Science on Board CRS-15

250 science and research investigations. That. Will occur on expedition. 56, today, we're going to hear from some of the people that have worked to make this mission a success if. You, have any questions, for us out, there in TV land please. Reach out via twitter, at hashtag, ask, NASA, and, to begin our program we're going to see a video from the Center for the Advancement of, science at, space often. Refer, to as cases the National Lab is. Run by cases, on the International, Space Station. This. Launch represents, the 15th resupply, mission by SpaceX, to the International Space Station this mission is truly packed with an incredible amount of research that has the capacity benefit. Life on Earth let's. Find out a little bit more about some of the payloads that are destined to the space station on this mission sponsored, by the US National Laboratory. Ngx. Is an innovative startup, based in cambridge massachusetts looking. To improve cancer patient, care ngx, has created a novel cancer therapy, targeting, a protein in the proliferation, of endothelial, cells. Which, line the walls of blood vessels this. Project seeks to evaluate, if these cells culture, to microgravity, represent. A valid system to test the effects of vascular. Targeted cancer drugs on normal, blood vessels. The. University of Florida has a rich history in plant biology research now, a new University of Florida plant biology, investigation, seeks, to develop electrochemical. Cells suitable, for spaceflight to, study instability, under microgravity conditions, the. Investigation, could ultimately develop, algae that can help sustain both, a low Earth orbit space economy, and long duration deep, space missions. The. University of California, Santa Barbara in association, with the National Science Foundation is, sending a project, focused on the study of forces between particles they, cluster, together in. Microgravity, investigators. Can observe how particles cluster, over long timescales without. Gravitational. Settling which complicates, measurements, taken under this. Work has several important applications, that will benefit life on Earth including, ecosystem. Modeling deep, water hydrocarbon. Exploration, sequestration. And mobilization. Of contaminants, among, others. There. Are multiple student organizations, supporting, education, investigations, intended, to stimulate and engage the next generation on this mission one. Such group is the student Space Flight experiments program in, partnership, with dream up and hardware developer, NanoRacks, this, collection of students around the world will send over 30 separate, student investigations, on this mission.

This. Is just a small portion of the incredible, amount of research that it's destined for the space station as part of this mission to, learn more about all the payloads on this mission or to learn how to become part of the space station research, community visit. ISS, - cases, ordered. From. NASA's Johnson Space Center, please welcome David Brady the assistant, program, scientist, for the International Space Station program and, the, deputy chief scientist, from cases dr., Mike Roberts. Thanks. Greg appreciate it hey I'm happy, to hear you all see y'all here today it's, wonderful, to have a packed room even though I'm sorry we couldn't give you all seats but it's really neat to see the interest here I'm, gonna talk a little bit about perspective I'm, not gonna talk so much about the details of the research investigations. I'm going to leave that to the investigators, to talk about but I was thinking about my flight out here from Houston to Orlando, some different things first of all how the human. Mind seeks, to understand, things how, we seek to create. New things and a lot of times we get that from a change of perspective or, a change of environment and, that's one of the things that the lab aboard the International, Space Station provides is that we provide a unique environment, specifically. Microgravity, space, radiation and for external payloads a vantage, point and the external environment as, well so. Some. Of the things I was thinking about coming out here with regards to the the, folks we have here today is the first, thing I was thinking is you know when I first started flying on an airliner, telephones. Were things that hung off of walls and sat on tables, and an address book, and a calendar was something you pulled out a pin and you wrote in - and a camera, you stuck film in it then you took it down to you know drugstore, to get it get it to process but. Now we all have this little thing that you could rightfully call a mobile companion, that. We use in, our everyday lives for all these functions, and even more so. I'm excited that today y'all are going to hear from some folks on the mobile companion, investigation. To talk about how we're going to take hardware, and software and, apply, that to provide a mobile companion, for our flight crews in order to make their lives safer make, their work more efficient, and hopefully. In the future make their environment. More pleasant, as well, so. Of course I'm working on my cellphone on the airliner and I'm up at 39,000. Feet and I'm sitting there you know munching on my pretzel, and you. Know pretzel is actually, a really, simple thing but there's. A lot of science and engineering this. Little guy here I mean if you think about it there's a biology, there's chemistry and, there's physics, in this because, at. Some point someone had to say hey, I think I'm gonna go grab that fruit off that plant in the field and I'm gonna haul it in and I'm gonna grind it up and then, I'm gonna chemically. Mix it with, some other substances, and then I'm gonna apply heat to it and I'm gonna create something that's useful and tasty you know something that I like and so fortunately.

We've Gotten smarter, in nowadays it doesn't take us years and years and years to develop an item but what. Are the investigations, you're gonna see today they're gonna use the unique microgravity environment. Onboard the. Space station in, order to study the physics of nanotubes, so chemical Gardens will be come in to talk to y'all about that a little bit later so. Again. I'm on the airliner I'm up at 39,000. Feet I'm working on my cell phone I'm eating my pretzels, and I'm, looking out the window, looking. Out the window is not something, I've done my entire business, life because when I first started doing business travel, my, inclination was, no I want to sit on the aisle and wear the snack tray is the trash can is you know the restrooms, are and all that once. My daughter started, flying though she always wanted to sit by the window and, I said why do you want to sit by the window and she says because of the awesome view, so. That's one of the things we provided, with Space Station especially for our earth science and our space science folks is the, awesome, view of Earth and you're gonna hear from the Eco stress folks today about their. Investigation. They're doing the research they're doing about water in plants, so. Finally. The other thing I like about flying, between Houston Orlando, as, part of the awesome you'll meet my pretzels I'm looking working on my cell phone I'm looking out the window is when, you fly right over the mouth of the Mississippi River, and if you've never done that it's just amazing, the amount of sediment the, amount of effluent, that's coming out of the mouth of the river and that. Is part of our ecological, and geological, processes, and understanding. That is really important, but the problem is is that on earth all those sediments in a lab tend to settle really fast because of gravity so we're gonna have some folks here today from beak at sea s to talk to you a little bit about, how they're using the unique environment onboard, the space station in, order to study those processes, that they understand them better and be able to apply them back here on earth so, last, thing I want to mention is a shout-out to our robotics folks, although, they're technically not part of our research investigations. The, building of the space station, the operating, in the space station would not be possible without. The robotics, technology, and I'm also very proud to say that, that robotics, technology, has come home and has been adapted so, that there are medical procedures, that could not be done prior, to this technology, being developed and so it's making people's lives on Earth a lot better so, along those lines I'm going to turn it over to Mike now to talk about the National Lab stuff, thanks.

