www.ruegnitz.com

Updated pictures of our new house have finally been posted (sorry for the delay).  You can find them in the New Home album of the Photo Gallery on Pages 7 and 8.  We’re all moved in and eventhough our lawn looks like plain old dirt, it’s been seeded and is starting to grow. 

Only 2 weeks left and here’s where we’re at…  The floors are finished, cabinets installed, garage built, driveway in, front porch is on, back porch is framed up, and trim and doors are being installed.  Still more to post at the end of week 28 so please check back.

Today was the first race of the season for both Juan and I.  We didn’t quite perfom like we did last year at the Stucky Chiroporactic run however we were both please with our times and better yet we had a good time.  Let’s hope as the season progresses our times will get better and we won’t feel quite so fat while running.

Wall tile, floor tile, more stone on the fireplace and hardwood flooring.

Despite sickness, all relish the experience

By Pamela Powers
Menomonie News Bureau

MENOMONIE - Social studies teacher Ryan Ruegnitz officially experienced space sickness on a recent 11-day trip to Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Ruegnitz was one of three Menomonie High School teachers who in mid-March rode on a C-9 plane making parabolic dives to create weightlessness and simulate the gravity of Mars and the moon. She traveled with science teachers Angela Krause-Kuchta and Deanna Suilmann.

The NASA trip was part of the Network Educator Astronaut Teachers. Krause-Kuchta is one of 197 NEAT members in the nation.

Menomonie is one of about 10 schools in the nation participating in the program.

The teachers also conducted an in-flight experiment that their students began working on in September. They analyzed how a plant takes in nutrients when gravity is less than it is on Earth.

During the flight, the teachers became weightless about 26 times and experienced lunar and Martian gravity three times.

“I threw up more times than I have ever done in my whole life,” Ruegnitz said, noting she vomited 16 times during the flight.

Ruegnitz was told that about 60 percent of astronauts get space sickness. Far fewer people get sick on C9 flights, however.

“It’s mostly because your brain doesn’t know how to react to the change of weightlessness,” she said. “As soon as we landed I was fine.”

Krause-Kuchta said the trip was priceless.

“It is a very surreal feeling,” she said. “Your brain is trying to connect with what your body is doing.”

Krause-Kuchta said she held onto a strap, and her feet slowly started to rise as she became weightless.

“It was so freeing,” she said of zero gravity.

Suilmann also became ill but wouldn’t have passed up the flight. “It was an awesome experience,” she said. “I would do it again in a heartbeat. You felt so light.”

On the moon a 120-pound person weighs 20 pounds, and on Mars a 150-pound person weighs about 50 pounds.

Krause-Kuchta was on one plane and Suilmann and Ruegnitz on another.

The Menomonie Area Public Schools Foundation and 3M helped pay for the trip. OEM Fabrication did the welding on the box used in the experiment, and White City Glass donated the plastic for the housing.

Powers can be reached at 715-235-9018 or pamela. powers@ecpc.com.

More siding, stone on the fireplace, and our well was dug.

The excitement continues to mount. We spent the day at Ellington Field doing more prep work in anticipation of our flights on Thursday and Friday. NASA is incredibly safety conscious, as you may expect. One of the highlights of today was being able to be outside on the flight line observing the takeoff and landing of today’s RGO flight, several F-14 fighters and T-38 trainers piloted by astronauts.

After lunch the first group of experiments was offloaded from the C-9 and ours was loaded! It was exciting to be able to finally install the hardware and camera mounts. After all groups had secured their equipment, we were issued our flight suits and name tags. Wow! I never dreamed I would wear a NASA flight suit and have my own leather name badge. The final briefing of the day was entitled “Anti-Motion Sickness”. We were coached in what to do and not do as we fly the reduced gravity flight.

Hope were all taking good notes!

Thursday morning Angela gets her chance to fly with our technical mentor, Felix Soto Toro.

Deanna

Hello from Houston!

