Tag Archives: International Space Station

Testing ‘smart’ antibacterial surfaces and eating haute cuisine in space

Housekeeping in space, eh? This seems to be a French initiative. From a Nov. 15, 2016 news item on Nanowerk,

Leti [Laboratoire d’électronique des technologies de l’information (LETI)], an institute of CEA [French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission or Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA)] Tech, and three French partners are collaborating in a “house-cleaning” project aboard the International Space Station that will investigate antibacterial properties of new materials in a zero-gravity environment to see if they can improve and simplify cleaning inside spacecraft.

The Matiss experiment, as part of the Proxima Mission sponsored by France’s CNES space agency [Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES); National Centre for Space Studies (CNES)], is based on four identical plaques that European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet, the 10th French citizen to go into space, will take with him and install when he joins the space station in November for a six-month mission. The plaques will be in the European Columbus laboratory in the space station for at least three months, and Pesquet will bring them back to earth for analysis at the conclusion of his mission.

A November 15, 2016 CEA-LETI press release on Business Wire (you may also download it from here), which originated the news item, describes the proposed experiments in more detail,

Leti, in collaboration with the ENS de Lyon, CNRS, the French company Saint Gobain and CNES, selected five advanced materials that could stop bacteria from settling and growing on “smart” surfaces. A sixth material, made of glass, will be used as control material.

The experiment will test the new smart surfaces in a gravity-free, enclosed environment. These surfaces are called “smart” because of their ability to provide an appropriate response to a given stimulus. For example, they may repel bacteria, prevent them from growing on the surface, or create their own biofilms that protect them from the bacteria.

The materials are a mix of advanced technology – from self-assembly monolayers and green polymers to ceramic polymers and water-repellent hybrid silica. By responding protectively to air-borne bacteria they become easier to clean and more hygienic. The experiment will determine which one is most effective and could lead to antibacterial surfaces on elevator buttons and bars in mass-transit cars, for example.

“Leveraging its unique chemistry platform, Leti has been developing gas, liquid and supercritical-phase-collective processes of surface functionalization for more than 10 years,” said Guillaume Nonglaton, Leti’s project manager for surface chemistry for biology and health-care applications. “Three Leti-developed surfaces will be part of the space-station experiment: a fluorinated thin layer, an organic silica and a biocompatible polymer. They were chosen for their hydrophobicity, or lack of attraction properties, their level of reproducibility and their rapid integration within Pesquet’s six-month mission.”

Now, for Haute Cusine

Pesquet is bringing meals from top French chefs Alain Ducasse and Thierry Marx for delectation. The menu includes beef tongue with truffled foie gras and duck breast confit. Here’s more from a Nov. 17, 2016 article by Thibault Marchand (Agence France Presse) ong phys.org,

“We will have food prepared by a Michelin-starred chef at the station. We have food for the big feasts: for Christmas, New Year’s and birthdays. We’ll have two birthdays, mine and Peggy’s,” said the Frenchman, who is also taking a saxophone up with him.

French space rookie Thomas Pesquet, 38, will lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with veteran US and Russian colleagues Peggy Whitson and Oleg Novitsky, for a six-month mission to the ISS.

Bon appétit! By the way, this is not the first time astronauts have been treated to haute cuisine (see a Dec. 2, 2006 article on the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] website.)

The launch

Mark Garcia’s Nov. 17, 2016 posting on one of the NASA (US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) blogs describes this latest launch into space,

The Soyuz MS-03 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 3:20 p.m. EST Thursday, Nov. 17 (2:20 a.m. Baikonur time, Nov. 18). At the time of launch, the space station was flying about 250 miles over the south Atlantic east of Argentina. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) are now safely in orbit.

Over the next two days, the trio will orbit the Earth for approximately two days before docking to the space station’s Rassvet module, at 5:01 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 19. NASA TV coverage of the docking will begin at 4:15 p.m. Saturday.

