Monthly Archives: March 2011

More Than 50 Astronauts, Scientists, Educators, and Industry Leaders Urge Congress to Fully Fund Commercial Crew

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Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation welcomes the support of more than 50 former NASA astronauts, scientists, educators, and industry CEOs and leaders who sent a letter to Congress yesterday urging full funding of the Commercial Crew Program as critical to America’s leadership in space.

The letter states, “We are writing to urge you to fully fund NASA’s plan to use commercial companies to carry crew to the Space Station because it is critical to the health of the Nation’s human spaceflight efforts,” adding, “We include 14 former NASA astronauts, 5 former NASA senior executives, 13 educators and nonprofit leaders, and 24 space industry leaders from a wide variety of firms and institutions, both large and small.”

The letter adds, “By hiring American businesses, NASA’s Commercial Crew to Space Station program also generates thousands of high tech American jobs across states ranging from Florida, to Alabama, to Texas, to California, to Virginia, to Colorado, to Nevada, and to Maryland, rather than sending these jobs overseas to Russia to build Soyuz capsules and rockets.”

“It has been very gratifying to see the support for Commercial Crew from a broad cross-section of the community, ranging from former Apollo and Shuttle astronauts to scientists and former NASA Center Directors,” stated John Gedmark, Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

Notable signatories include former Apollo-era NASA astronauts such as Owen Garriott (Skylab 3, STS-9) and Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9); former NASA Johnson Space Center Director Gerry Griffin, who also served as Deputy Director of NASA Kennedy Space Center and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center; former NASA Ames Center Director Scott Hubbard, who also served as a Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) member; former NASA Associate Administrator for Science Alan Stern; former FAA Associate Administrator Patti Grace Smith; and former Columbia Accident Investigation Board member John Logsdon.

To view the full letter, please visit http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1509

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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In Historic First, Three Scientists to Fly on Commercial Spacecraft

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Funded agreements announced for 8 to 17 flights on suborbital vehicles

Washington, D.C., Monday, February 28, 2011 – Three scientists, including a former NASA executive, will become some of the first scientists to fly on a commercial spacecraft — and they will fly multiple times — under the terms of two funded agreements announced between the nonprofit Southwest Research Institute and two commercial spacecraft providers, Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace.

The Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), a nonprofit research institute with annual revenue exceeding $500 million, will purchase a total of 8 to 17 scientific research flights on two vehicles – Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx Mark I – to fly both scientists and scientific payloads to the upper atmosphere and space. The scientists selected for the flights are Dr. Alan Stern, Dr. Dan Durda, and Dr. Cathy Olkin, and the science payloads will include biomedical, microgravity science, and astronomical imaging projects. All three scientists selected have trained for suborbital spaceflight aboard zero-G aircraft, in NASTAR centrifuges and aboard Starfighter F-104 jet fighters in the last year.

Dr. Stern, the former head of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, stated, “We at SwRI are very strong believers in the transformational power of commercial, next-generation suborbital vehicles to advance many kinds of research. We also believe that by putting scientists in space with their experiments, researchers can achieve better results at lower costs and a higher probability of success than with many old-style automated experiments.”

George Whitesides, President and CEO of Virgin Galactic said, “This agreement signals the enormous scientific potential of the Virgin spaceflight system. Virgin Galactic will be able to offer researchers flights to space that are unprecedented in frequency and cost. Science flights will be an important growth area for the company in the years to come, building on the strong commercial success already demonstrated by deposits received from over 400 individuals for Virgin’s space experience.”

XCOR Aerospace’s COO, Andrew Nelson, stated, “When someone issues a commercial contract with their own money, this means something,” and XCOR’s chief executive officer, Jeff Greason, added, “I look forward to the pioneering work this partnership will achieve.”

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Executive Director John Gedmark added, “This is a historic moment for spaceflight — a scientific research institution is spending its own money to send its scientists to space. I expect that these scientists will be the first of many to fly to space commercially. As the scientific community realizes that they can put payloads and people into space at unprecedented low costs, the floodgates will open even wider.”

Dr. Dan Durda, one of the Southwest Research Institute scientists selected to fly, said, “We’re another step closer to the era of routine ‘field work’ in space research. More and more researchers will soon fly with their own experiments in space, and do it regularly enough to allow the important advances that come with iterative investigations. I’m looking forward to that future and helping it become a reality.”

The announcements come as more than 300 scientists, educators, engineers, and students are registered to attend the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference which began today in Orlando, Florida at the University of Central Florida, to discuss the topic of scientific applications of commercial suborbital spacecraft. The conference runs through March 2nd.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference Begins Today in Florida

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The 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference begins today in Orlando, Florida. The conference promises to be a watershed gathering for researchers, educators, and industry/government, as a forum to discuss utilizing new commercial suborbital vehicles for research and education.

Registration is available at the door, and the conference will last from February 28 to March 2. Please visit http://nsrc.swri.org/ for more information.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a co-sponsor of the conference. Commercial Spaceflight Federation Executive Director John Gedmark will be delivering a keynote address to the conference attendees at 11 am on February 28, and the Federation will also be moderating a panel on “Payload Integration” at 10:30 am on March 1.

For the entire conference, over 120 presenters—a 40% increase over 2010—will discuss everything from flight test progress to planned experiments in 7 different research fields to training and roles for research and educator payload specialists. In total, the meeting will feature 20 sessions, 4 discussion panels, a press conference, presentations or booths by 20 sponsors, and a public night presentation by Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides. The meeting will also include invited talks by experts in diverse fields that include microgravity sciences, atmospheric science, space life sciences, planetary science, education, and crew training.

