Astronaut for Hire

Dear ‘Astronaut for Hire’ blog readers: Some of you may have noticed that I have not published a new post in quite some time. My current priorities prevent me from blogging as much as I would like, but I assure you I am still alive and well. When I am able, I will complete several posts from the past year. Here’s a sneak peak at the topics: Returning to Earth after life at sea aboard the Falkor (June 2014) NASA Exploration Science Forum (July 2014) Spartan Trifecta (Sprint, Super, Beast) races (August 2014) NOLS training expedition with HI-SEAS and the 2013 NASA ASCAN class (September 2014) HI-SEAS crewmember geology training (October 2014) Orbital Sciences and Virgin Galactic crashes (November 2014) Next Giant Leap Conference (November 2014) AGU Conference (December 2014) ISU vs. UND showdown revisited - guest post (January 2015) Balancing family, work, school, and life (March 2015) HAARP Earthquake and Tsunami teaching (April 2015) InSight Science Team Meeting (May 2...

I had the distinct privilege of participating in the 2012 PISCES Forum  last week on the Island of Hawaii.  Like the  2011 and 2010 meetings that I attended, this year's gathering focused on developing a research park in Hawaii devoted to planetary analog research in the context of sustainable space exploration . Dr. Buzz Aldrin was among the delegates participating in this year's PISCES conference, where he gave a keynote presentation on colonizing Mars through a sustainable strategy based upon Aldrin cyclers . With only about 50 people at the conference, there were many opportunities to interact with him closely. We spoke about how his father contributed to the early days of rocketry, what architecture is best suited for establishing a permanent Mars settlement, and what it takes to be an astronaut. He encouraged me to keep pursuing my goal of being an astronaut. Having met Neil Armstrong earlier this year, I am profoundly humbled to have met both Ap...

With the Olympics currently unfolding, we are reminded how athletes train very hard for their one chance at nailing a performance to achieve their long-sought goals. I have been undergoing my own intensive training regime for the past several months to earn a Private Pilot Certificate . Like those athletes, I too have been gearing up for the one performance that really counts; in my case that means passing the FAA checkride with a Designated Pilot Examiner who has the authority to grant me the pilot license. That checkride happened earlier today, and I am proud to say I am now a Private Pilot. For me, this achievement is like winning the gold medal, vindicating months of hard work and sacrifice. I am grateful to my CFI Scott and the entire staff of Galvin Flight Services Hawaii for their tutelage, but most of all, I thank my wife for her patience throughout this intense training period. Aviation goes back a few generations in my family to my great-grandfather who flew in t...

We are moving from an era of limited government-controlled space access using very expensive vehicles to more affordable systems developed by the private sector that can provide frequent trips to space for a variety of purposes.  Multiple companies are rushing to be the first to market, including Virgin Galactic , XCOR Aerospace , Armadillo Aerospace , Blue Origin , and Masten Space Systems . Their varied technological approaches and flight plans offer researchers a great deal of options for studying the suborbital realm.  The sky is not the limit! Last month I attended the 2012 Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) in Palo Alto, California.  The purpose of the conference was to kickstart the imaginations of scientists who may utilize suborbital platforms for research.  Whereas tourism has driven much of the initial investment in the burgeoning new paradigm for space access, it is the research market that stands poised to provide the long-standi...

New years are always time of thoughtful backward reflection and optimistic forward projection. January 2012 will be an active time for astronaut hopefuls in the US as we prepare our NASA applications . The past four years have certainly been a busy time for me. Listed below are some of the things I've done since submitting the 2008 application : gained 4 more years of operational experience at the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center , including the Samoa 2009 , Chile 2010 , and Japan 2011 events; participated in the FMARS-12 analog Mars expedition to Devon Island; commanded the MDRS-89 analog Mars mission in Utah; co-founded Astronauts4Hire ; completed my MS degree in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota ; voyaged across the Pacific Ocean and mapped the seafloor aboard the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer ; completed Dunker and Sea Survival Training at Survival Systems USA ; completed Suborbital Scientist Training at The NASTAR Center ; obtained a space ...

It's been 10 years since that horrific day when commercial airlines were used as coordinated weapons of terrorism. I was a second year graduate student at the time, balancing academic and research duties between expeditions to the South Pacific and the Antarctic. Like most Americans, I spent September 11, 2001 feeling shellshocked as I awoke to the news and spent the day watching events unfold on television. I later realized how profound and ubiquitous this communal experience was the world over, and I mean that quite literally. One American has the singular distinction of witnessing the traumatic 9/11 events unfold from space. A month into his mission as Commander of ISS Expedition 3 , Astronaut Frank Culbertson awoke to the news of the attacks like so many of us did. He grabbed the nearest camera and starting photographing the scenes in New York and Washington, D.C. from his vantage point some 250 miles over the Earth. Since he happened to be using a video camera, Culber...