Garcia’s post gives you details about how to access more information about the mission. The European Space Agency also offers more information as does Thomas Pesquet on his website.

Canadian science media at June 28, 2015 SpaceX Dragon CRS-7 cargo mission to the International Space Station

The short story is that Elizabeth Hand, Digital Engagement Specialist, at Vancouver’s (Canada) Science World was selected to be a correspondent at the Cape Canaveral (Florida) Space X launch on June 28, 2015. There’s more in her June 24, 2015 posting on the Vancouver Sun newspaper blog network (Note: Links and some formatting niceties have been removed),

I [am] on my way to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to join a team of social media correspondents from all over the world as a representative of Science World British Columbia to view the June 28, 2015 SpaceX Dragon CRS-7 cargo mission to the International Space Station.

I  received the news that I had been offered an invite at my thirty-something birthday celebration dinner. It was the gift to end all birthday gifts—a once-in-a-lifetime space nerd adventure. Any rocket launch would have made me happy, but a launch from Cape Canaveral is a particularly special one. For me, in particular, because I grew up in Florida and I can remember standing outside in the school yard hoping to catch a glimpse of the space shuttles that moved the Americans to the stars in the 80’s and 90’s. I dreamed of going up with them.

I am excited to bring the curiosity and excitement of the kids in BC with me to the events. Kids of all ages are invited to send their questions about space and rockets to @scienceworldca and/or @bettyHand on both Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #whyspacematters. You can participate from home or from Science World, where, from June 24-28, kids can dress up in space suits and, with the help of our science facilitators, can snap photos and share their ideas and questions with me and the experts at NASA and SpaceX.

It’s not clear to me if she will be blogging live as well as using the vehicles (Twitter, etc.) mentioned in her posting*. It might be worth checking both the Vancouver Sun (Community Blogs Network) and Science World (blog) to see if she will be offering more substantive descriptions than are possible on the social media vehicles she mentioned.

* ‘posing’ corrected to ‘posting’ at 1115 hours on June 26, 2015.

ETA June 29, 2015: The rocket exploded nine minutes after launch (Daniel Terdiman’s June 28, 2015 posting for Fast Company).

NASA, super-black nanotechnology, and an International Space Station livestreamed event

A super-black nanotechnology-enabled coating (first mentioned here in a July 18, 2013 posting featuring work by John Hagopian, an optics engineer at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA’s] Goddard Space Flight Center on this project) is about to be tested in outer space. From an Oct. 23, 2014 news item on Nanowerk,

An emerging super-black nanotechnology that is to be tested for the first time this fall on the International Space Station will be applied to a complex, 3-D component critical for suppressing stray light in a new, smaller, less-expensive solar coronagraph designed to ultimately fly on the orbiting outpost or as a hosted payload on a commercial satellite.

The super-black carbon-nanotube coating, whose development is six years in the making, is a thin, highly uniform coating of multi-walled nanotubes made of pure carbon about 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair. Recently delivered to the International Space Station for testing, the coating is considered especially promising as a technology to reduce stray light, which can overwhelm faint signals that sensitive detectors are supposed to retrieve.

An Oct. 24, 2014 NASA news release by Lori Keesey, which originated the news item, further describes the work being done on the ground simultaneous to the tests on the International Space Station,

While the coating undergoes testing to determine its robustness in space, a team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will apply the carbon-nanotube coating to a complex, cylindrically shaped baffle — a component that helps reduce stray light in telescopes.

Goddard optical engineer Qian Gong designed the baffle for a compact solar coronagraph that Principal Investigator Nat Gopalswamy is now developing. The goal is [to] build a solar coronagraph that could deploy on the International Space Station or as a hosted payload on a commercial satellite — a much-needed capability that could guarantee the continuation of important space weather-related measurements.

The effort will help determine whether the carbon nanotubes are as effective as black paint, the current state-of-the-art technology, for absorbing stray light in complex space instruments and components.