We enjoyed another great day here in Houston.  We started the morning off bright and early with coffee and orange juice at the complimentary hotel breakfast, then we headed over to Jamba Juice and treated ourselves to a delicious smoothie, a little later we stopped by Einstein’s Bagel for coffee, water and a bagel, our next stop was Sonic for a slushee, and we capped off the day with dinner and about 4 glasses of water a piece!

Right now, you are probably wondering why anyone ever let us come to Texas - We seem to have wasted the entire day consuming beverages!

Well, we were actually really thirsty from yesterday’s chamber training.  One of the delayed symptoms of hypoxia is extreme thirstiness.

Truly though, besides all of our beverage stops, we had a great day.

We spent the morning touring mission control - It was amazing.  We were able to tour the current mission control (the one working with the shuttle that was launched last night), mission control for the International Space Station and the historic mission control (famous for its use with Apollo 13). 

We also saw and learned about the world’s largest vacuum test chamber.  It was over 130 feet tall and 65 feet wide.  The chamber is used to simulate the conditions of space in order to test equipment and parts.

Finally, we ended the day back at Ellington Field with an excellent presentation by Tom Hanson.  Tom is the lead technical trainer for the astronaut corp.  The group he most recently trained just went up in last night’s shuttle.  He was a very engaging speaker and was truly grateful to all educators.  He teared up when thanking us all for the hard work we do everyday with a variety of challenging students.

Tomorrow, we will receive our flight suits and be briefed for flight.  Angela flies on Thursday and we (Deanna and I) fly on Friday. 

We have a live videoconference at 1:45 in room 122 on Thursday if you would like to attend.

See you soon!

Angela, Deanna, Ryan

Greetings from Houston!

We are all safe and well, but are required to wear a “Hazardous Duty” badge for 24 hours that identifies us as individuals who have participated in a pressure chamber activity and may be experiencing delayed reactions of decompression sickness (including such things as severe headache, visual disturbance, partial paralysis, collapse, and disorientation).  Sounds scary, doesn’t it?  NASA did a great job of informing us of all of the possibilities associated with flight at altitude and hypoxia, but then followed it with an equally great job of reassuring us of all of the safety measures they have in place to protect us.  Our four hours of physiological training on Friday was put to practical application this afternoon as we did our chamber training.  We were first fitted with helmets and masks, and then instructed further in the proper use of our oxygen regulators.  We entered into a chamber that was approximately 6′ X 18′, with small windows for the medical officers to observe us.  We began our training with a half hour of pre-breathing to get us comfortable with our masks and to help expel excess nitrogen from our blood.  They then sealed up the chamber and began changing the pressure to bring us up to flight altitude (25,000 feet).  Once at altitude, our hypoxia (lack of oxygen) training began.   We were instructed to remove our masks and then complete a series of written tasks - simple things such as writing our names, naming the presidents, writing numbers from 20 down to 0, and describing the colors on color wheels on the wall opposite us.  The goal was for us to recognize what our symptoms are and then to take effective corrective action (putting our masks back on and turning the oxygen flow on).  Ryan and Angela became quite goal oriented and didn’t want to put their masks back on until they had all of the tasks completed.  Deanna will have to be the group’s safety monitor - she did a great job of recognizing her symptoms (blurry vision) early on and getting her oxygen flowing.  (We are all “East’s”, you know!)  Once we were all well oxygenated again, we began our descent back to ground level.  We dropped 3000′ per minute and had to stay focused on doing the proper Valsalva maneuver to keep our ears clear.  We had to “bump” (go back up in altitude) a couple of times for people who had difficulties with the pressure in their ears.  Some even had to have special nasal sprays in their noses or (even crazier to observe) a special air hose blast air up their nose to relieve the pressure.  It was a great experience and we were so thankful that we were able to relax and enjoy the entire time.

The chamber is located at the Sonny Carter Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL).  After chamber training, we were given a tour of the NBL.  This is where the astronauts do their training for EVA’s (Extra Vehicular Activities - or space walks).  For every hour an astronaut spends outside of the spacecraft, they have practiced in the NBL for 10.  The NBL is a giant pool (40′ deep with over 6 million gallons of crystal clear water) with mock-ups of the shuttle and international space station.