At 1:34am on February 28, 2011, my wife gave birth at home to a baby girl, whom we named "Isla Sydney Shiro." She was born about two weeks early with a weight of 6 pounds 8 ounces (2948 g) and was 20 inches (50.8 cm) long. She's five days old now and in perfect health. " Isla " (pronounced EYE-la) is a popular name in the UK that refers to an island and river in Scotland. Since we live on an Island in Hawaii, and I have an aunt in Scotland, the name seems to fit. " Isla Earth " is also a popular environmental science radio show to which I regularly listen.  "Sydney" doesn't have any special significance to us other than that we like how it sounds. Although, I realized after we had named her that the first client of Astronauts4Hire does hail from Sydney, Australia. Plus, do the initials " ISS " remind you of anything spacey? My son Henry is now 3 years old and is a proud big brother. He's pictured here holding his...

We're all faced with difficult decisions in our lives.  Sometimes the 'right' choice may not be the best one and vice versa.   I was at such a crossroads yesterday when I had to decline paying $5000 out of pocket to go on a ZERO-G flight (I tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a lower price.).  In doing so, I let an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream slip through my fingers. I had the honor of being invited to attend the pre-flight activities for ZERO-G's first ever flight in Honolulu.  Watching the pre-flight safety video, listening to the pre-flight briefings, observing the FAA at work, and talking with ZERO-G coaches, I learned a great deal about the process of going on a flight aboard the G-FORCE-ONE 727 aircraft.  The day was also valuable for me because it was an opportunity to speak in person with company representatives about future relations between ZERO-G and Astronauts4Hire .  The attention to detail in ZERO-G's operation really impresse...

Growing up, I had the privilege of having a father who was a private pilot.  This meant I was surrounded by aviation from a young age.  I spent many weekends at the local airport with my dad helping him wash his planes, hanging out with the local AOPA club, and flying around the county where we lived in northeast Arkansas.  My family took very few road trips; instead we traveled to most of our vacation destinations in our plane.  One summer when I was about 12, my dad and I flew across the country in his Aeronica Champ to the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh show in Wisconsin.  Camping out at night under the wing of the fabric-covered, 2-seater plane with a hand-cranked wooden propeller and no modern avionics, we were flying in a barebones style reminiscent of the barnstorming days of aviation early in the 20th century.  I'll never forget it. I was my dad's co-pilot long before I could drive a car, and if I have one regret in life it's that I wasn't able to fini...

Last weekend I participated in the Fire Cracker Sprint Triathlon at Kaleoloa near my home on O'ahu.  It was my first triathlon in 9 years, so I was a little apprehensive about it. With an official time of 1:22:49, I think did pretty well considering I hardly trained prior to the event and got hit by a car during the bike portion.  It was a lot of fun, and I may start doing the multi-sport race more often from now on. The race consisted of a 500 m swim, a 20 km bike, and a 5 km run.  I'm really cold-natured when it comes to swimming, so I was a little worried about the 6:00am start time.  To my relief, the water temperature felt very comfortable for the 15 minutes I was in it.  Swimming has never been my favorite activity, despite being on my hometown's swim team for two years when I was a kid.  The freestyle stroke zaps my energy very quickly, so I always end up reverting to breast stroke when I swim, and this triathlon was no exception.  With ...

I'm a big fan of the Discovery Channel show Man vs. Wild where Bear Grylls pits himself against nature in dangerous situations to teach viewers how to survive. I really admire Bear and am more than a little jealous at all of the fun he has doing the show.  Check out the Bear Grylls Survival Manual to learn some of his tricks or Bear's Blog to follow his adventures. Bear is somewhat of a hero to me, and I have always secretly wanted to be his sidekick. Well, now is my chance.  The Fan vs. Wild contest will let four amateur adventurers compete in a "wilderness boot camp" for a chance to join Bear on a episode of Man vs. Wild later this year.  From the Men's Journal announcement : If you fancy yourself an adventurer, you’re in luck. From now until April 30, you can enter for a chance to be one of four guys to take part in a wilderness boot camp led by Bear Grylls. If selected, your summer adventures — and inevitable mishaps — will be filmed from a remote ...

I've had a busy AGU Meeting . The week has passed as a blur of meandering through the maze of posters, dropping into and out of oral presentation sessions, and plenty of bumping into people whom I've known over the years. In this post I'll highlight some of the things I found interesting. Day 1    |  Day 2    |  Day 3    |  Day 4  |  Day 5 Day 1: Monday, December 14 As I reported last time , I presented a poster about FMARS on Monday. I'm happy to report that it went very well, and I struck up some good conversations with people about the analog Mars research project.  The question I got asked the most was how we tracked traffic on our website or followers in social media.  My answer was that we didn't but will next time.  My poster was next to one from the Exploratorium on their Ice Stories project, which I have been following with great interest for the past year. I spent the afternoon cruising poster...