Preventing errant light is an especially tricky challenge for Gopalswamy’s team. “We have to have the right optical system and the best baffles going,” said Doug Rabin, a Goddard heliophysicist who studies diffraction and stray light in coronagraphs.

The new compact coronagraph — designed to reduce the mass, volume, and cost of traditional coronagraphs by about 50 percent — will use a single set of lenses, rather than a conventional three-stage system, to image the solar corona, and more particularly, coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These powerful bursts of solar material erupt and hurdle across the solar system, sometimes colliding with Earth’s protective magnetosphere and posing significant hazards to spacecraft and astronauts.

“Compact coronagraphs make greater demands on controlling stray light and diffraction,” Rabin explained, adding that the corona is a million times fainter than the sun’s photosphere. Coating the baffle or occulter with the carbon-nanotube material should improve the component’s overall performance by preventing stray light from reaching the focal plane and contaminating measurements.

The project is well timed and much needed, Rabin added.

Currently, the heliophysics community receives coronagraphic measurements from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO).

“SOHO, which we launched in 1995, is one of our Great Observatories,” Rabin said. “But it won’t last forever.” Although somewhat newer, STEREO has operated in space since 2006. “If one of these systems fails, it will affect a lot of people inside and outside NASA, who study the sun and forecast space weather. Right now, we have no scheduled mission that will carry a solar coronagraph. We would like to get a compact coronagraph up there as soon as possible,” Rabin added.

Ground-based laboratory testing indicates it could be a good fit. Testing has proven that the coating absorbs 99.5 percent of the light in the ultraviolet and visible and 99.8 percent in the longer infrared bands due to the fact that the carbon atoms occupying the tiny nested tubes absorb the light and prevent it from reflecting off surfaces, said Goddard optics engineer John Hagopian, who is leading the technology’s advancement. Because only a tiny fraction of light reflects off the coating, the human eye and sensitive detectors see the material as black — in this case, extremely black.

“We’ve made great progress on the coating,” Hagopian said. “The fact the coatings have survived the trip to the space station already has raised the maturity of the technology to a level that qualifies them for flight use. In many ways the external exposure of the samples on the space station subjects them to a much harsher environment than components will ever see inside of an instrument.”

Given the need for a compact solar coronagraph, Hagopian said he’s especially excited about working with the instrument team. “This is an important instrument-development effort, and, of course, one that could showcase the effectiveness of our technology on 3-D parts,” he said, adding that the lion’s share of his work so far has concentrated on 2-D applications.

By teaming with Goddard technologist Vivek Dwivedi, Hagopian believes the baffle project now is within reach. Dwivedi is advancing a technique called atomic layer deposition (ALD) that lays down a catalyst layer necessary for carbon-nanotube growth on complex, 3-D parts. “Previous ALD chambers could only hold objects a few millimeters high, while the chamber Vivek has developed for us can accommodate objects 20 times bigger; a necessary step for baffles of this type,” Hagopian said.

Other NASA researchers have flown carbon nanotubes on the space station, but their samples were designed for structural applications, not stray-light suppression — a completely different use requiring that the material demonstrate greater absorption properties, Hagopian said.

“We have extreme stray light requirements. Let’s see how this turns out,” Rabin said.

The researchers from NASA have kindly made available an image of a baffle prior to receiving its super-black coating,

This is a close-up view of a baffle that will be coated with a carbon-nanotube coating. Image Credit:  NASA Goddard/Paul Nikulla

This is a close-up view of a baffle that will be coated with a carbon-nanotube coating.
Image Credit: NASA Goddard/Paul Nikulla

There’s more information about the project in this August 12, 2014 NASA news release first announcing the upcoming test.