NSRC Day 2 highlights: payload integration and researcher training

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The second day of the the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Orlando focused more closely on the types of scientific research (biomedical, microgravity science, astronomy, etc.) that can be performed on commercial suborbital reusable vehicles and the issues associated with carrying out this research. One key topic is integrating payloads into vehicles. With a wide range of vehicle concepts under development, there are no standards for payload size, power, and other interfaces, and NASA has indicated that they will let the market set those standards rather than impose them themselves, even for the flights it funds.

This means that researchers are working closely with vehicle providers to work through issues of integrating their experiments on spacecraft. Blue Origin, for example, has several “pathfinder” research customers who are getting their payloads flown for free while working through these issues. Blue Origin has also come up with a “Cabin Payload Bay”, a standard payload box designed to more easily accommodate experiments with various power, data, and other services. Annamarie Askren, the Research and Education Market (REM) payload integration lead for Blue Origin, said the company would be publishing a payload users guide on its web site later this week with more technical details.

While many experiments will be automated, others will require a human presence (indeed, in some biomedical cases the human will be the experiment). These payload specialists will require training, but just how much is necessary is another area without clear standards. Dan Durda of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) recommended prospective payload specialists experience as many different training environments as possible, from piloting aircraft to scuba diving. Zero-g parabolic aircraft flights are almost a given, he said, to understand what weightlessness is like. Erik Seedhouse, the training director for Astronauts4Hire (A4H), a startup that proposes to develop a cadre of professional commercial astronauts for research and other applications, described a far more rigorous set of qualification standards that A4H has developed, including centrifuge and zero-g training, aerobatic flights, and more.

The training requirements for payload specialists—far more rigorous than what’s expected for tourists—and the specialized requirements for research experiments raise the question of whether research and tourism missions can be mixed on the same flight. Askren said Blue Origin is cautious about the ability to mix the two, given the “chaos” in the cabin during 0-g portions of parabolic flights. That’s not an issue, of course, for uncrewed vehicles, or for XCOR’s Lynx, which is small enough that almost every flight is a dedicated one for either tourism for research. “It’s your ride,” as XCOR’s Jeff Greason put it.

NSRC Day 1 highlights: suborbital research customers, prizes, and vehicle developments

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Monday was the first day of the the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. This conference, the second of its kind, is designed to bring together suborbital vehicle developers and the research community, an emerging market for commercial suborbital reusable vehicles. The conference has attracted more than 300 people, compared to the 268 who attended the inaugural NSRC last February in Boulder, Colorado. The three-day conference features presentation on both vehicle capabilities and potential research applications, as well as education, policy, and other issues.

The big announcement Monday was the news that the Southwest Research Institution (SwRI) has purchased seats on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx vehicles for research missions. SwRI bought a total of eight seats—six on Lynx and two on SS2—with an option for nine more. (XCOR actually announced its part of the deal last Thursday, while Virgin waited until Monday.) Three SwRI researchers will fly on this missions, conducing several experiments. SwRI associate vice president Alan Stern, one of three who will fly, said at a press conference Monday that the experiments include a biomedical monitoring harness, a microgravity physics experiment to study asteroid regolith, and an astronomical imaging sensor. (For some additional background on this, see my article in Monday’s issue of The Space Review, incorporating some of these developments.)

On the vehicle side, five suborbital vehicle developers—Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Virgin, and XCOR—presented in a panel session at the conference. All but Blue Origin presented at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation conference earlier in February, and are summarized in my TSR article linked to above, so there were not much in the way of new developments (Blue Origin, not at the FAA conference, didn’t offer much in the way of vehicle development updates.) Armadillo’s Neil Milburn did say that Armadillo is currently performing cryo load tests on its “Tube” (aka “STIG”) rocket this week; if those go well they plan a first flight test as soon as March 9 from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

One other development of interest: in his plenary talk Monday morning, FAA associate administrator of commercial space transportation George Nield revealed that the FAA’s 2012 budget proposal includes a $5-million “Low Cost Access to Space” prize. Few other details about the proposed prize are available, although Nield said the FAA would work with other agencies, including NASA and the Defense Department, on implementing the prize.

‘Elephant Trunks’ in Space

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NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, captured this image of a star-forming cloud of dust and gas, called Sh2-284, located in the constellation of Monoceros. Lining up along the edges of a cosmic hole are several "elephant trunks" -- or monstrous pillars of dense gas and dust.

The most famous examples of elephant trunks are the "Pillars of Creation" found in an iconic image of the Eagle nebula from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In this WISE image, the trunks are seen as small columns of gas stretching toward the center of the void in Sh2-284, The most notable one can be seen on the right side at about the 3 o'clock position. It appears as a closed hand with a finger pointing toward the center of the void. That elephant trunk is about 7 light-years long.

Deep inside Sh2-284 resides an open star cluster, called Dolidze 25, which is emitting vast amounts of radiation in all directions, along with stellar winds. These stellar winds and radiation are clearing out a cavern inside the surrounding gas and dust, creating the void seen in the center. The bright green wall surrounding the cavern shows how far out the gas has been eroded. However, some sections of the original gas cloud were much denser than others, and they were able to resist the erosive power of the radiation and stellar winds. These pockets of dense gas remained and protected the gas "downwind" from them, leaving behind the elephant trunks.

