getting a boresite camera, so that's what I did at the end of the first day doing battle with this stupid spark plug. Not having an operable vehicle this week really sucked - Had to ask a friend to take my oldest son to a swim meet. After a whole day on the second repair attempt, I was pretty defeated. The next morning (today) I was armed with a snake camera, an air canister, and an adapter for my shopvac for a 1/4inch hose, which turned out to still be thick so I inserted a smaller diameter one. I also added a midsize length set of need-nose pliers - previously I had regular ones that were too short for the deep socket, and then one that was too long to fit in the space between the engine and the firewall. I also got some more 5/8th inch sockets just in case... I had tried a little bit the night before, but was pretty exhausted by that point. The borecam and air canister and a good nights sleep made the difference. I was able to use suction to get one of the larger ceramic pieces out. The air canister blew the rest out. Then there was the one remaining stubborn piece. With the camera, I was able to use the new pliers to get it out. Phew. It was only then that I found out it was a set screw, from the hole dozer bit I had used the day prior. With the debris cleared, I finally got my confidence back. I tried my hand torque wrench - damn it was in too tight. I got my impact driver with a socket adapter, and that finally did it. When that came loose, I was so damn happy to finally move forward. I checked the other five for cracks and debris with the camera, buttoned it back up, and then was so damn happy again with how smooth the car ran when I started it. In the end, I probably spent just as much money as it would cost a mechanic to do in 1/10th the time, but I got some more tools out of it instead (the borescope camera for one!). And then I got the satisfaction of winning this multi-day multi-tool battle with this damn sparkplug. There's value in that psychological win too.

I get a daily report email from my ironport spam filter at work. I look at the email. I see an email there from a sender that emails me daily (arXiv). That sender is already in my safe sender list; so much for that. I click release; oops that doesn't work; I need to be on my vpn. I open my vpn client and login. The VPN client uses 2fA so I need to go onto my phone to approve the login. I get logged on to my VPN. I click on the link again. It doesn't work. Oh yes, that's right, the links don't work with firefox. I open chrome. Paste the link there. Ok, now I have to log on to ironport. Finally now I can release the email. The email arrives. Meanwhile, an email purportedly from the provost's office comes in straight to my inbox stating they are giving away a baby grand piano and need us to log into some website. Or its from my department chair asking for my phone number; or its from the president's office reporting an ice raid on campus; these are all phishing emails, both long game and short game for login harvesting. These completely bypass Ironport's spam filter. Meanwhile, a third-party contractor sends an email purportedly from our office of research, but they misspell research in the from email address. It's a legitimate email, but it sounds spammy advertising some mixer event and asking us to register. It also gets through the spam filter. I'm not sure - I confirm the from email misspelled is illegitimate. So I contact the Mason person mentioned in the email. Turns out it is legitimate and not spam. #whysohard

You are the training data. Should be obvious by now.

Last year the Office of STEM education at NASA got $143 million appropriates by Congress, after the executive budget request was to zero it out. OSTEM funds NASA programs like SpaceGrant, EPSCoR, MUREP, intern.nasa.gov, Aerospace Skilled Workforce State hubs, and there are similar graduate fellowships like the NASA FINNEST, NASA's Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity, and professional funding like the NASA Prize Postdoctoral Fellows, NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (including Sagan and Einstein fellows). If done well, this is an intriguing proposition to set a unified umbrella goal and organization across NASA OSTEM, and to connect and align to meet industry and national priorities.