MSL-1 represents a crossroads
in the history of NASA's continuing microgravity research endeavor. We are
at the end of an era of exciting and productive research aboard the fleet
of space shuttles. And we are at the threshold of an equally exciting era
of research aboard the International Space Station. With every change comes
unique challenges to be met, and we are excited about what the future holds.
Sometimes "progress" is not necessarily "improvement,"
like tearing down an historic ball-park to build a new concrete domed stadium.
But in the case of microgravity science aboard space station, both words
"progress" and "improvement" apply in abundance.
Imagine being a scientist, but only being able to go into your best laboratory for 10 days every year or so. How much research might you be able to accomplish if you had access to your laboratory 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
The space shuttle is an excellent platform for microgravity research, but it has to return to Earth after two weeks in space. And when it comes back, the spaceborne laboratory, with all of its outstanding and unique features for performing research, comes back too. Experiments must end - for the time being - until the next microgravity research flight occurs. Sometimes this can be more than a year between flights. In other cases, two weeks is simply not enough time to perform detailed experiments or analyses, longer duration flight is required.
The International Space Station will have many benefits, including a better understanding of the effects of spaceflight on humans, fostering of international cooperation in space, as well as helping to advance microgravity science research. Scientists will enjoy a permanent, manned, operating laboratory in the microgravity environment of space that doesn't have to return to Earth after two weeks. Experiments can be repeated and confirmed - a fundamental hallmark of scientific advancement - without having to wait for another shuttle flight months or years later. The two-week restriction on experiment duration will be lifted - crystals can be grown, plant life studied, semiconductors made, and other research performed over even longer durations. Instead of being able to "go to work" in the state of the art laboratory for 10 days out of every 18 months or so, scientists will have continuous, round-the-clock access to the best microgravity laboratory mankind has ever known.
The new knowledge and insight that we will obtain through our experiments on the space station will touch our lives in more ways than we can imagine. By its nature, the microgravity science program within NASA touches on areas that are considered crucial to our economic success in the 21st century. Among these are Aerospace, Transportation, Health Care, Information Technology, Energy, and the Environment. NASA's Microgravity Research Program has been, and will continue to be connected in a special way to each of these areas. The table below illustrates examples of the connection between areas of microgravity research, both on MSL-1 and elsewhere, and their relationship to these critical areas of the US economy.
|
Aerogel |
Zeolite Crystal Research |
Protein Crystal Growth Research Infrared Imaging Crystals Research |
Semiconductor Research Nonlinear Optics Research ZBLAN Fiber-optic Research |
Zeolite Crystal Research |
Linked text indicates MSL-1 Experiments or research areas; other topics are also part of NASA's microgravity science program.
Nobody can predict the future, especially in scientific research. Sir Issac Newton realized at the time of his research that if you threw an object fast enough, it would continue to fall around the Earth, never hitting the ground. However, had he predicted that entire nations would pool their resources, exploiting this fact, to hurtle humans and spaceships on million-mile voyages of discovery, he likely would have been seen as a bit crazy. When Faraday demonstrated the remarkable new discovery of electricity to the King, he was asked "What good is this?" Faraday replied that he didn't know, but some day he was sure governments would tax it. (That was reason enough for the King, apparently.) When asked about the benefits of fundamental research, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have replied "What good is a newborn baby?" These scientists were not being vague or obtuse, they were being honest.
We cannot say exactly what breakthrough discoveries will come from research aboard the International Space Station. They may be in combustion research, or in the discovery of an important protein structure that allows us to prevent the spread of a disease, or in the acquisition of important knowledge in materials science that leads to a breakthrough insulator.
Although specifics are impossible to articulate, we can get a sense of what lies ahead by comparing the advances that have been made in another area of NASA research through the deployment of similar state-of-the-art facilities in space. The parallel that we can draw for what will happen in microgravity science, based on what has happened in the sister-science of astrophysics, only heightens the excitement and anticipation of microgravity scientists everywhere.
In 1990 and 1991, NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, respectively, to perform uniterrupted astrophysics research from space. Like the International Space Station will be for microgravity science, these two spacecraft are state-of-the-art facilities that operate around the clock, giving astronomers the ability to continually perform observations and test scientific theories of the universe. And two more - The Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility and the Space Infrared Telescope Facility - are on their way.
Together, in less than ten years, Compton and Hubble have singlehandedly rewritten most of the astronomy textbooks. Black holes, once a theoretical mathematical construct with some evidence for existence have been shown by Hubble to be a reality. We see huge amounts of hot gas swirling at tremendous rates of speed around black holes in the centers of distant galaxies. Gamma-ray bursts, discovered by accident in the late 1960's, were thought to be mild eruptions occurring nearby in our own galaxy. The burst experiment on the Compton Observatory has instead shown that these are gargantuan explosions of energy coming from the deepest recesses of the universe, spewing more energy in ten seconds than our Sun emits in its entire ten-billion-year lifetime.
We know what new, advanced, state-of-the-art facilities, operating continuously in space can do for science. We have seen what Hubble and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory have done for astronomy. And we have every expectation that the science provided by the International Space Station will be every bit as revolutionary.
June 19, 1997
Author: Dr.
John Horack
Curator: Linda Porter
NASA Official: Gregory
S. Wilson