Sh2-284 is relatively isolated at the very end of an outer spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. In the night sky, it's located in the opposite direction from the center of the Milky Way.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages and operates the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110304.html

Spitzer Captures Infrared Rays From a Sunflower

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The various spiral arm segments of the Sunflower galaxy, also known as Messier 63, show up vividly in this image taken in infrared light by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Infrared light is sensitive to the dust lanes in spiral galaxies, which appear dark in visible-light images. Spitzer's view reveals complex structures that trace the galaxy's spiral arm pattern.

Messier 63 lies 37 million-light years away -- not far from the well-known Whirlpool galaxy and the associated Messier 51 group of galaxies.

The dust, glowing red in this image, can be traced all the way down into the galaxy's nucleus, forming a ring around the densest region of stars at its center.

The short, diagonal line seen on the lower right side of the galaxy's disk is actually a much more distant galaxy, oriented with its edge facing toward us.

Blue shows infrared light with wavelengths of 3.6 microns, green represents 4.5-micron light, and red, 8.0-micron light. The contribution from starlight measured at 3.6 microns has been subtracted from the 8.0-micron image to enhance the visibility of the dust features.

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-063

Researchers Crack the Mystery of the Spotless Sun

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In 2008-2009, sunspots almost completely disappeared for two years. Solar activity dropped to hundred-year lows; Earth's upper atmosphere cooled and collapsed; the sun’s magnetic field weakened, allowing cosmic rays to penetrate the Solar System in record numbers. It was a big event, and solar physicists openly wondered, where have all the sunspots gone?

Now they know. An answer is being published in the March 3rd edition of Nature.

"Plasma currents deep inside the sun interfered with the formation of sunspots and prolonged solar minimum," says lead author Dibyendu Nandi of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata. "Our conclusions are based on a new computer model of the sun's interior."

For years, solar physicists have recognized the importance of the sun's "Great Conveyor Belt." A vast system of plasma currents called ‘meridional flows’ (akin to ocean currents on Earth) travel along the sun's surface, plunge inward around the poles, and pop up again near the sun's equator. These looping currents play a key role in the 11-year solar cycle. When sunspots begin to decay, surface currents sweep up their magnetic remains and pull them down inside the star; 300,000 km below the surface, the sun’s magnetic dynamo amplifies the decaying magnetic fields. Re-animated sunspots become buoyant and bob up to the surface like a cork in water—voila! A new solar cycle is born.

For the first time, Nandi’s team believes they have developed a computer model that gets the physics right for all three aspects of this process--the magnetic dynamo, the conveyor belt, and the buoyant evolution of sunspot magnetic fields.

"According to our model, the trouble with sunspots actually began in back in the late 1990s during the upswing of Solar Cycle 23," says co-author Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "At that time, the conveyor belt sped up."

The fast-moving belt rapidly dragged sunspot corpses down to sun's inner dynamo for amplification. At first glance, this might seem to boost sunspot production, but no. When the remains of old sunspots reached the dynamo, they rode the belt through the amplification zone too hastily for full re-animation. Sunspot production was stunted.

Later, in the 2000s, according to the model, the Conveyor Belt slowed down again, allowing magnetic fields to spend more time in the amplification zone, but the damage was already done. New sunspots were in short supply. Adding insult to injury, the slow moving belt did little to assist re-animated sunspots on their journey back to the surface, delaying the onset of Solar Cycle 24.

"The stage was set for the deepest solar minimum in a century," says co-author Petrus Martens of the Montana State University Department of Physics.

Colleagues and supporters of the team are calling the new model a significant advance.

"Understanding and predicting solar minimum is something we’ve never been able to do before---and it turns out to be very important," says Lika Guhathakurta of NASA’s Heliophysics Division in Washington, DC.

While Solar Max is relatively brief, lasting a few years punctuated by episodes of violent flaring, over and done in days, Solar Minimum can grind on for many years. The famous Maunder Minimum of the 17th century lasted 70 years and coincided with the deepest part of Europe's Little Ice Age. Researchers are still struggling to understand the connection.

One thing is clear: During long minima, strange things happen. In 2008-2009, the sun’s global magnetic field weakened and the solar wind subsided. Cosmic rays normally held at bay by the sun’s windy magnetism surged into the inner solar system. During the deepest solar minimum in a century, ironically, space became a more dangerous place to travel. At the same time, the heating action of UV rays normally provided by sunspots was absent, so Earth’s upper atmosphere began to cool and collapse. Space junk stopped decaying as rapidly as usual and started accumulating in Earth orbit. And so on….

Nandi notes that their new computer model explained not only the absence of sunspots but also the sun’s weakened magnetic field in 08-09. "It's confirmation that we’re on the right track."

Next step: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) can measure the motions of the sun’s conveyor belt—not just on the surface but deep inside, too. The technique is called helioseismology; it reveals the sun’s interior in much the same way that an ultrasound works on a pregnant woman. By plugging SDO’s high-quality data into the computer model, the researchers might be able to predict how future solar minima will unfold. SDO is just getting started, however, so forecasts will have to wait.

Indeed, much work remains to be done, but, says Guhathakurta, "finally, we may be cracking the mystery of the spotless sun."