David It's difficult to pick up following, pretzel, logic but I'll do my best sir. First. Of all welcome you saw the opening, video with. The lovely face of Patrick. O'Neil talking, about what cases is and, I wanted to highlight just a couple of other experiments, that are going up on that explain, to you a little bit about the. Great excitement, that I share with Dave in our, partnership, with NASA in managing, the International, Space Station National Lab so as, Dave mentioned the International Space Station is many things to many different people but, from the, viewpoint of investigators. And technology, developers, it, offers opportunities unique. Opportunities, that are one-of-a-kind. Off this world opportunities, to test technology, to, demonstrate, the validity of technologies. And to do fundamental, basic research that is of interest not only to NASA and the international, partners who work in the space room all the time but. To investigators, who work here on earth so among, those are experiments, you'll hear more about later that, are sponsored. And funded by the National, Science Foundation, that, are flying projects, that are exploring the fundamental physics of, materials. In the space environment using, the be ket's apparatus, developed by. Implementation. Partners that have supported nasa for years there, are a multitude of student. Space Flight experiments that Patrick touched on that are leveraging. The imagination. Of youngsters. And their excitement. About not only thinking. About space but actually designing, experiments. And taking them from the. Drafting, page all the way through to execution, and then actually analyzing, data from that spaceflight environment. And you also learn about some companies, that are supporting, commercial, research activities, one of those is a commercial. Platform uses, it's developed by Teledyne, Brown engineering. And will. Have its first payload, hosted, from DLR. Today so we. Are now seeing in the space environment this opportunity, for, sharing. Of space and for building new opportunities, in that space environment by, collaboration, between federal, funding agencies, that are sponsoring research, commercial. Companies, that are sponsoring R&D, activities, that are of interest to their portfolio, and the, continued, success of NASA in demonstrating, the utility, of having this orbiting laboratory operating. In the, harshness of space in microgravity, all the time and with that I'd like to queue the video go, into a little bit deeper about one of the commercial, payloads, that will be operating, onboard the International, Space Station, sponsored. By the ISS, National Lab. We're. Trying to make a therapy, that can address, 90%. Of cancers, and. Make make, cancer, a non fatal disease. In. The US over one-third of people go on to develop cancer in their lifetime. My. Mother. Died. Of cancer and she died, at age 33, when. I was 10 years old wasn't able to do anything for her when she was alive but, I can. At least have made my contribution, to all, the future mothers, who. Might be in a similar situation. Microgravity. Is providing, a good model for us to study hall, drugs, are targeting, normal, blood vessels, and to test our cancer, therapy this model our, approach, destroys. Both the, tumor cells and the tumor blood vessels, simultaneously. And the, whole tumor dies. For, lack of oxygen. And nutrients, we notice astronauts, have more cardiovascular, disease, but less cancer and we. Notice endothelial cells, which are the type of cells that make up blood vessels didn't grow in space so we're sending up a bunch of endothelial, cells we're going to treat them with our drug and we want to see if and a few your cells in space are different, than on the ground. And. Justice, mission is to cure cancer and microgravity. May provide that opportunity. Is. One of the to conclude ngx came to us through the mass challenge, program so. In partnership, with Boeing, casus. And Boeing are able to offer opportunities for, small entrepreneurial. Startups, who. Have new, ideas innovative, new ways to develop, therapies.

Such As for cancer to. Develop new medical devices and other advances, in technology, that can directly utilize the international space station National, Lab so we're. Excited for the launch tomorrow morning, everybody, I hope is anxious to get up at 3:00 in the morning to get their spot and get started. Great. So great, overview, gentlemen, thank you so much does, anybody have any questions for Mike or David. Please. Yeah, wait for a microphone to come by here real quick. Jim, Siegel I'm with Space Flight Insider I'm interested. In, roughly. How, many discrete. Experiments. Or investigations. Are onboard this. This. Flight both, from the, cases point of view and from the. Total. Manifest, point of view. I'll. Have to get back you with a total number because, I focus, mainly on the new ones but I know there's 27, new ones going up and I, believe as mentioned before that those contribute, to a total, of over, 300, that will be operating, during expeditions. 55, and 56, and. Are. Both. Cases, and and, yes. So for the ISS National Lab side there's 20 payloads, that represent. Over 50 experiments. Have. A question back here just. One moment for the microphone to get to you please. Can. You talk about a, couple, of the student projects, that are going up and what those are like. So we're. Very excited about all the student projects that are going up so I don't want to pick on any one, of them in particular. But. There are a few that are looking actually at kidney, cells and the microgravity environment so, you heard from Angie X and others that there's, a lot of interest in removing gravity, from the growth of cells that has advantages, and disadvantages. At a, fundamental level. Some, students are looking at simply ways to culture cells in that environment and monitoring. Their oxygen, uptake and ability to metabolize. In, that environment so we. Have a variety experiments. On this missions and others before those that have focused either on human, cells in culture which. Is something that I wasn't able to do when I was in high school or, plant. Cell culture, we've had quite a few experiments, that have focused on growth. Of algae and microalgae, in that environment as well. And. The, cost of admission for students, to those is drastically. Down now through partnerships, with dream. Up NanoRacks, based hango there are a lot of companies. Now that are directly engaged with high schools to work with students, and student mentors to. Develop projects, and the price point for them getting in is now to the point where high. School students, working out of their basement can, almost, fund. Their own their own small lab to go up it's, an exciting time. Anybody. Else have a question for micro David yes, back here please wait for the microphone. In. Terms of the projects, that go up is there a combination, between things that the, space station wants, to have happen and. Private. Industry, wanting to or do have specific numbers of, we. Have room for outside. Experiments. And then specific things that you want to have happen the. Way the research, is divided, with regards to sponsorship, is that. Among, the American research it's split 50-50, between the national lab and NASA and then, in addition to that we also have our international, partners, as well that participate. In there folks that are looking to add new capabilities, all the time so we, want to continue to exceed the, capacity of, the International Space Station and see, it grow and there are already companies, that are coming up with innovative new ways to get even more science and technology, they're more.