Working backwards in our day. . .  Before chamber training, Felix took us on center to see where he works.  He is the project lead for the design of the new space suit for the astronauts traveling on the upcoming crew exploration vehicle.  We did a little detour to the “rock pit” where they test out new flight suits and other equipment that will be used on the moon.  We were so fortunate to get to observe a test of the “Chariot” lunar vehicle.  This vehicle was absolutely amazing and looked like something out of science fiction.  One of the engineers responsible for it told us that it is a prototype of a vehicle that will be used haul building supplies for setting up a lunar colony.

This morning was a bit stressful for our team.  We had to present at our TRR (Test Readiness Review).  The TRR is a safety review with about 12 NASA engineers, medical officers, flight crew, etc.  We had to introduce our experiment and then show off our “rig.”  Their biggest concern was that we might stick ourselves in flight with our syringes.  We took some of their suggestions and have made our protocol much safer.  We will hear tomorrow about whether the TRR team had additional structural concerns and, if so, will need to make our modifications before we load our hardware on the plane on Wednesday

As you can tell, we had a very eventful day!   

Angela, Deanna, and Ryan

This morning (Friday) brought four hours of physiological training to prepare us for our high altitude flight and any possible emergencies. We learned all about the gas laws (Harold and Doc, we have a whole new appreciation!) and how they apply to any gases trapped in our bodies. For the non-science types, the volume of a gas increases as the pressure decreases (or as altitude increases). Any amount of gas (oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, methane, etc) in your body will expand about 3X at the altitudes we will be flying. In order to expel the troublesome gas, NASA actually gave lessons in how to use your body cavity openings to belch or fart and how to use the valsalva procedure (pinch your nose and blow) to equalize pressure in your Eustachian tubes. There were many nervous laughs and giggles, as you might imagine. I had anticipated many things on this trip, but not this! We are becoming a very closely bonded team!

Monday afternoon we will actually go into the hypobaric chamber to experience the lack of oxygen at high altitudes. We will be fitted with fighter jet type oxygen masks. They will expose us to the level of oxygen at 25,000 feet and ask us to perform a series of tasks. They say many get goofy (I think we may already be there). The goal is to teach us our own symptoms of hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and to be able to don our own oxygen masks in case of an emergency on the parabolic flight.

We spent several hours getting our experiment set for the Test Readiness Review with NASA safety engineers. Everything is looking good so far. We all practiced using the glove box and handling the syringes we will use to get samples during parabolic flight (weightless flight). Several NASA mentors stopped to discuss our experiment and compliment Menomonie High School on the experimental hardware.

The most exciting event occurred toward the end of the day. We got to see the C9 plane being towed into the hangar after engine checks. If you think it is hard to get two cars into your garage, you should have seen this plane being towed in with only 18 inches of clearance! The crew chief told us that they once hit the top panel of the hangar! After the plane was parked, we were allowed to board the C9 plane for the first time! WOW! It has 20 standard seats in the rear. The remainder of the cabin is empty. The floor, walls, and ceiling are completely padded to prevent bodily injuries as people float or fall around the cabin during parabolic flight. Sort of a padded room. (See photos atached)

Our flight days and schedule has been decided. Angela will fly onThursday with our technical mentor, Felix Soto Toro. They will iron out the bugs in the procedure so Ryan and I can gather a second set of data on Friday! We are all very excited and somewhat less anxious then we were on Friday morning.

We are thinking about our students and colleagues. Please pray for good weather for the flights next week.

So long from Houston on day two of this adventure!

Siding, fireplace lath and scratch coat, and stone.

Greetings from Texas!

We’ll start off with the news you won’t want to hear - It was over 60 degrees here today and beautiful.

Today was our first official day and it was an exciting one.  We spent the majority of the day at Ellington Field.  This is an air field which houses many NASA aircraft, plus Coast Guard and Home Land Security aircraft (we arrived to the sight and deafening roar of two fighter jets taking off).