Credits: This research was funded by NASA’s Living With a Star Program and the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/solar-cycle23.html

What’s Hitting Earth?

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Every day about 100 tons of meteoroids -- fragments of dust and gravel and sometimes even big rocks – enter the Earth's atmosphere. Stand out under the stars for more than a half an hour on a clear night and you'll likely see a few of the meteors produced by the onslaught. But where does all this stuff come from? Surprisingly, the answer is not well known.

Now NASA is deploying a network of smart cameras across the United States to answer the question, What's Hitting Earth?

Did that meteor you saw blazing through the sky last night come from the asteroid belt? Was it created in a comet's death throes? Or was it a piece of space junk meeting a fiery demise?

"When I get to work each morning and power up my computer, there's an email waiting with answers," says William Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "And I don't have to lift a finger, except to click my mouse button."

Groups of smart cameras in the new meteor network triangulate the fireballs' paths, and special software1 uses the data to compute their orbits and email Cooke his morning message.

"If someone calls me and asks 'What was that?' I'll be able to tell them. We'll have a record of every big meteoroid that enters the atmosphere over the certain parts of the U.S. Nothing will burn up in those skies without me knowing about it!"

In other U.S. meteor networks, someone has to manually look at all the cameras' data and calculate the orbits – a painstaking process.

"With our network, our computers do it for us – and fast," says Cooke.

The network's first three cameras, each about the size of a gumball machine, are already up and running. Cooke's team will soon have 15 cameras deployed east of the Mississippi River, with plans to expand nationwide2. Cooke is actively seeking schools, science centers, and planetaria willing to host his cameras. Criteria are listed in the notes at the end of this story.

In addition to tracking fireballs and their orbits, Cooke's system gives him other valuable information.

"It provides data on meteor speed as a function of size – and this is critical to calibrating the models we use in designing spacecraft."

Meteorite hunters will reap benefits too. By determining a bright fireball's trajectory through the atmosphere, the network's software can calculate whether it will plunge to Earth and pinpoint the impact location fairly precisely.

"And when we collect the meteorite chunks, we'll know their source. I could be holding a piece of Vesta in my hand.3 It would be like a free sample return mission!"

Opportunities like that, however, will be rare. "Most meteorites fall in the ocean, lakes, forests, farmer's fields, or the Antarctic," says Rhiannon Blaauw, who assists Cooke. "And the majority of those meteorites will never be found. But our system will help us track down more of them."

All cameras in the network send their fireball information to Cooke and to a public website, fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov. Teachers can contact Cooke at William.J.Cooke@nasa.gov to request teacher workshop slides containing suggestions for classroom use of the data. Students can learn to plot fireball orbits and speeds, where the objects hit the ground, how high in the atmosphere the fireballs burn up, etc.

Cooke gives this advice to students and others who want to try meteor watching on their own:

"Go out on a clear night, lie flat on your back, and look straight up. It will take 30 to 40 minutes for your eyes to become light adapted, so be patient. By looking straight up, you may catch meteor streaks with your peripheral vision too. You don't need any special equipment -- just your eyes."

For more information visit http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/01mar_meteornetwork/

Boiling Bubbles are Cool in Space

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It may seem illogical, but boiling is a very efficient way to cool engineering components and systems used in the extreme environments of space.

An experiment to gain a basic understanding of this phenomena launched to the International Space Station on space shuttle Discovery Feb. 24. The Nucleate Pool Boiling Experiment, or NPBX, is one of two experiments in the new Boiling eXperiment Facility, or BXF.

Nucleate boiling is bubble growth from a heated surface and the subsequent detachment of the bubble to a cooler surrounding liquid. As a result, these bubbles can efficiently transfer energy from the boiling surface into the surrounding fluid. This investigation provides an understanding of heat transfer and vapor removal processes that happen during nucleate boiling in microgravity. Researchers will glean information to better design and operate space systems that use boiling for efficient heat removal.

Bubbles in microgravity grow to different sizes than on Earth. This experiment will focus on the dynamics of single and multiple bubbles and the associated heat transfer.

NPBX uses a polished aluminum wafer, powered by heaters bonded to its backside, and five fabricated cavities that can be controlled individually. The experiment will study single and/or multiple bubbles generated at these cavities. It will measure the power supplied to each heater group, and cameras will record the bubble dynamics. Analysis of the heater power data and recorded images will allow investigators to determine how bubble dynamics and heat transfer differ in microgravity.

"With boiling, the size and weight of heat exchange equipment used in space systems can be significantly reduced," said Vijay Dhir, the experiment's principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Boiling and multiphase heat transfer is an enabling technology for space exploration missions including storage and handling of cryogenic, or extremely low temperature liquids, life support systems, power generation and thermal management."

"The cost of transporting equipment to space depends on the size and weight of the equipment," added David Chao, the project scientist from NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. "The knowledge base that will be developed through the experiment will give us the capability to achieve cooling of various components and systems used in space in an efficient manner and could lead to smaller and lighter spacecraft."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/npbx.html

Discovering Discovery’s Payloads for the STS-133 Mission

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The Space Shuttle Discovery, which launched on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011, blasted off into space en route for a rendezvous with the International Space Station. The shuttle carries not only the crewmembers, but some fascinating research and technology. Payloads include 5 investigations for the crew to perform and 24 studies with hardware or samples. On the trip back to Earth, Discovery will return 22 investigations with samples or data for the ground researchers to study.