Innovative, Ways to return samples, back to earth quickly, and ways. To communicate data. Back. Between, Earth and the, International, Space Station or more rapid manner so right, now is the time to see that grow, great. We have time for just one more question right up here in the front row. We. Hear a lot about the the Space, Station program. Being. Wound, down or defunded. Or shut. Down is. There anything you could tell us about that and maybe what the next phase, might, be your, future. Plans. The. The presidential, budget that was offered up indicated, that they. Would like to reduce it. Was proposed, that we, reduced the government, portion, of the support of space station in, 2025. To zero there's. A lot of folks looking at that right now to see exactly what that means because obviously you don't go from a budget of this, much to zero but. As part of implementing the the overall. Plan to to. Work with commercial companies that's always been part of our our charter yeah. And, from our perspective that the, synergy advancement of Science in space we've, seen growing, and, sustained, interest, from many. Different sectors of the commercial economy from material, science developers. Through. Pharmaceutical. Companies who've made extensive use of the platform we're, seeing increased, engagement and funding, opportunities provided. By government agencies, other, than NASA so National Science Foundation. National, Institutes of Health Department. Of Defense are all funding, research utilizing. The International Space Station National Laboratory, so although, the, funding, structure is going to change at some point in the future we're. Very confident, that as a platform the International Space Station is going to continue to operate for as long as people see utility, in it and we're, able to get science and technology development up there and back and the, future is very bright for that. Okay. Well thank you David and Mike for sharing with us that that. Perspective, for sure so. Thank, you so much so. So. Next to discuss the crew interactive, mobile companion, or Simon, project, is dr. Christian Koresh, program. Lead for from. The German Aerospace Center and, Phillip. Julian project. Engineer from Airbus. Yes. Simon Says thank, you thank, you for the, honor being here to present our project so.

Simon, Was, developed, by Abbas, and the. Artificial intelligence comes, from IBM, and we, I'm from DLR, we're yeah, the payload owner so. What is Simon, Simon, is a, free-floating. Artificial. Intelligence, his. Journey will begin tomorrow and. When. He will be activated, this is kind of a historical moment so. This will be the first, operating. Artificial. Intelligence, with, a human machine interaction, so. Maybe, you can also, start. The video in, the back so you get some impressions. What's, happened, so far so. We, trained Simon, he's. Especially trained, to the German, astronaut. So. These are some pictures from the turbo leak flight so we tested him already, in weightlessness and this. Technology, demonstration. Together with Airbus, and IBM, and it's. A kind of yeah. Pioneer, challenge, so, to implement an artificial intelligence. In real time into. The International, Space Station that's, a really, tough challenge in terms. Of safety, and security here you can see Alexander Gerst he, trained with him his, face recognition, and. His voice and things like this so, we, are very happy that. Simon. Will. Be the first artificial, intelligence, in space. And. One, of the main, challenges so we are a team of about 50, people working. On this for the last two years and, usually. In space, you need to yeah. Five. Or ten years for a project like this with this complexity. But. We managed, and made. This challenge happen, so, we are very very happy and maybe, my colleague can say. Some few words the technical, just one point I want to figure. Out is that, for us this is a piece, of the, future of human space flight, I mean, if you go out to the moon or to Mars so. You cannot take all mankind, and engineers with you so the astronauts they will be on their own, so. But, with an artificial intelligence. You have instant, the, all the knowledge of mankind and this. Is just, the first technology, demonstration. For us but. I guess it's one step into, the future for exploration. Ok, so, what. I want to do is I want to give you a short insight into what's actually happening happening, on board of the International Space Station one Simon's up there so. What, what, will happen basically is that Simon will be floating somewhere inside the Columbus module and Alex, on a guest which Simon is tailored to Sam. The free flyer will. Call, Simon at a certain time then, Simon, with the help of a microphone array will, acoustic, acoustically. Know where, Alexander gasps is speaking from Simon, will orient to what Alexander guessed and then, the orientation, will switch towards the, front camera with.

Front Camera we perform face detection. So we detect, all the faces that are inside the camera inside, the picture of the camera, afterwards. We perform face recognition with, the help of our. IBM, api's where. We got great support from IBM. Then. Alexander guess could say something like Simon. Could you please help me performing, a certain certain experiment, could be please help me with with the procedure then. Simon will fly to bots Alexander guest with the help of 14. Impellers that are inside this sphere. So. We have four, tubes for quite fast acceleration, to. The to the front and then. Simon. Will fly towards Alex, on a guest and they will already start the communication. So. Simon, will then. Guide Alex on a guest through a procedure, he. Will show on the screen on the front he. So for example videos or or, displays, or pictures of the of the facility, and then. If Alexander guess has certain questions to that experiment, is working on Simon, is quite deep knowledge on that experiment so, you can really get inside, the experiment, and you can ask questions that, are beyond, the procedure and, also. For example Alexander, guest:can can. Then. Sign. Verbally, certain steps from the procedure he can go one, one, step ahead one step back or. He can he. Can do whatever you want basically with, this one, what. Else do we got here we got a microphone on the very on the back then. We got an infrared camera on the front for example. The. Whole hardware is electrically powered so we got two, batteries in the back but, it can also be powered, hardwired. Then. We got which, it was quite important for Alexander, guests who. We did several training sessions with was, that we had an actual an offline button if that, partners activated, that's. On the back Thank You Christian. Once. That button is activated Alex on the gas can be sure that nothing that he's. Actually saying by. Now is streamed, down to earth so it's kind of private then and once. It's. Okay for him that the information sent back to earth again it, just deactivates, the offline button and then, it will be streamed down to the to the IBM server again and. Simon. Will be able to talk, again to. The crew. The. Batteries, we. Are very happy that, the. Astra B team supported. Or helped us so, we couldn't qualify batteries. And within our own project, but we take, batteries which they qualify for the International, Space Station so without. Them and without, them support, so we this, would be our showstopper, the batteries so we are very happy so this is the kind of. Yeah. Space, spirit, we're doing here with NASA and, all the other. Is. A really great collaboration, and it really works so people are very friendly helpful, and, yeah, we, thank for that very. Fast and project running less than two years we. Just didn't have the time for the battery, certification. So we were. Very, thankful to get the batteries from this regime which is just. And. What I'm going to do is I'm going to introduce, you to the IBM, vice president, for the AI portion. Of this, project, Brett Greenstein. So. We're going to take some questions. I got. A front row question right here please. Chris. K Bart with NASA space flight can you talk about how. Simon. Connects, to the cloud on, the international space station does it have to does its operation if it be timed like for certain, periods. With connection through the network and, since. You had to UM print it to Alexander. For this flight what happens to Simon when Alexander. Comes back to earth at the end of the year okay, so you. Can probably talk better to the technical. Communications, of the satellites of the earth but, during the times when there is connectivity, all, the communications go back through the cloud so all the AI work is being processed at the cloud natural, language all the training and tailoring, we did happens, in the cloud which also means we, can enhance it from the earth anytime and make it smarter, constantly. To. Help Alexander. And the team to use it it, is tailored. And tuned and trained to, work with Alexander, but it's a it's, an open system it works with everybody who listens, it was just specifically. Trained to help, us some of the terminology, and the way that he speaks to make it work even better for him so it works for everybody great.