The level of clearance we have been given is almost surreal.  The only area that was off limits today was the Home Land Security division.  

We spent most of the day meeting with various NASA officials, including our technical mentor Felix, and working on our experiment.  Thanks to Phil and Josh Winegar and Ryan Deflorin, there was not too much work to be done.

Tomorrow, we are headed to Johnson Space Center.  We’ll be doing physiological testing and touring NASA’s mission control.  It is a fun time to be down here; besides our upcoming flights, NASA is prepping for Tuesday’s shuttle launch.

We have attached a few images.

We hope all is well in Menomonie (our city’s name is the most popular - people are having lots of fun trying to pronounce it)!

Angela, Deanna, Ryan

Trio to take part in experiments at space center

By Pamela Powers
Menomonie News Bureau

MENOMONIE - Three Menomonie High School teachers admit they don’t like carnival rides, but they are about to take the ride of their lives on a plane making parabolic dives to create weightlessness and simulate the gravity of Mars and the moon.

The trip is all in the name of science.

Science teachers Angela Krause-Kuchta and Deanna Suilmann, along with social studies teacher Ryan Ruegnitz, leave Wednesday for the 11-day trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The trip is part of the Network Educator Astronaut Teachers, of which Krause-Kuchta is one of 197 members nationwide.

In September, she received an invitation to form a team of teachers to try a reduced-gravity flight experiment with the help of students at Menomonie High School. They have developed an experiment that will test a plant’s ability to take in nutrients in a weightless or less-gravity environment than Earth.

The students created a plastic house to enclose a plant. Using food coloring, the teachers will run the experiment on the plane. Students will receive data from the experiment to analyze.

About 300 students will be involved in the research.

“I was really excited to participate,” Suilmann said. “It was an opportunity for students to participate in real science and things that can be used by NASA.”

As space travel expands, and if the moon and Mars are colonized, the effects on plants for food and oxygen must be determined, she added.

Menomonie is one of 10 schools across the nation participating in the program.

During the first few days at Johnson Space Center, teachers will undergo training and learn how their bodies respond to oxygen deprivation as a safety measure for the flight, Krause-Kuchta said.

Later in the trip they will take the flight on a C-9 plane and experience weightlessness and lunar and Martian gravity.

On the moon a 120-pound person weighs 20 pounds. On Mars a 150-pound person weighs about 50 pounds.

Krause-Kuchta said she is most looking forward to experiencing the freedom of weightlessness.

“I want to be able to experience that, along with microgravity, and relate back to the students what the changes feel like,” she said.

Ruegnitz said it’s going to be a challenge because she has a fear of flying. She also is looking forward to sharing the experiment data with students.

“I think this is real-life problem solving,” she said. “What the students are learning is bigger than this school.”

The data gathered could impact agriculture on Earth too, they noted.

On Thursday, March 13, the teachers will share their experiences with students via a video conference from Houston.

Stevie Kochaver, a Menomonie High School sophomore, has been involved with planning the experiment.

The students’ hypothesis is that the plants, with less gravity, will take in less nutrients.

“I really want to see all the information gathered,” Kochaver said. “It is really interesting. I am not really sure what is going to happen.”

The teachers are paying for the trip largely themselves and have applied for grant money to help cover costs.

Powers can be reached at 715-235-9018 or pamela. powers@ecpc.com.

Mud, tape, and the framing for our fireplace (good lord it looks big)!  It’s up to Bob now to make it beautiful.  We are very excited.

Drywall!

By Bruce Dybvik, Reporter
Monday, February 18, 2008 11:14 AM CST

No, Menomonie High School (MHS) teachers Angela Krause-Kuchta, Deanna Sulimann and Ryan Ruegnitz are undergoing some fad diet for astronauts.

What they and more than 100 Menomonie High School students are doing is designing a special chamber to find out what happens to plants when they are subjected to microgravity conditions. It’s all part of NASA’s (National Aeronautic and Space Administration) “Reduced Gravity Flight Opportunity.”