The following are some of the investigations flying on STS-133, grouped by their focus area.

Biology and Biotechnology

Four biology and biotechnology investigations (two conducted during the STS-133 mission and two long duration performed on the space station) examine cell growth, immune system function, bacterial development, and plant growth under microgravity conditions. National Laboratory Pathfinder - Vaccine - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or NLP-Vaccine-MRSA -- This investigation uses microgravity to examine Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a pathogenic (i.e., disease-causing) organism resistant to most common antibiotics. The goal is to develop a potential vaccine for the prevention of infection on Earth and in microgravity. Mouse Immunology Effect of Space Flight on Innate Immunity to Respiratory Viral Infections -- This investigation examines the impact of microgravity on the immune system by challenging it with respiratory syncytial virus or RSV.

National Laboratory Pathfinder - Cells - 6 (NLP-Cells-6) -- This investigation assesses the effects of microgravity on the formation, establishment, and multiplication of undifferentiated cells. It also evaluates changes in cell structure, growth and development, genetic changes, and differential gene expression of Jatropha curcas, a biofuel plant. This study identifies significant changes that occur in microgravity, which could contribute to the development of new cultivars of this biofuel plant.

Dynamism of Auxin Efflux Facilitators, CsPINs, Responsible for Gravity-regulated Growth and Development in Cucumber, or CsPINs -- This investigation uses cucumber seedlings to analyze the effect of gravity on gravimorphogenesis (i.e., peg formation) in cucumber plants.

Human Research

Three studies of the cardiovascular system, i.e. Integrated Cardiovascular evaluate different aspects of the cardiovascular system and the effects of long-duration spaceflight. These investigations represent an international collaboration using the same equipment to study different components of the cardiovascular system. Also part of human research are two nutritional studies and an immune study, which look at developing countermeasures for long-duration space flight.

Cardiac Atrophy and Diastolic Dysfunction During and After Long Duration Spaceflight: Functional Consequences for Orthostatic Intolerance, Exercise Capability and Risk for Cardiac Arrhythmias, or Integrated Cardiovascular -- This investigation quantifies the extent, time course, and clinical significance of cardiac atrophy (i.e., decrease in the size of the heart muscle) associated with long-duration space flight. This experiment identifies the mechanisms of this atrophy and the functional consequences for crewmembers who will spend extended periods of time in space.

Long Term Microgravity: A Model for Investigating Mechanisms of Heart Disease with New Portable Equipment, or Card -- This investigation studies blood pressure decreases in the human body exposed to microgravity on board the space station. Vascular Health Consequences of Long-Duration Space Flight, or Vascular -- This investigation determines the impact of long-duration space flight on the blood vessels of crewmembers.

The Dietary Intake Can Predict and Protect Against Changes in Bone Metabolism during Spaceflight and Recovery, or Pro K -- This investigation is NASA's first evaluation of a dietary countermeasure to lessen crewmember bone loss. Pro K proposes that a flight diet with a decreased ratio of animal protein to potassium will lead to decreased loss of bone mineral. Pro K has impacts on the definition of nutritional requirements and development of food systems for future exploration missions, and could yield a method of counteracting bone loss that would have virtually no risk of side effects. During previous on-orbit, ground, and bed-rest studies, it was found that participants who ate more servings of fish rich in omega-fatty-3 acid per week had higher bone density than those who had fewer servings.

SOdium LOading in Microgravity, or SOLO -- This investigation studies the mechanisms of fluid and salt retention in the body during space flight. Samples from this study will come back to Earth on Discovery’s return flight.

Validation of Procedures for Monitoring Crew Member Immune Function known as Integrated Immune -- This investigation looks at the clinical risks to the human immune system during spaceflight. It also has samples returning to Earth as part of the mission for STS-133.

Technology

Investigations are only a part of the STS-133 mission. The crew will also reach a major milestone for the station by completing the interior outfitting of the National Laboratory. They will add a final rack to the Express Racks, which are bench-like structures that support equipment in the orbiting lab. The installation of the last rack, known as Express Rack 8, furnishes the facility with full research capabilities.

Another technological advancement launching on STS-133 is Robonaut, which serves as a springboard to help evolve new robotic capabilities in space. Robonaut demonstrates that a dexterous robot can launch and operate in a space vehicle, manipulate mechanisms in a microgravity environment, operate for an extended duration within the space environment, assist with tasks, and eventually interact with the crewmembers.

Also part of the Space Shuttle Discovery payload is a new facility, the Boiling eXperiment Facility or BXF. This equipment enables the study of boiling in space, paving the way for two new investigations: Microheater Array Boiling Experiment, or BXF-MABE and Nucleate Pool Boiling Experiment, or BXF-NPBX Boiling in microgravity differs from boiling here on Earth. In space, there is a lack of buoyancy, so the steam from boiling liquids does not rise. Studies completed in the BXF may generate new technology for energy production and the design of cooling systems on Earth and in space vehicles.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/sts133.html

Matt Lamkin says a ban on cognitive enhancers is not cool

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Lawyer and bioethicist Matt Lamkin makes the case that a ban on brain-boosters is not the answer:

While rates of drinking among college students have been relatively steady in recent years, nontherapeutic use of prescription drugs has soared—now second only to marijuana as a form of illicit drug use. Research by Alan D. DeSantis, a professor of communication at the University of Kentucky who has studied ADHD-stimulant use in fraternities, suggests that 34 percent of the university's undergraduates have used stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall as study aids. According to DeSantis, that number rises the longer students are in college, and nearly 60 percent of Kentucky's juniors and seniors have used "neuroenhancers."