Think Kenya had a question just one, moment for the microphone, please. Hi. Ken Kramer space up-close thanks. For doing this session how. Difficult. Would it be for, someone. Besides. Kara to work with it since it's specifically, for him and is. It multilingual. So. It would work with anybody, obviously. It's tuned to language so, this is designed to work in English works in English in, understands Alexander, in particular, was helpful to train it to recognize him so that it will come to him when he speaks so, that part is helpful but it'll work for all the astronauts now and. On language support right. Now it's English but our, Watson services support, many languages, so, it can give you a few more informations what what does actually mean tailored to alexander guests we, had several feminization, sessions together with Alexander guest so he was able to choose, for. Example the face that is this played on the screen once he's talking he, had the yet being able to choose between a quite a simple smiley quite, a closed face to the human face and, he made his choice something. Quite in between for, example it was also able to choose the voice that, that, the IBM that the, language that, actually comes out of Simon if. It should be male or female for example or which which, accidently should have and then, it was also able to to influence the design slightly and to give his commands. Or to, send, us his, commands in advance and we were able to train really, the the word said Alexander guess 10 suits quite quite often and all, the abbreviation, for example that Alexander gets uses so, it will work with everyone you. Can also work with with everyone in this room everyone, is able to speak with it but, Alexander guest is. Able to speak with it best that's. Great I think, we have a social. Question don't we. You. Would like to know how does Simon move in zero-gravity. So. We got 14 impellers inside, this, sphere they, are seven. No, sorry there are eight impellers in this direction so it is able, to move quite fast to, the front then, we got four impellers in this, direction so it's able to move quite. Well to the left and to the right and, we got two impellers in to the up direction, so it's able to stabilize and also just go to perform short movements, we don't have any gyroscopes, or anything in there it's, just moving with the with the help of impellers so, we suck, in air on the back for example and then we push it out to the front and then we're flying backwards. Great. Question, marcia, why. Should an associated, press have a couple questions. Would. Simon, be able if there was a breakdown, on the space station could. You, could. An. Astronaut, help. Fix the. Broken toilet, or or or, if there was someone sick could, there, be some diagnosis, medical, things are there any implementations. Like that for. The time being this is just a technology. Demonstration, so, we have just three hours of crew time so, with commissioning. Then we do we'll, do an educational. Experiment and we will do some skill training. And. He's. Not trained to all. Emergencies. And all, protocols, for the space station so. This is just the first step so. Maybe. For a future operating, system. But this gonna take a while, now. We have time for just one more question I'll, go back here this gentleman right here. Thank. You Chuck fields online coffee break um I, assume when an astronaut is, communicating. With Simon, he uses a waik word like Simon, once he starts that does, he use, that word each time or is it more conversational, like Google, Play. There. Is a certain mode that we have installed. If. It's activated, the crew needs to say every time Simon, so in, case for example if the second roommate enters the Columbus module Sam shall. Not be supposed to listen to that kind of conversation all the time and and. Shall not disrupt. That conversation. That's, why we implemented, that feature so, if you switch that mode on it, will only react if you start a sentence with Simon, what's, going on Simon how are you Simon can you please help me if, you switch off this mode then, you can just talk freely to Simon and if we listen to everything that you're saying and, you don't need any key words you can just speak to it freely as well as whatever you like to say and. We and we've done a lot of work to make sure we pick up on sort of the way conversational.

Cues Work so you know when something's directed, at Simon, or something else and there's, a lot of work to be done around conversational, analytics to make it as natural as possible since. Multiple people are talking in an environment. You're. Just one thing I want to add I mean it's a bit more as a smartphone, which follows you so, for. For this approach we are doing it's what, is really, really important, for us is the human-machine interaction, so. That, the. Astronaut, works together with. An, artificial. Intelligence, as a team, so. Human. And machine they're, both part of our experiment and we, are, very curious what what alexander guest will tell. Us after, trying, simon. Some. Great technology, for sure christian, philip brett thank you so much for joining us this morning and share, a little bit about simon, with us so thank you very much. Chemical. Gardens are structures, that grow, during. The interaction of metal salt solutions, with a select, anions. Joining. Us today to share details about, the chemical, gardens science. Study, our principal investigators, dr. Richard Bruegel from, NASA's Marshall Space Flight, Center and dr. Oliver, Steinbach, from Florida, State University thank. You very much yeah, we're we're, having something completely different from you for you guys could have the first slide please. So we are studying chemical gardens oh. Okay. Awesome. So, we, are studying chemical, gardens and their inorganic, precipitation. Structures, that are looking. Extremely, lifelike and. They. Are bought in centimeter, a couple of centimeters, an inch high formed. Within you, know a few minutes and he's, as you can see has this tendency to grow upwards, and this would be of course important next slide please. So. Probably. The older ones in the audience remember, that may be the younger ones too these, were little chemical. Toy demonstrations. Right and so it has a very long history it's. Actually order, the history than this box even, Isaac Newton, already studied these systems, and his. Alchemical. Studies next, slide and. Here's. Another picture of them grown in the laboratory at, Florida State University and. You see that there's this different color so I want to quickly tell you what these structures are made of and how they are produced you.

