FSGC News
Signal-Calling Spaceman McCall Returns from Mars
Playing football for the Panthers took Paul McCall into the hostile environments of Gainesville, Fla., and Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Excelling as an FIU engineering student took him out of this world.
The multi-talented McCall recently returned to Miami from Mars - sort of. From January 9-22, FIU's former starting quarterback was the assistant engineer for Crew 88 of the Mars Desert Research Station, trading in his jersey and pads for a space suit and EVA gear.
Teamed with five other exploration enthusiasts from around the world, McCall helped construct a radio telescope and uncover microfossils on a remote habitat outside Hanksville, Utah. Though No. 12 never left the 'third rock from the sun,' participating in a Mars surface simulation made him feel like he was on the fourth.
"When you're out there on our rovers (ATVs) and in our spacesuits, there are times when you get caught up and realize that this doesn't look like anything you would see on Earth," McCall said from a more familiar environment inside FIU Stadium. "In the afternoon, when the clouds are gone, you see this musk in sky that gets red and everything for miles is hilly...
"The geological terrain is supposed to be eerily similar to what you see on Mars, and you have the same problems. Not too many things are explored out there. It's very remote, you have band-limited communications, there are delays in the communications - all that plays into the simulation."
In April, McCall will add a master's degree in electrical engineering to the bachelor's already under his belt. As determined a 22-year-old as you'll ever meet - McCall updates a board with his goals on a daily basis - he hopes to earn a doctorate in engineering physics at Embry-Riddle before becoming an astronaut with NASA.
Consider his two-week trek into the desolate Utah desert one small step for man, but one giant leap for his future.
"Everyone out there [at the research station] wants to be an astronaut. Outside of there, people are very competitive about that," said McCall. "But when you realize how special and prestigious it is just to be picked to be out there, you realize that it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and this might be the closest any of us ever get to being astronauts. You really just soak up the experience and enjoy it for what it's worth."
Upon returning to Earth, McCall presented 'Mars rocks' to Sweetwater Elementary fourth-grader Anthony Martir, his little brother in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. McCall's passion for space travel started when he was about Martir's age, escalated as he aced AP Calculus tests at Hollywood Hills High, and rocketed after the Mars Society accepted his application to participate in the simulation.
"When we're children, we don't have limitations placed on us so we're allowed to dream like that," said McCall. "Then you get to college and people tell you what you can and can't do. I realized last year that if I'm going to continue on this path with my engineering background, this is something that can happen for me."
A month after throwing the 34th-and-final touchdown pass of his FIU career, McCall found himself with five new teammates, including a Belgian teacher, a Colombian engineer, an Air Force pilot and an award-winning author.
Then there was the T.Y. Hilton of the bunch: Laksen Sirimanne. The Sri Lankan-born, Southern California-based Sirimanne was the crew's chief engineer. As such, he showed great chemistry with McCall as they worked together to maintain power for the habitat - an 8-meter diameter, two-deck structure reminiscent of a giant igloo.
McCall's "love for space exploration, commitment to being an astronaut and contagious enthusiasm" were evident throughout the fortnight to Sirimanne, whose resume includes four master's degrees, seven continents visited and 15 patents.
"Paul would not let problems drag him down. Rather, he took them head-on and solved the issues," said Sirimanne, 45. "Paul had to assemble the radio telescope with equipment and tools that were at the station. He could not make a trip to Home Depot to get exactly what he needed and instead had to improvise and make do with what he had. And, this is exactly what Paul did - he improvised and adapted to life at the MDRS."
When they weren't busy building the telescope or conducting micropaleontology research, McCall and Sirimanne managed to bask in the reddish hue of their unique surroundings. On day five, their Mars exploration took them up a nearby mountain - spacesuits and all.
"It was a steep and long climb and it was quite exciting to reach the summit," said Sirimanne. "That particular afternoon the lighting was perfect with a setting sun and the whole place looked like Mars. It was very thrilling to be there on top of that mountain and to share that experience."
The climb was also memorable to McCall, who dedicated an entire entry to it on his daily blog. In his own unique style, Astro Paul (McCall's blogspot.com user name) took readers step by step up what he called the Great Mesa.
"When I looked at my O2 meter I knew I had about 65 minutes to reach the summit, descend, and make it back to base camp," McCall wrote. "I was committed, not just to the climb, but to my fellow Marstronauts. This would be the highest climb ever attempted here. I couldn't back out now. So I did my best impersonation of the guy in the Dos Equis commercials and attempted to be the most interesting man on this world by controlling my breathing."
Such was the humor of McCall's blog, in which he detailed the habitat's dehydrated breakfasts, wooden beds and broken showers to friends, family and random weirdos on the World Wide Web. He also detailed the highs and lows of space travel: from scaling a mountain and setting up web cams to nearly wrecking a rover and losing generator power.
"Things got frustrating out there," said McCall. "You're in the middle of the desert and nothing's easily fixable. When you fix things, you have to do it in spacesuits. When you don't fix things as an assistant engineer, people get mad because they don't have lights, they don't have A/C, they don't have heat, they can't flush a toilet. So there's definitely a lot riding on you. I wasn't responsible for everything, but you kind of share that load. You realize that everyone working together for a common goal makes things a lot easier. And that's something that you see on a football field that you use in everyday life."
Safely back on Earth, McCall shared his gratitude for the advice of his five teammates, the acceptance of the Mars Society and the assistance of the Florida Space Grant Consortium.
Memories of 16-hour days are still fresh in McCall's memory - studying playbooks and textbooks as a Dean's List quarterback enrolled in one of FIU's most rigorous academic programs. Now, with his second college graduation on the horizon, McCall is hopeful for a second chance at space travel.
"The fact that I got to play football for five years at a university, not only that I love, but that has given me the opportunity to graduate with my Master's Degree - and my parents have come to every game that I've played in - that's really a blessing in its own right," said McCall. "Everything that has happened with engineering, as much hard work as it took, is definitely worth every ounce of effort that I've put into it, because it's paid back tenfold with these opportunities."
To read McCall's Mars blog, visit http://paulgoestomars.blogspot.com.
| Courtesy: FIUSports.com | Release: 02/05/2010 |
By Joshua Rey
Athletic Media Relations