Concerned observers of this trend, most notably at Britain's Academy of Medical Sciences, have characterized the use of "study drugs" as a form of cheating, akin to the use of steroids in sports. Having diagnosed the problem as an issue of unfair competition, the academy has called on universities to consider banning the use of cognition-enhancing drugs by healthy students. This past October, Wesleyan University did just that, amending its student code of conduct to recognize "misuse" of prescription drugs as a violation of the college's prohibition against receiving "improper assistance" in completing academic work.

He concludes:

[C]olleges need to encourage students to engage in the practice of education rather than to seek shortcuts. Instead of ferreting out and punishing students, universities should focus on restoring a culture of deep engagement in education, rather than just competition for credentials...

...If universities instead choose to enact blanket prohibitions on the use of study drugs by healthy students, it would be more sensible to enforce such a policy through honor codes than through measures such as urine testing, as the Academy of Medical Sciences has proposed. Unlike a policing approach, honor codes ask students to internalize values that are important to education and to character in general. Although students who violate honor codes face sanctions, the primary aim is not to deter improper conduct with threats, but to persuade students that to breach the code is to betray themselves. If colleges believe that enhancing cognition with drugs deprives students of the true value of education, they must encourage students to adopt that value as their own.


Peter Singer on the Libya situation

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Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer writes the article I wanted to write: Global Justice and Military Intervention. As is so often the case, Singer and I are on the same wavelength:

World leaders were quick to condemn Qaddafi’s actions. On February 26, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to impose an arms embargo on Libya, urge member nations to freeze assets owned by Qaddafi and his family, and refer the regime’s violence to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution of those responsible.

This is the first time that the Security Council has unanimously referred a situation involving human rights violations to the International Criminal Court, and it is remarkable that countries that are not members of the Court – including the United States, Russia, and China – nevertheless supported the referral. The resolution can thus be seen as another incremental step towards the establishment of a global system of justice able to punish those who commit gross violations of human rights, regardless of their political or legal status in their own country.

Yet, in another way, the Security Council resolution was a disappointment. The situation in Libya became a test of how seriously the international community takes the idea of a responsibility to protect people from their rulers. The idea is an old one, but its modern form is rooted in the tragic failure to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. A subsequent UN inquiry concluded that as few as 2,500 properly trained military personnel could have prevented the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis.

Exactly. Years from now we'll look back smugly on the situation and, with no small degree of self-righteous outrage, complain about how we stood around and did nothing. We are aware right now in this very moment that something needs to be done, but we lack the resolve. And worse, we lack the pity and compassion required to act.

Respecting a country's sovereignty is a cop-out, an excuse for inaction. We in the West are supposed to be in support of liberal democracies. It's not acceptable to allow a country to hide behind the sovereignty shield, particularly when it's run by a maniacal dictator.

Singer concludes,

At the time of writing, it is arguable that other sanctions or threats, short of military intervention, would be sufficient to deter more widespread bloodshed. Perhaps the rebels and the sanctions can overthrow Qaddafi unaided, without great loss of life. It is also unclear whether military intervention would cause more deaths than it prevented.

But these are questions that the international community needs to ask, and that the Security Council should have been discussing, so that the principle of the responsibility to protect – and its possible implications for military action – become part of our understanding of the requirements of international law and global ethics.


Raymond Tallis on the metaphysical limitations of neuroscience

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Author Raymond Tallis reviews two new books about consciousness: Soul Dust: the Magic of Consciousness by Nicholas Humphrey and Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio. Tallis opens,

The republic of letters is in thrall to an unprecedented scientism. The word is out that human consciousness - from the most elementary tingle of sensation to the most sophisticated sense of self - is identical with neural activity in the human brain and that this extraordinary metaphysical discovery is underpinned by the latest findings in neuroscience. Given that the brain is an evolved organ, and, as the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky said, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, the neural explanation of human consciousness demands a Darwinian interpretation of our behaviour. The differences between human life in the library or the operating theatre and animal life in the jungle or the savannah are more apparent than real: at the most, matters of degree rather than kind.

These beliefs are based on elementary errors. Just because neural activity is a necessary condition of consciousness, it does not follow that it is a sufficient condition of consciousness, still less that it is identical with it. And Darwinising human life confuses the organism Homo sapiens with the human person, biological roots with cultural leaves. Nevertheless, the coupling of neuromania and Darwinitis has given birth to emerging disciplines based on neuro-evolutionary approaches to human psychology, economics, social science, literary criticism, aesthetics, theology and the law.

These pseudo-disciplines are flourishing in academe and are covered extensively in the popular press, in articles usually accompanied by a brain scan (described by the writer Matt Crawford as a "fast-acting solvent of critical faculties"). Only last month, David Brooks asserted in the New Yorker that "brain science helps fill the hole left by the atrophy of theology and philosophy".

There are more cautious writers, but even for them the attraction of biologism seems irre­sistible. V S Ramachandran asserts correctly, in his new book, The Tell-Tale Brain: Unlocking the Mystery of Human Nature, that humanity "transcends apehood to the same degree by which life transcends mundane chemistry and physics". Even so, he is prepared to claim that we enjoy Picasso's paintings for the same reason that gull chicks prefer fake maternal beaks with an excess of markings to the real thing: they are "superstimuli". Both books under review acknowledge the uniqueness of human beings but relapse repeatedly into accounts of the mind, self and consciousness that appeal to a mixture of neuroscience and evolutionary theory. Despite the ingenuity and erudition of the authors, they serve only to illustrate the shortcomings of neuroscientific attempts to capture human consciousness and human nature.