Have A clear liquid it's a basic solution of silicate and you drop a little tiny crystal, in there and within. Seconds, as crystal starts to dissolve reactions. Occur and the little membrane forms, around the crystal and then. Water flows in the, membrane birth and out, of it comes a kind, of buoyant jet of soil solution and around that jet you get these chemical gardens that grow so they are actually hollow tubes. The. Water's maybe 10 microns, thick and in. These experiments, and the different colors are different materials. Silicates. Copper. Oxide. Copper hydroxides. Compounds, like that some of which have catalytic, activity. Okay. Next slide and. So. That brings me to the reason why would we study them okay. So, they're actually at least three good reasons why you want to study these systems and the, microgravity, photos, from it so. This was actually a movie playing there showing the growth. The. Their, natural structures, that are very very similar so. On the left you see hydrothermal. Vents is white and black smokers, on the ocean floor and those, from a chemical point of view those materials, are very very similar and. On. The right hand side you have another natural phenomena, they're briny kills they're, actually happening under, ice floating, on the ocean, and these. Gigantic, ice tubes extent, down to the ocean floor so they're also tubular, structures, from very different length scales more, interesting for me are the ones on the Left these. Hydrothermal. Vents. They're. A possible, place where life, might, have started on earth and I, very quickly give you three good reasons why it might have happened there these, materials, have, free energy available. To them it's hot and you, know different PHS, on different, sites so, there's a energy, source that life, could have tapped into the. Materials, are micro porous so they're tiny little pores where material, can accumulate and you, don't have to produce a lipid cell membrane, the. Water structure is catalytically, active so, you initially don't need, enzymes. And there's, some simple interesting, compounds, coming out of the ground when, these things are operational. So. Of interest for NASA's also that similar structures might exist on other moons, and. So. We, essentially, produce, these tiny, versions, in the laboratory, to study them next, slide please it's, my last. Another. Motivation, is to turn. This into a new type of engineering, it, looks like a little toy but, every good technology, starts maybe as a toy when you look at the first transistor or so and. So. The idea is here to essentially grow tubular, structures, in a more organic lifelike, way so the way I want to explain that is if life if biology, wants to grow a finger it doesn't produce finger, material, extrude, modes it, it. Grows it in a programmed, organic kind of way so. We, believe that this is something that you also can do with inorganic materials, reactions, and to turn this into a different, type of technology.

So. I hand it over to Richard, thank. You very much we're really pleased to be here. That. Slide, you just saw. Just. To start out that is not the planet eater from the original, Star Trek series. It. Is a microfluidic. Tube, that a flow, rate does go through and, that. Flow rate is dependent, on two terms a buoyancy, term and a, pressure term. We. Know that those work and we can determine the flow, rates from that but we don't know the relative contributions. From those two terms in microgravity. The, buoyancy, term has a gravity, factor in it and up there it's going to basically go to zero and, when. That happens, we'll, have nothing but the pressure term to make. The structure and then, when we bring them back down we'll, be able to evaluate. Those, and. We. Can determine. Strictly. From that to how these things are growing and we'll be able to sort out those two terms so, the next slide please. Okay. So. As as, professor Steinbach, mentioned, we can probably try to make some novel structures, including micro fluidics, this, is some ground-based were research. That Alex. Blanchard the PhD, graduate. Student from Florida State is working on at our lab in, Marshall, right now and, through. Some clever. Experimental. Work we're trying. To mimic what we might find in microgravity and, we can see these, sort. Of spiral structures, here so we'll, do some more work with this and we'll compare it to what we get from the microgravity experiments. Next, please, yeah. The experiments, themselves are, really conceptually, simple. We're. Gonna conduct them on the space, station in, the glove, bag that you see in the upper, left, hand corner there, and. This. Has been successful, and and this experiment, is has. A lot of synergy with the microgravity. Investigation. Of cement solidification. Being. Directed by Professor Alexander, a disc and graduate, student, Juliana. Navis, up at Penn State and we. Just completed some of those experiments, in that similar glove bag very, successfully, on the experimental, space station, and this, is basically how what they look like here, we have a burst. Bag here with a weak seal in the center there's, a Teflon, insert, with a wire on it to which we've attached the crystals, in, the bottom is the sodium silicate, solution. This. Will be put into the, glove. Bag and it will be rolled up the seal will break and the solution, will come in contact with, the. Crystal and we'll, see what the growth is when it comes back. Next. Please. Okay. So. We. Realize that we want to get a lot of science impact out of this also but, it's important, that we, have some outreach, and this. Is a picture, of our co eyes on. The, left is Marshalls, chief microscopist. Elin, Rabin Berg and on the right is pH. D Oliver's. A PhD soon Alex Blanchard. And they're, doing an outreach program here. Where. NASA. Or, Marshall doesn't NASA in the park vans were they, highlight everything that goes on at Marshall, and, one.

Of Those events was we've. Set up this booth here and and a hundred and sixty, school-aged children were introduced, to chemistry, and making their own chemical, gardens, and, I, just like to close by saying. Later on this summer both. Alex, and Juliana. Are going to be in Ellen's lab and, I'm. Expecting, some spirited, discussions, between the relative experiments. And we're really hoping for a solid, collaboration. Between the, chemists, and the, cement scientists. Thank. You very much that's great that's great, do we have any questions from our audience. I. Can. Clear my space up close you mentioned the black smokers, it could be a potential origin, of life huh talk a little bit more detail, please how this work will, inform, us about the black smokers, and, very. Important, for me is to understand. It's not only the material. Itself it is a gradient the pH jump that occurs as, you cross this membrane, so, the black smokers are often iron sulphides, nickel, oxides. Materials. Like that fairly hot actually maybe too hot and. So. We, want to understand, and create, and study in the laboratory how. These materials. In the presence of a steep pH or temperature, gradient, can catalyze, certain reactions, and you, can do this just more precisely, in a controlled, systematic, way in the lab than you could in a true. Hydrothermal, vent field. So. That aspect is just essentially. Adding, I, would. Say the microgravity experience, primarily, contribute, to the understanding of how gravity. Conditions affect, the. Material. And structures, that are being formed, but that only indirectly, informs, this particular aspect of the investigations. And. We're gonna go to Twitter for, another question. Mark. Would, like to know what would be some practical, applications. Of the chemical gardens here on earth so. Not. In the short-term. Not in the short term but in the long term you, can think of it as essentially, the idea of taking a chemistry, lab and shrinking, it down to a little tiny microscopic object.