As I gear up for my MDRS mission, one of my priorities is ensuring that I'm physically fit to handle the rigors of living on analog Mars.  The XTERRA Trail Running World Championship Half Marathon was the ideal challenge for me.  I competed in the 2nd annual race this past weekend at Kualoa Ranch on Oʻahu's windward coast. Billed the "most scenic half marathon trail race on the planet," the course snakes through dense rainforest and broad valleys on secluded singletrack trails and dirt roads along dramatic knife-edged mountain ridges. According to the XTERRA news release , more than 1,000 runners from 35 states and 9 countries participated in the day’s 21k, 10k, and 5k races, which raised money to support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Hawaii . I've run hilly races, half marathons, and trail races in the past, but I've never done all three at once. The XTERRA course advertised 2,900 feet of elevation change (although my Garmin Forerunn...

Happy Birthday Henry! My son is 2 years old today. It seems like I blogged about his first birthday just yesterday. Henry's vocabulary is fast-approaching 100 words (86 by my count), and he's just started combining two words together to make mini-sentences over the past few weeks. He knows about half the alphabet and can read about 50 words so far too. Thanks to our use of cloth diapers and EC , Henry is also mostly potty-trained, which is fairly rare for a child this age in the US. I feel extremely fortunate that my wife and I have flexible schedules that allow one of us to be home with Henry full time each day so we can nurture his development. Henry loves being outside for bike rides or swimming at the beach, but his favorite obsession lately is trucks. If it's an excavator, bulldozer, dump truck, or tractor, he's happy.  Can anyone read my mind for the caption to this photo on the right (hint: read his shirt and think of a movie title)?  

With last month's earthquakes and tsunamis in Samoa on Sept. 29 and Vanuatu on Oct. 7 , the spotlight has been on my workplace. The Samoa event produced the first tsunami casualties on American soil since the 1975 Hawaii tsunami . 34 people died in American Samoa and about 160 more in neighboring Samoa. This has spurred a lot of recent visits by the news media, school groups, concerned citizens, and several government review panels. The tsunamis were also popular on Twitter . CNN.com even wrote an article about me that was their top story for a few hours. I usually keep this blog focused on my astronaut aspirations, but today I'll break tradition and write about my job. For the uninitiated, I work as a Geophysicist at NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Ewa Beach, Hawaii . I have been here 4 years and in that time have gained a great deal of experience during more than 10 significant tsunami events.  Founded in 1949 , PTWC was the world's first...

There's hair on my face. Maybe you're wondering why. One of my least favorite things about "normal" life is shaving. It's time-consuming and painful. Plus, a few hours after going through all of the trouble to shave, the hair comes back. When I started doing scientific field work about 11 years ago I made myself a promise: Field work time is a holiday from shaving.

Today is my birthday. I've actually spent my 20, 21, 30, and 31st birthdays all in the arctic. The pictures below compare me when I turned 21 on the Juneau Icefield Research Program expedition with me at FMARS earlier today. I'm actually wearing the same pants and shirt in both pictures! In the photo on the right, I'm showing off the pancakes Kristine made for me in honor of my birthday this morning. This decade has flown by, and it's certainly had it's fair share of twists and turns that I could never have anticipated.    Today is also the first official day of our full Mars mission simulation. That means we can no longer go outside without space suits, we have to observe a 20-minute communication delay protocol with "Earth," and we're finally starting the research phase of our mission. This is why we're here. I wish it hadn't taken us until the midpoint of our expedition to reach this point, but we'll just have to adjust ...

I'd like to thank all of the readers of this blog for their interest and loyalty. As the following plots illustrate, the blog seems to have a core audience of about 50 people who tend to view about two pages on the site per day. During the blog's height in popularity from November to December 2008, these numbers were about 2-5 times greater than their current values. The initial upsurge the blog's popularity began in November 2008 when I made it to the highly qualified stage of astronaut selection. The next peak during December 2008 corresponded with popular posts related to astronaut interviews and my comparison of ISU vs. UND . The daily popularity of the blog waxes and wanes depending on when I have substantial posts. However, there has been an overall decline in readership since early January 2009 when I announced that I wouldn't be advancing to the interview stage.

I wanted to share a presentation I gave a couple of days ago to my high school 's annual alumni career day. I give outreach presentations like this a few times per year, but this is the first time I have done one remotely via the Internet with video conferencing software . It worked pretty well, and I was happy to re-connect with my high school, which played an important role in my life. 2009 ASMSA Career Day Presentation: My Life as a Geophysicist View more presentations from brianshiro .

I've been in my hometown enjoying some quality time with family and friends over the past week. One evening, my dad and grandmother showed me some old aviation photos taken by my great-grandfather when he was a mechanic in the Army Air Corps during the 1920s and 1930s. Several of the pictures featured Charles Lindbergh when he came through Little Rock in 1927. My grandmother's family moved all over the country when she was a girl and eventually ended up in Louisiana and later Arkansas. Her dad was named Fred McGinnis, and as a Staff Sergeant in the 154th Observation Squadron of the Arkansas Air National Guard , he served a Crew Chief on many types of aircraft (mostly open cockpit biplanes) during the aviation's barnstorming days. Below is a picture of him (front center) with his squadron in 1932.