Read the rest.


Helping robots become self-aware

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A recent article in Scientific American, Automaton, Know Thyself: Robots Become Self-Aware, points to the work being done by engineers to instill a certain degree of self-awareness in robots, including the capacities for self-image and even a theory of other minds:

Beyond robots that think about what they are thinking, Lipson and his colleagues are also exploring if robots can model what others are thinking, a property that psychologists call "theory of mind". For instance, the team had one robot observe another wheeling about in an erratic spiraling manner toward a light. Over time, the observer could predict the other's movements well enough to know where to lay a "trap" for it on the ground. "It's basically mind reading," Lipson says.

"Our holy grail is to give machines the same kind of self-awareness capabilities that humans have," Lipson says. "This research might also shed new light on the very difficult topic of our self-awareness from a new angle—how it works, why and how it developed."

Read more.


Lisa Jackson Discusses EPA with Congress

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There have been a lot of EPA-Congressional fireworks lately.  Today Lisa Jackson testified in front of Congress on the EPA’s budget.  The Republicans in our Congress are trying to diminish the role of the EPA in our government and take away their regulatory powers.  This would be an obvious disaster for the environment, and the health of all Americans, but more pollution is on the agenda of the Republicans for 2011.   (Did you really think they wanted to create jobs?).

Jackson’s 3-hour testimony today before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was about the EPA’s fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget.

From the EPA:  In February, President Obama proposed an FY 2012 budget of $8.973 billion for EPA. This proposal reflects President Obama’s commitment to ensuring the government lives within its means while ensuring that EPA can carry out its core mission: protecting public health and our environment while reducing air and water pollution in communities across America.

You can watch it on C-Span.org.

“The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Lisa Jackson is testifying on the proposed 2012 budget at a House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Environment. The nearly $9 billion dollar budget is a 13%  percent decrease from the previous year.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) has recently said that he would seek to slash more than $1.6 billion the EPA budget request. Under his proposal, programs dealing with air pollution, drinking water, energy efficiency, renewable energy and Energy Star products would be affected.

Jackson is also answering questions on the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases and cut ozone pollution, which could save $2 trillion by 2020, and prevent about 230,000 deaths, according to an EPA report.” — C-Span.

Some politicians, mostly Republicans, think that we can somehow live without drinkable, clean water and clean breathable air.  They seem to feel that air and water aren’t important to health and life in the U.S.

Testifying today, Jackson said, “No one wants contaminated water.”  Is that really true?  It does seem like some members of Congress do want contaminated water, because they are busy trying to defund much of what the EPA does.  One congressman actually said that during meetings with business people, “Defund the EPA” is the only applause line they get.  How can that be true?

The battles between the EPA and Congress have been going on all week.  It seems to me that the EPA should not have to constantly explain the basics of what it does to Congress, but that’s what Lisa Jackson seems to be constantly called on to do.

Here is the March 2nd statement by EPA head Lisa Jackson for her testimony before Congress:

Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

. . . . . Thank you for inviting me to testify about President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget request for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Congress enacted the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and America’s other bedrock environmental protection laws on [...]

Koch Brothers Thrive but Reefs in Serious Danger

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Now that actor Charlie Sheen has taken over American media, you wouldn’t think much else is going on in the world. (Imagine if climate scientists were interviewed as often as Charlie Sheen has been interviewed lately!)

It’s amazing how a celebrity or minor issue can cause American corporate media to obsess about that one thing to the exclusion of most everything else.   Another example — the unrest in Libya gets a lot of media attention because it affects the cost of oil. The unrest in Wisconsin (still ongoing) gets much less attention because it only affects the paychecks of middle class public employees — a much less interesting topic to our corporation media.

Who is directing and determining the content of much of American corporate media?  The various fossil fuel industries.  They are experts in distracting the American people, to say nothing of outright lying to us.  The other biggest media influencer is the Republican political machine backed by Wall Street. These influences are also the same groups and organizations trying to halt meaningful pollution regulations and climate change mitigation.

The Koch Brothers are two of these ‘influencers” — oil billionaires,  involved in polluting the world and condemning future generations to a very dangerous, difficult existence in dealing with climate change.  They are two of the main funders of the corporate climate change denier machine.   Rachel Maddow of MSNBC describes it all below.

 

Many stories are pointing out lately just how much trouble the world really is in and the environmental challenges we face due to human activity.  Human activity dangerous to the environment includes not just transportation and inefficiency in buildings but also outright pollution; air pollution and literally, garbage.  These things also threaten the actual viability of the ocean to support life.

Shouldn’t this be discussed more on American corporate media?  (After all, eventually it will negatively impact the fishing and tourism industries, if it hasn’t already.)

A recent study has found that all of the world’s coral reefs could be gone by 2050. If lost, 500 million people’s livelihoods worldwide would be threatened.

The World Resources Institute report, “Reefs at Risk Revisited,” suggests that by 2030, over 90 percent of coral reefs will be threatened. If action isn’t taken soon, nearly all reefs will be threatened by 2050. Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states, “Threats on land, along the coast and in the water are converging in a perfect storm of threats to reefs.”