If, You want to move the chemicals, around you need a little plumbing network for this and, we hope that we can grow these plumbing, networks. In a more intelligent way and. Elegant wave with structures, when we control them and some, particular aspects, would have little catalytic, features, or analytical. Features, so, the one possible, application, would be to shrink it down the. Bigger idea is just to create micro shapes in a. Very different, not. Sequential engineering, step type of way but really through. Programming, and these these structures, are very. Sound. You can pour, out the liquid and they style they maintain. Their shape and you can heat them up and cinturón, and they. Have potential, uses as scaffolding. For, biological, applications, and things like that if we understand, how better how, they grow better. We're. Closer to applying, them okay. Great, in the room do we have any, more questions from our social crowd. Okay. Richard, Oliver thank you for sharing, with us thank you very much. Next. Up is the, ecosystem. Spaceborne, thermal radiometer. Experiment. On space station known as eco stress which. Measures, temperatures, of plants and uses that information to, better understand, how much water plants, need and how, they respond, to stress joining. Us today, from NASA's, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Is, dr. Simon Hook principal, investigator, and from, NASA's headquarters, Earth Science, Division a program scientist, woody Turner. Well. Good morning everyone today. We're going to tell you a little bit about eco stress and how eco stress fits in the overall NASA. Earth science program. Now, eco stress stands for the ecosystem spaceborne. Thermal, radiometer. Experiments, on space station yes I realize it's a bit of a mouthful it's. Actually, a thermal, infrared radiometer, that. Measures the energy, that's coming off the surface and, then translates, that energy into a temperature, so, it works a lot like when you put your hand above a stove, and you can feel the heat and. Your hand is a crude thermal, infrared sensor, obviously this instruments, a lot, better than that and that allows us to get the surface temperature, and once we've got the surface temperature we can use that to do all sorts of studies and what. We're going to do is, pants, so if you can just have the first slide. So. Plants, and, drawing. Water through, their roots and then, that water gets expelled, through small, pores on the underside of their leaves called stomata and, as this water gets expelled, it keeps the plants cool and these, same pores are used to drawing co2, and then, use it, to. Make with, photosynthesis. To make sugars and grow the plant now. If the plant has enough, water it can stay cool but, if it doesn't then, these stomata closed, and the. Plant temperature goes up and eventually, it starves, and so, we can see this change in plant temperature, when we can use it as a proxy for, the amount of water that, the plant is actually using now, this. Process. As I mentioned is called transpiration. From the plant but there's also evaporation. From the surface, and the two combined, are called evapotranspiration, and.

That's. What we'll be measuring from the International Space Station so our next slide please. So. As you can imagine evapotranspiration. Varies. Throughout the day and this is actually a plot and you can see it starts in the morning and then it goes to the end of the evening and you can see how evapotranspiration, increases. And then in the middle of the day it shuts down when the stomata closed, and then, it starts up again later in the day so, obviously what we want to do is be able to see, how this varies, throughout the day now most satellites fly over at this sort of same time every morning at about 10:30, so, they don't really give us a good indication of how this evapotranspiration is, varying throughout the day but, the International, Space Station is in what's called a processing orbit, and, as, a result it flies over at different times of day and so, we can use the unique vantage point, of the International, Space Station to be able to see how this is varying, through. Throughout the day and there's a picture estimator, in, the background there so we'll have the next slide please. Now, the other thing about evapotranspiration, is. It's what's known as a leading indicator, so. What that means is we, know what's going on before, it actually happened. So we can see the plants are stressed by looking at their temperature, before, they, actually. Start to turn brown and die so, this is very useful now this is a picture of evapotranspiration. Rates. For, the US during one of the major droughts and you can see the area that was being strongly. Affected. By the drought you. Know in this image is the the. Red area so, what, we'll be able to do is measure evapotranspiration. Over. The entire globe now obviously a farmer could go out and do this and measure the evapotranspiration themselves. But you need a lot of farmers to be able to cover the. Entire globe and so obviously that's another big, advantage with. The space station so I have the next slide please. And. This just illustrates that point I was making earlier about the. Fact that the, International. Space Station flies over at different, times and, what you see is if you look at say 10 o'clock there's a bar chart and it shows, that the numbers, about 24, and we. Have two satellites, that fly over but they say, fly over twice a month and they only fly over at 10, o'clock but, with on the ISS, will, fly over 24, times at, 10 o'clock at 11 o'clock at 12 o'clock and so, on throughout the day and we can use that now. Another big advantage with, eco stress is it has, a very wide swath, and the, way that that works is it. Has a mirror and it looks off to one side and, then that mirror scans, across the surface as the station is moving forward and we use that scanning. To build up a picture and then turn that into a temperature. So if we go to the next slide please so, this. Just next slide just shows you where Eco stress will go on the International, Space Station you, can probably see it's indicated. By the arrow it's on the leftmost. Side. Of the picture as I'm looking at it and so, what happens is inside, that box there's this mirror that's rotating, around it's, looking, at its scanning across as the station, is moving, forward and we're, actually, building, up the image, so, what I'd like to do now is just sort of show you a video.

