The NASA astronaut who protected his spacecraft by repairing a foam leak during the most recent Discovery shuttle mission will speak at a conference hosted by Syracuse University at the Genesee Grande Hotel on Saturday.

Astronaut Dr. Steve Robinson will be the keynote speaker at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Northeast Region One conference, which has drawn students and professors from schools including Polytechnic University in New York City and Cornell University, said Dr. Hiroshi Higuchi, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

The conference is part of a larger national competition that allows students to submit technical papers and then present their findings to a panel of judges, Higuchi said. Winners from this conference in the master’s and undergraduate categories win money and a trip to Reno, Nev., for the national competition. Nine SU students will be giving presentations.

‘He started out with the same background as all of us have,’ said Shannon Tronick, a senior aerospace engineering major and chair of the SU AIAA chapter. ‘It will be interesting to see how he’s taken his education and applied it.’

Robinson, who has a doctoral degre in fluid mechanics, is an example of how to relate fundamental knowledge to a real-life application, Higuchi said.

‘He’s not just a fighter pilot becoming an astronaut,’ he said.

Robinson was selected to be an astronaut in 1997, flew with John Glenn one year later and most recently flew on the 2005 Discovery mission, the first manned shuttle mission since the Columbia explosion in 2003.

On the Discovery, Robinson repaired tiles near the fuel tank that had leaked foam during takeoff. The foam could have damaged the wing in a similar manner to Columbia and caused the same problems during re-entry.

It was the first time an astronaut had ever walked on the underside of a shuttle, Higuchi said. In his three missions, Robinson has logged 830 hours in space and 20 Extra-Vehicular Activity hours, which are when an astronaut leaves the spacecraft for any reason.

The conference is a great opportunity for students to learn what the hot topics are in the aerospace field, meet other students and network with AIAA members in the field, Tronick said. At last year’s conference at Princeton University, Tronick met someone she ended up working next to at NASA last summer.

‘(Robinson)’s talking about the mission itself, especially because it might be one of the last shuttle missions,’ said Jon Mihaly, a junior aerospace engineering major and treasurer of SU’s AIAA chapter. ‘It’ll be interesting to hear his take on the shuttle program.’

Published on March 30, 2006 at 12:00 pm