The AFP suggests that these threats include overfishing, coastal development, pollution, and climate change. Warming sea temperatures lead to coral bleaching, a stress response where corals expose their white skeletons. In 2005, the Caribbean saw the most extensive coral bleaching event ever recorded, often attributed to rising ocean temperatures. CO2 emissions are also making the oceans more acidic. Because of the rising acidity levels, some scientists claim we will see conditions not witnessed since the period of dinosaurs.

Lauretta Burke, one of the report’s [...]

U.S. Excuses Itself from Climate Change Action for 2011

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If you watch American TV media, the relentless oil, coal and gas ads never stop.  The fossil fuel industries advertise on TV at least 12 hours a day. Most of the ads come during national news broadcasts from the American Petroleum Industry and during prime time viewing. They air on MSNBC and NBC very heavily; but also on CNN and other cable news channels.  They air literally 8-10 times an hour on any given major network 1/2 hour news broadcast.  It’s a veritable barrage of oil and fossil fuel propaganda; yet the stories of peak oil are nowhere to be found. (Below is a parody of these ads).  The U.S. corporate news media is blaming all gas prices on “unrest” in Libya.  None of these “news broadcasters” mention peak oil or the fact that all the easy to get oil is gone.

Where are the environmental equal-time ads? They don’t exist. No environmental group advertises on U.S. TV media. No wonder people think there’s nothing wrong with using oil and gas until it all runs out and we choke to death on the fumes and pollution and CO2 permanently alters the climate. With this kind of barrage, coinciding with political push backs against the EPA, we are in a lot of environmental trouble this year. Instead of making progress environmentally under President Obama, we seem to be fighting for every little concession we get on clean air and clean water. To say nothing of climate change.

Fossil fuels proponents are even claiming that hydraulic fracturing does not harm water supplies, which is provably false. This statement was made on E&E TV today, by Bruce Vincent, chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America and President of Swift Energy. Obviously, he’s going to lie about the pollution from what his interests do, because that is how American corporations operate these days.

“I’m not concerned about the contamination of fresh water resources caused by hydraulic fracturing, because that’s never occurred. But, as an industry, we need to be sure that we can continue to hydraulically fracture wells in a safe way and in an environmentally friendly way.”

How can progress be made on anything if energy industry leaders continue to lie about the situation? He claims there isn’t even a problem and thousands of homeowners and the EPA would disagree with that.

Nothing will happen this year on climate change mitigation in the U.S. government, and that may be true next year too. The U.S. is punting this again and shifting blaime;  using the old “problems” of India and China.  These are old excuses but American politicians keep recycling them.   At this rate, there will be no climate change action taken by the U.S. ever (until the situation is dire) because no other country can ever live up to the demands of our politicians, prior to our taking action on it ourselves.

The cards are actually laid out openly in this article from [...]

The Anti-Environment Plans of the Super Rich

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Charles and David Koch are worth a reported $21.5 billion each. | Reuters

Many people wonder why the U.S. has made little progress on passing climate change mitigation laws with real power, and the answer is simple:  Money.  The billionaires don’t like restrictions on their ability to make money (greed) so they are against anything, including the EPA’s focus on clean air and the health of all Americans, restricting their actions.

Big fossil fuel companies and their power, and people like the Koch Brothers and T. Boone Pickens are also stopping positive action on climate change.  The main way they do this is by aggressively protecting and funding fossil fuels.  The Koch Brothers and Pickens are powerful oil billionaires who made their dirty money from dirty fossil fuels that have polluted the U.S. for decades.

The difference between the Koch Brothers and Pickens is who they are influencing in our government:  The Kochs target the GOP with their money and their hatred of government and regulations.  Pickens targets the Democrats with his “Pickens Plan”.  The Pickens Plan is designed to make many members of Congress very wealthy while destroying the environment with gas fracking and Alberta tar sands, and some of the top beneficiaries of that wealth will be the Democrats who have invested in natural gas and oil sands in recent years.  The Kochs and Pickens have had resounding success, much to the detriment of our climate and our environment.

“Wichita-based Koch Industries and its employees formed the largest single oil and gas donor to members of the panel, ahead of giants like Exxon Mobil, contributing $279,500 to 22 of the committee’s 31 Republicans, and $32,000 to five Democrats.

Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the panel signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group ” Americans for Prosperity ” to oppose the Obama administration’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. Of the six GOP freshman lawmakers on the panel, five benefited from the group’s separate advertising and grass-roots activity during the 2010 campaign.”  Source

Few people are writing about Pickens and his connections to environmental tragedies like the Alberta tar sands (he’s a major investor) but plenty of people are writing about the Koch brothers.  The Koch brothers are also involved in our media (FOX News) and Republican special interests, like union busting.

Every year the Koch brothers hold financial summits, which are secret meetings.  They swear the attendees to secrecy, and plan how to subvert the EPA and our government.  Read more about that here.

Last week brought really bad environmental news in New Hampshire, thanks to the Koch brothers:

“New Hampshire’s newly elected veto-proof Republican majority is swiftly consolidating the pro-pollution agenda provided by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch, the heads of Koch Industries.

The New Hampshire House passed HB 519 by 246-104 on Wednesday, repealing its membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), after a successful robocall campaign fronted by Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, one of the national Tea Party groups created [...]