Of That emotion. And we'll go to the next slide please so. What. You can see is the station moving along at the very front on the left hand side in the gray area is the. Journey F platform, or the Japanese. External, module experiment, facility. And that, is where eco stress is going to go you can sort of see it's highlighted. There on the left, and so, what will happen is this video will zoom in and we're actually looking at Salton. Sea and you can see the green fields, this is what you'd see if you're looking with your eye but eco stress will see the temperature, and you can see the different areas, the blue colder, areas, and those are the areas that are being watered, are being irrigated, so we can use this information to, help farmers, to understand. What is going on in, terms of their crops and to get the maximum yield from the amount of water. That is available but. We can also use it to look at other regions around the world that are stressed and see, how those regions, are changing so we can look at the major biomes and, we can see whether they're transit, whether plants. Are different plants are coming in or they're transitioning, to. Different. Types of, environments. So it's, going to be a very useful instrument from that point of view and now I'd like to just hand it over to woody and he'll tell us a little bit more about how it fits in the overall NASA program. Thank. You very much Simon this is just a fantastic, mission. We. Have here first I want to step back and talk a bit about why. We care so much about plants. If I could get the first next. Slide as you say please. Simon. Mentioned the process of photosynthesis. In that. Process plants, take energy from our star the Sun add. Water, and carbon dioxide and produce sugars, now, these sugars are really key this plant primary production these sugars are the basis, for the, vast majority of food on this planet in, addition. They, produce oxygen, so. Plants are both feeding, us and giving an oxygen, oxygenating. Our atmosphere so that we can breathe major. Stuff thanks to plants next, slide please. This. Slide shows, the active. Earth science. Space missions, of NASA, and. It. Gives. You the perspective that we're looking at our planet as we look at other planets in the solar system from, the vantage point of space it's, a very holistic top-down. View, and, lets us get an understanding of the whole earth system and doing that now their, system is quite complex so we have a number of number, systems looking at different components, of the Earth's system at, the same trying to try to give us the big picture and understand it sort of soup-to-nuts the atmosphere, the, ocean, the lands and life and how they all interact.

Now. We've, marked on this particular, slide those, missions, that are focused, on the water cycle with. A water droplet those, focusing, on carbon, with a sea and I want to focus on the water cycle in carbon cycle as well, as climate because, these are three, key, elements of our system, and they're. An eco stress sits right at the intersection of those those, three elements the carbon cycle water cycle and, climate, of course we water. And carbon. Or key to all life and climate. Is a huge. Driver, of the physical chemical and biological, elements. Of our system as a specially, prime mover for what's going on on this on this planet, and eco. Stress captures, how those three interacts essentially, the dance of those three key elements. It's. A great integrator, and and. Fantastic. Now I will have you noticed that on the water side of the equation. Many. Of those those, those. Current missions are focusing, on the, supply side of the water cycle in, other words where the water comes from precipitation. Where. It is where it's located on the surface either. At the surface or in the soil or perhaps even deep underground. Eco, stress its thermal, channels. Are looking at the demand for water by plants we're capturing the demand side there - another key component of eco stress next. Slide please. And. The. Point of this slide is to say that in addition to doing great science, eco, stress is also an applications. Mission, even, though it's only going to be there for a year, to your, year two years relatively short time, and. During that time it will help folks, making real-time decisions, in several, areas one agriculture. Farmers. Need to know where, to apply water and when to use the water most efficiently, obviously. Water managers, need, to know where. To use water again. The minimal amount of water necessary at, a time of increasing water scarcity, and also. Because it's a temperature, sensor. Has temperature, channels, on it it, will help us understand, some major natural hazards, such as droughts and. Also hot spots from fires and volcanoes and then finally, it's going to give us the big picture for. All natural resource manager stressful natural resource managers to help how their systems are doing how the Rican systems are doing are, they stressed or not and for that of course it all starts and ends with the plants thanks. So. Does anybody have any questions for Simon. Or woody thanks. Jim. Siegel Space Flight Insider I'm, particularly. Intrigued. By it how, this can be applied to say. The average farmer, down, on earth so. My, understanding was, that. You. Have echo stress, up in the ISS. And it can look down and look for hotspots and I presume. That will. Tell. Farmers, whether to increase or decrease the, amount of water that they're giving their plants, is that true first. Yes. It's, it's. True basically, what, will happen is that we. Have partners, on the mission from, the US Department of Agriculture, and those. Partners, will get the data and work with the data that we make publicly available to everyone and then, they will use that to produce products, which the farmers can then use to look at how. Much, evapotranspiration, is, taking place within, their fields, one, of the great things about eco stress is it. Allows us to take very detailed, pictures, and. So you know we can see variations. In temperature within a field and so we can see the, people can see how much water to put on the different parts. Thing. I mean I can call up somebody and say. It's. An experimental mission, that we're trying, out for one, year but. What we hope to do is in a few months get the products out so, people can start using them and then, we should be able to update.

Them More frequently say weekly because, from a farmers point of view you want to know how this is changing over, a relatively, short period but it's not in the matter of hours it's more in the matter of days longer. Term after eco stress is, decommissioned, or whatever on the on the international space station then. What happens does another piece. Of equipment go, up there well we'd, certainly like that but, you, know nASA has to decide, what, the next missions are going to be and what we hope that is that eco stress will just show you how valuable a measurement, this is and then it will continue to make those measurements in the future thank you there's, something called the National Academy puts out something called a decade old survey, which. Recommends. To NASA what types of missions they should be flying and we just had one come out of the inning of this year, from. The National Academy and, one of the one, of the missions they're interested in looking at is a multispectral. Or hyperspectral, perhaps, the thermal instrument, and so stay. Tuned there, may well be a eco. Stress follow-on, on-orbit. Yes. A question back here please. Daniel. Spinola to blow honey tease. My. Question is actually on, the flip side of that. Which, are looking, at and just wondering if you look, at the other side of things where you, know where I'm from right now there's a lot of landslides, from, too much water and. So is there a look at the stress of maybe too much water. On plants, in this mission, as well so. We're. Not doing that in this mission but, the important thing is that when you measure the surface temperature just, like when you go to the doctors and you takes your temperature, it's indicative of all sorts of, ailments. And information, if, you look at the surface temperature you can see other patterns, so you may be able to see some patterns that, are associated with, changes. Of soap that might indicate a landslide, or something like that so, these kinds of data have been used, in the past to, to. Look at landslides, because. You know with a temperature measurement you can use it to look at all and side you can look at a volcano. Say the volcanoes, in Hawaii you, know you can use it to look at heat waves in cities so it's a very versatile, measurement, so you can use, it for those kinds of things but, we're not intending, to do it with eco stress which is focused just on the plant. There. Are a question in the background. I'm. Cross with Tesla, Rotti I had, a question about the thermal, camera could you tell us the make and model of the thermal camera and also. How. Do you ignore the weather the temperature of the clouds and rain storms, and is this a subscription. Service that you plan on providing to farmers, so. That they don't fly drones around equipped, with a FLIR camera on their own fields that's.