The three teachers, accompanied by the students’ experiment, will travel to the Houston Space Center in Texas on March 5. Once there, they will undertake two flights aboard a C-9 aircraft affectionately dubbed “The Vomit Comet.” The plane maneuvers to produce the reduced gravity conditions necessary to test both the plants and chamber’s reaction to weightlessness — and that of Krause-Kuchta, Sulimann and Ruegnitz.

Following the two flights, the teachers will debrief their MHS students in a live videoconference from Houston as they relate how they and the experiment held up under microgravity conditions.

Team building

This high-flying adventure began with biology teacher Angela Krause-Kuchta who is a member of a NASA group called Network of Educator Astronaut Teachers (NEAT).

“In September, I was sent an invitation from NASA to form a team to apply for a reduced gravity flight. We made the top cut along with 197 other teachers in the Educator Astronaut program.

“NASA formed a group of us to share with students, teachers and community members the dream of space and trying to get students involved in the stem subject areas of science and technology and mathematics,” she continued. “This is a new program and the first time NASA invited students from high schools. Typically it is reserved just for college students.”

The team had to consist of a NEAT teacher, one teacher with at least five years of experience and another who had fewer than than five years in the field.

“Right away, two teachers came to mind and I knew they would be an awesome addition to the team,” Krause-Kuchta said about Sulimann, a former research and development engineer who teaches biology and physical science and Ruegnitz who teaches social studies.

“With Ryan, we thought it would be a neat way to bring in another core subject area to help us understand that science isn’t taught in isolation, but what happens in science affects history, and what happens in history affects science,” Krause-Kuchta said.

Real-life applications

In November, plans for the project were accepted by NASA, and the teachers and students have not touched the ground since in their rush to get their mission ready.

Flying with with teachers will be an experiment involving a plant growth chamber as part of NASA’s “plants in space.” The MHS project, entitled “Uptake of nutrients by plants in microgravity,” represents a collaboration between the students and teachers.

The students themselves designed the prototype of the container and experiment. The finished flying project will be manufactured with donated resources from OEM, a manufacturing facility based in Woodville.

The plant experiment is not simply another school science project, but is actual research. Ruegnitz pointed out that with her students, “This is the chance to apply studies in history and science to real life. … I have had some students who are researching the impact of NASA and their experiments and their technology have had on the agriculture industry and agriculture production in the United States.”

Krause-Kuchta added that learning about plant behavior in space will contribute to efforts in space — everything from growing food aboard future missions to potential for colonization on other planets. Data regarding the gravitational effects on plants could be of benefit on earth, too, in research as close to home as the formation of free-floating algae in our lakes and waterways.

Parabolic dives

Following their arrival at the Houston Space Center, the teachers will undergo training before taking part in two flights. They will ride aboard a large, transport-type plane use for routine astronaut training that, over a two-hour period, will make several parabolic dives to cause varying degrees of weightlessness.

The dives for this mission will simulate gravity conditions on the moon and on Mars. During these brief periods of microgravity, the teachers can expect to experience the effects as well.

The teachers expect to stay in Houston for several weeks to complete the mission and will report back via a live video teleconference in mid-March prior to their return.

The Dunn County News will follow developments with the teachers, the experiment and the students in upcoming editions and with special features on www.dunnconnect.com.

Bruce Dybvik can be reached at bruce.dybvik@lee.net.

I’ve finally worked up the courage to tell everyone that the plunge was officially cancelled.  Well, let me rephrase that, the “plunging” was cancelled.  The temperature was too cold (-7 temperature, -30 wind chill) to allow anyone to jump into the lake so instead you had the option to plunge a limb.  Ryan was nice enough to indulge my need to participate.  However, cold temperatures and a poorly run operation found us returning home without anything going in the water.  We took a couple of pictures for posterity (check out the photo gallery).  Even though I really wanted to jump in the water, I am very satisfied having raised $2090.00 for the Special Olympics of Wisconsin thanks to everyones generosity.