Serendipitously or not, NASA is hosting an interactive Space Technology Forum on Oct. 27, 2014 (this coming Monday) focusing on technologies being demonstrated on the International Space Station (ISS) according to an Oct. 20, 2014 NASA media advisory,

Media are invited to interact with NASA experts who will answer questions about technologies being demonstrated on the International Space Station (ISS) during “Destination Station: ISS Technology Forum” from 10 to 11 a.m. EDT (9 to 10 a.m. CDT [7 to 8 am PDT]) Monday, Oct. 27, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The forum will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

The Destination Station forums are a series of live, interactive panel discussions about the space station. This is the second in the series, and it will feature a discussion on how technologies are tested aboard the orbiting laboratory. Thousands of investigations have been performed on the space station, and although they provide benefits to people on Earth, they also prepare NASA to send humans farther into the solar system than ever before.

Forum panelists and exhibits will focus on space station environmental and life support systems; 3-D printing; Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) systems; and Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES).

The forum’s panelists are:
– Jeffrey Sheehy, senior technologist in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate
– Robyn Gatens, manager for space station System and Technology Demonstration, and Environmental Control Life Support System expert
– Jose Benavides, SPHERES chief engineer
– Rich Reinhart, principal investigator for the SCaN Testbed
– Niki Werkeiser, project manager for the space station 3-D printer

During the forum, questions will be taken from the audience, including media, students and social media participants. Online followers may submit questions via social media using the hashtag, #asknasa. [emphasis mine] …

The “Destination Station: ISS Technology Forum” coincides with the 7th Annual Von Braun Memorial Symposium at the University of Alabama in Huntsville Oct. 27-29. Media can attend the three-day symposium, which features NASA officials, including NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operation William Gerstenmaier and Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Bill Hill. Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency, will be a special guest speaker. Representatives from industry and academia also will be participating.

For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For more information on the International Space Station and its crews, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

I have checked out the livestreaming/tv site and it appears that registration is not required for access. Sadly, I don’t see any the ‘super-black’ coating team members mentioned in the news release on the list of forum participants.

ETA Oct. 27, 2014: You can check out Dexter Johnson’s Oct. 24, 2014 posting on the Nanoclast blog (on the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] website for a little more information

Tweet the International Space Station on the solstice, June 21, 2014

On the heels of the nanosatellite project (see this June 19, 2014 posting) here’s an email announcement about a very interesting project for the Summer Solstice (June 21, 2014),

The June Solstice (Saturday, June 21) is the best time to view the International Space Station [ISS] in the northern hemisphere.

But now there¹s another way.

Crowdsource the pictures via Twitter.

Space enthusiasts are being encouraged to tag their tweets with #SpotTheStation and include a location name and it will go on an interactive map.

Astronaut Reid Wiseman had the idea while on the International Space Station.  His tweet for example was ³During #Exp40, spot the #ISS & tweet your town, country-or-state w/ #spotthestation (pics welcome); we’ll map it! bit.ly/SpotTheStation2²

Here’s a little more detail as to the company and agency behind this project,

Esri, a GIS mapping software provider, has partnered with the Center of Geographic Sciences in Canada to develop a Twitter app to pinpoint the exact location of the ISS sightings around the world in order to give a complete view. The global map documenting the recent ISS sightings is already live.

I have looked at the live map and tweeters have been active. You can check to see the locations. For example, as of June 19, 2014 1000 hours PDT, Canada has some 26 tweets while Florida has 40 and Munich tops them both with 132 tweets.

I have looked up the company, Esri, and found this on the About Esri History page,

Jack and Laura Dangermond founded Esri in 1969 as a small research group focused on land-use planning. The company’s early mission was to organize and analyze geographic information to help land planners and land resource managers make well-informed environmental decisions.

There’s a very interesting article on the Esri website, which provides some insight into the origins for the June 21, 2014 ‘#SpotTheStation’ project. Written by Carla Wheeler (an Esri writer), it is undated but there is mention of Chris Hadfield’s sojourn on the ISS and his attendance at an event in June 2013 after he landed. From Wheeler’s 2013 (?) article, A Map App Odyssey,

Today social media, with doses of humor, are very much a part of the space mission, with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and many astronauts sending messages, videos, and photos back to Earth via Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Followers post messages for the astronauts too, making interaction about space interactive.