So. That. Was three question, questions so I'll do my best to get through them, so, the, first one in terms of the instrument, the, instrument was, designed, develops built by JPL the. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is one of the NASA centers, so, it's a it's a unique custom, one-of-a-kind, instrument. That's, the first thing. Now. Well the second. Two questions. The. Subscription, service question, so NASA, makes all its data freely, available and so, anyone can go and download the. Data from eco stress. You. Know once we've done the initial processing, so. You. Know anyone can get access to the data and that's always been a a NASA policy, and a very important, policy for research. Yes, we don't see, through. Clouds so. We, rely on the way there being clear and. Of course that's important, because what that tells you is that, you want something that goes over fairly frequently, so you can see between the clouds or. When there aren't clouds there. And so, one of the advantages of this instrument is because it has such a wide swath we, get to see every few days the, other instruments, don't go over until every two weeks so if they if they hit a cloudy cloudy, day then they don't get to go over for a whole month where is because we go over fairly frequently, we, can get. Opportunities, to see when it's not clouded okay. We have time for this one more question yeah. And. You mentioned that field of view what, what is that field of view in miles, or kilometers on the ground that it can see, 400. Kilometers on. The ground so it is really a wide field of view is plus or minus 25, degrees, there's. A lot of information at, eco stress JPL, nasa.gov, about, the instruments, and the characteristics. But. It is a very wide, field that, field of view and so, you, know that's what allows us to look so frequently. Well. Let's, thank Simon, and woody for sharing, with us the Eco stress program thank, you. Next. The be Katz CS, investigation. Will study forces, between particles that. Cluster together in sediment. Please, welcome dr. paulo Lizotte, so fidgets, the principal, investigator, from the University, of California Santa Barbara and, the, director, of the National, Science Foundation Division. Of chemical bioengineering. Environmental. And transport, systems richard. Dickinson. Director. Of Seebeck which is the long, winded. Division. That was just mentioned that's in the engineering. Directorate at the National Science Foundation so I'm very excited today to, talk, about our very first, launch, in the engineering Directorate, which, is Paulo's experiment, so I got a very, short prepared, statement, and then, Paula. Wolfe it's really his show today he'll give his talk. And then I'll be happy to take questions, afterwards. The. NSF is a federal agency that invests in fundamental, research and education, across science and engineering for. Nearly seven decades NSF. Has shaped the, nation scientific. Enterprise by funding innovative, research at universities and colleges and our research facilities around, the world tomorrow. We're launching our very first engineering. Experiment, to be performed in the microgravity environment at, the International, Space Station National. Lab thanks, to our partnership with cases. Our. Collaboration, with the cases, focuses, on research problems in fluid dynamics. Combustion. And tissue engineering, and this. Will advance scientific understanding, lead to future benefits, to life on Earth so now I'm very pleased to introduce Paolo, he's. The first investigator, that's sending, an experiment, up he's, an assistant professor of, mechanical, engineering, at the University, of California, Santa Barbara.

Professor. Liu Gatto. Fidgets. Investigates. Theoretical, experimental, and computational fluid, dynamics, with, the eye towards energy production and conservation. NSF. Is pleased to find as a new project his group's new project, say on, the launch tomorrow that, examines, fundamental, dynamics, of sediments, which has implications for, lakes, rivers and oceans, around, the world so thank you thank. You. So. What, we're gonna do is we're gonna send some sediment, toward, the International, Space Station and, what. We're interested in is looking at, what we call, cohesive. Forces in, sediment. Now sediment is made up of clay, as well as silt, and sand. And, by. Cohesive, forces we really mean what makes a sediment, essentially, sticky, if you imagine taking a handful, of mud has some stickiness to it. Now. These, cohesive, forces are very important, to. Have sediment, gets transported, in the environment, and in, engineering systems. However. They're. Very weak if you compare them to the force of gravity and, that means that it can be very hard to study them accurately, here, on earth. Now. If we can look at the first slide. Please so, this, is a picture taking, with a scanning, electron microscope, of clay. And, clay. Is essentially, what gives you the smallest particles, in sediment, they're a thousandth. Of a millimeter or less across. And. They're so small that if they get close enough to each other they, can essentially stick to, each other through, what they're essentially. Electrical. Kind of forces. Now. These forces, are what we call cohesive forces and. They, depend in some very complicated ways on what. Kind of minerals you have in there whether, you have any salt in there, and whether you have maybe any man-made. Contaminants. Now. If we look at the. Next, slide, please so. For example if you put clay, in salt, water it is something you can see you can get these, aggregates. Which are order of 10, microns across and, in. Currents can come together and make even larger, aggregates. It is have a, huge impact on how sediment, is transported, in. The environment, so. For example you can think of a, river that, carries sediment, into the ocean the, cement, particles. Will typically come together and make. Aggregates. These. Aggregates, will then sink. More. Than a hundred times faster. Than. The original primary. Particles, would. Have. Now. If the. Particles. Do not aggregate. Then. They will settle much more slowly in. A water column which. For example we mean that light. Will, have a very hard time entering. The water column and so. You'll then have that, algae. For, example we have a hard time growing and that, can undercut the, food supply in. Your ecosystem. So. You can ask well how do I make an, experiment involving. Cohesive. Sediment. Well. You ideally. Would like to put some sediment. In a small container, and then, stir, it until you break up these. Aggregates, and. Then, you like to look as these aggregates, form.

Again And then from this, aggregation, motion, you can deduce back what the forces are. Now. That's fine in the ocean where you have, hundreds. Of feet where the sediment. Can fall, as it aggregates. However. In the lab your, sediment could quickly reach the, bottom of your container. And, so you can only look at aggregate over very short timescales, in the land. So. That's why we're going to do an experiment on the space, station because you can essentially turn off the effects of gravity. Could. We have the next slide please so. We're. Sending an array of ten small, containers, that have different kinds of minerals in them that's the sort. Of black plate, you see there in the middle with ten, little containers, on. The left you'd have a flash which, will shine a light through, the. Containers. And then. Any aggregates, will essentially show up as dark or, darker, spots. In, the images that are taken by a camera there on the right and. Here. We are fortunately that we get to essentially, use again, a previous, set. Up called. The B cat which had been used for other kinds, of colloids. Predominantly. Man-made, engineered, coloreds but here we're gonna send a natural, convoy. To the, space. Station and, I mentioned the, application, involving, a river, flow

2018-07-06 04:34

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