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15 July 1998: Materials research aboard the International
Space Station will help shape society in the 21st century, attendees
at a major science conference here were told Tuesday morning.
"You are ready to take the quantum leap into the future,"
said Carolyn Griner, the acting director of NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center. With the International Space Station, "You
have the real potential to make a difference. ... You have a
responsibility to do the best possible research because I believe
the future of materials is vested in this discipline."
 The U.S. Lab module where many low gravity experiments
will be performed will be located at the center of the ISS. The
image above links to a 900x600-pixel, 267KB publication quality
JPG. Credits: NASA. |
Griner spoke at the opening session of the 1998 Microgravity
Materials Science Conference sponsored by NASA's Microgravity
Research Division. Griner is closely familiar with the field
since her career started in developing materials science experiments
for what became Skylab, the forerunner of the ISS that will start
assembly late this year.
More than 300 scientists are attending the conference, a number
that exceeds the flight opportunities NASA will have.
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"It's a very steep pyramid that you have to climb"
to reach a flight investigation at the top, said Robert Rhome,
the director of microgravity research at NASA headquarters, "The
incline is intentional. I think it drives the quality of the
product" by making the scientists compete for flight assignments.
It also provides a large fundamental science base that helps
expand and mature the field.
Rhome also said that NASA is shifting its stance on research
to incorporate applications and applied research in addition
to the fundamental physics focus that has been central to the
program in recent years. It is also adding planetary exploration,
both to develop improved radiation shielding for astronauts when
they are away from Earth, and to find ways of using local materials
to house crews and perhaps provide part of the ticket home. |
"We can't take it all with us," Rhome said. "It's
exhorbitantly expensive" to haul propellant and other materials
that will not be used until the return trip. In situ (on site)
resource utilization holds the promise of letting spacecraft
and crews "mine" the soils and rocks of the Moon or
Mars to produce oxygen and rocket propellant.
"You have to have a great deal of confidence that you can
shovel material into one end and get propellant out the other
end," he added. |
There's not much gold in those hills, but
what can be found - aluminum, silica, oxygen, and perhaps even
water (at the poles) - will be far more valuable if we can learn
how to extract and use it. |
For the near future, though, space station will remain the tip
of the pyramid that Rhome described. Joel Kearns, manager of
the NASA Microgravity Research Program, described the Research
& Analysis base of the pyramid as the "intellectual foundation
and incubator for new ideas." It and flight definition and
flight experiment activities comprise the bulk of the pyramid.
Two expanding opportunities are the Advanced Technology Development
program and the Glovebox Investigations program. The first, once
confined to NASA scientists, is being opened to more of the academic
and research communities, Kearns said. And the glovebox program
provides opportunities for scientists who have already been selected
to fly and test important elements of their experiments before
they and NASA commit to full-scale flight hardware.
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The glovebox facility aboard Space Station
will be an advanced descendant of the Middeck Glovebox being
used on board shuttle mission. The new facility will occupy a
full rack (left) and will offer a more generous operating volume
(right) for experimenters. |
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Kearns also encouraged scientists to make the best possible
use of existing NASA facilities, such as the Drop Tube at NASA/Marshall.
What will soon become the largest of those existing facilities
is the International Space Station. Ned Penley of the ISS Program
Office at Johnson Space Center described how the ISS will be
available to microgravity scientists for at least a half of each
year.
"Each vehicle [like the Space Shuttle] that arrives is a
traffic problem," he said, so it will be impossible to have
the ISS available 365 days a year. Penley said that managers
are committing to have the station provide a high-quality microgravity
environment for at least 180 days a year in minimum blocks of
30 days. That ranges up to 266 days a year with blocks as long
as 55 days in some plans. |
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