No new pictures this week, but lots of progress is being made.  We are starting to pick out some of the interior “stuff” - lights, flooring, faucets, etc.  We made our final decision on the siding and expect it to go up soon!  Check back soon for new photos.

The basement floor, windows, and front door side panels are in.  The basement is framed up and the HVAC installation has begun.

The shingles are on and the basement plumbing is in (including the in-floor plumbing).  Next up are the windows and basement floor.

The roof is on and the window openings are framed up; it’s really starting to look like a house!  Ryan took her first tour of the inside and liked what she saw.  Next week the basement will be “cooked” in preperation for the water and sewer piping.

Nothing new to post.  We just got back from Texas where we spent a week celebrating Christmas with my family.  To our suprise no progress had been made on our house and with the New Year this week we may not see much progress this week either.  Keep coming back for updates though.

Happy Holidays!  Here are a few new photos of our home construction.  We are off to Texas soon, but we will post more photos when we return.  Check out the photo gallery for more images.

Thank you to everyone who celebrated my birthday with me and Ryan this past week: Joan and Bob, Robert, Jean and Heather, Kathy and Grant, Alisha and Juan.  I couldn’t ask for anything better than the family and friends I already have.  It’s fun getting old.  Mark my words, 2008 will be one heck-of-a year.

The foundation is in as well as the drain tile.  Lot’s of dirt and the start of our new home.

The foundation work on our house began this morning.  I spent the morning with our builder, helped pick the location of our house and froze myself to the core (it was a brisk -3 degrees).  Thermal blankets will be in the hole throughout the weekend and the footings wll be poured on Monday.  More posts and photos to come as progress is made.

The title is a bit of a joke!  We will be moving, but not until next year.  This past summer, we purchased land in Menomonie.  We bought a little over two acres in a great development (Timber Ridge).  The development features 30 custom built homes (by Timber Ridge Homes) on 80 acres of rolling hills.  The lot we bought has approximately an acre of flat grassy land in the front and an acre of tree covered ridgeline in the back.  We are currently pulling together our home ideas and will be meeting with the builder next week (we hope to move in by August).  The house we live in now is great and we enjoy living in Eau Claire, but the move to Menomonie has lots of benefits.  Not the least of which, is our new lot’s proximity to our family and friends!

It was a brisk 32 degrees this morning; perfect day for a run.  Thank you Ryan, Alisha, Juan, Dave, Mike and every one else who witnessed me in my thermal running tights; I can’t help my skinny legs.  Thanks to the ever steady Juan we successfully finished the 2.5M course in 18:18 (7:19/M), well under our goal pace of 7:30/M.  Our efforts earned us both 2nd place finishes in our respective age groupings.  Dave (a fellow friend and co-worker) finished 1st in his age group for the 4M.  Congratulations to all of us!  Check out the photo gallery for pictures of the event.

Summer Vacation!  Max and I had a very busy summer, but we did manage to take a week off for a vacation.  Max, Jen, Matt, and I traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit two of our long time friends (Eric and Renee).  We had the best time.  On the first day of our trip we visited downtown Salt Lake City.  We checked out the famous Tabernacle Square, walked around the town, visited the Depot, and rode the trolley.  Although we were only in Salt Lake for four days, we packed in a lot of site seeing.  We visited the Great Salt Lake, Park City, and the Olympic Village.  We spent time in the mountains and enjoyed a six hour hike.  Matt, Jen, and Max even tried rock climbing.  Eric and Renee were great hosts.  Every evening we were treated to wonderful meals and one night we even had a badminton tournament!  For those of you who may not know, Jen, Eric, and I have known one another since elementary school.  We feel very lucky to have stayed in touch, and hope to make vacations together a tradition!  Check out the photo gallery to see some of our vacation pictures.

Welcome to the new ruegnitz.com!  As you can see we have redesigned it as a blog.  Come back as often as you’d like and see what’s new in our lives.  Enjoy!