The photos Hadfield and fellow ISS astronaut Thomas Marshburn sent via Twitter inspired their follower David MacLean, a faculty member at the Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS), Nova Scotia Community College, and his students to create a mapping app called Our World from the ISS. It used Esri ArcGIS Online to map more than 950 photographs of interesting places on Earth that Hadfield and Marshburn shot from space. They took the photos during their December 2012–May 2013 mission and posted the images on Twitter with their observations of each scene (in 140 characters or fewer, of course). Hadfield, a Canadian, was especially prolific and poetic. …

MacLean, also a Canadian, was intrigued by the astronauts’ unique perspective as they orbited 400 kilometers (250 miles) above earth, photographing everything from cities to barrier reefs and sand formations to smoke from brush fires. He didn’t want their geologically and geographically interesting images and descriptions—such as “taffy-twisted African rock” and the “yin and yang of ice and land”—to quickly get swallowed and lost in the fast-moving Twitterverse.

“[Hadfield] took pictures all over the earth, with wonderful prose as he described the outback of Australia and parts of Mauritania and Algeria that no one would [otherwise] get to see,” MacLean said. “Unfortunately, Twitter seems to be a very temporal medium, and all these wonderful pictures—these rich resources—slip away and you have to really look to find them.”

MacLean wondered if there was a way to preserve the images and messages in the Tweets in a form that was easy for people to find and view. He decided to try building a mapping app, which he and his students created using geographic information system (GIS) technology from Esri, online comma-separated value (CSV) files, and Google Docs spreadsheets in Google Drive. Their map displays icons, provided courtesy of the Canadian Space Agency, that look like small space stations. These show the approximate (or, at times, quite accurate) locations of each photograph. Viewers can pan the map, zoom in to any area of interest, and tap an icon. A pop-up window will appear that includes a thumbnail of the picture and the message from the astronaut. You can also click the thumbnail to see the full-size Tweet in the astronauts’ Twitter feed. (Clicking the photo in Twitter will then bring up a larger, sharper image.) It’s a little like seeing photos of landscapes in National Geographic—only taken from space.

Tap an icon north of Medina, Saudi Arabia, to see Hadfield’s May 3 [2013?] photo of the Harrat Khaybar volcanic lava field and read his post: “The Earth bubbled and spat, like boiling porridge, long ago in Saudi Arabia.” Another geologic wonder caught his eye Down Under: “A splash of dry salt, white on seared red, in Australia’s agonizingly beautiful Outback.”

So, on June 21, 2014 get ready to tweet ‘#SpotTheStation’ and have a joyous Summer Solstice!

Do you think we’re sexy? Canadian five dollar bill ‘launched’ from outer space

I’m a bit late to this party as the new bills were launched, so to speak, from outer space by Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to command the International Space Station, along with the usual suspects. In at least one quarter, there’s more than a hint of envy regarding our sexy new $5 bill. From the May 1, 2013 article by Kadim Shubber for UK Wired,

Though it pains us to say it, Canada may have “out cooled” the UK (but just this once).

Canada’s new $5 note features an astronaut, a view of Earth from space, and, yes, space robots. The UK’s new £5 note will feature… Sir Winston Churchill.

Canada’s Financial Post, in an Apr. 28, 2013 piece about both new bills, noted this,

Focus groups consulted about the proposed images for the new bank note series thought the space motif of the new five-dollar bill looked childish.

Others were left scratching their heads over the depiction of Dextre, a Canadian robotic handyman on board the International Space Station.

Some people wrongly assumed Dextre was the name of an astronaut shown on the bill, while others had no clue who the name referred to.

Here’s what the fuss is all about (you can find a larger image at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bankofcanada/8694157272/_),

$5—back/verso

Here’s more about the launch from the Apr. 30, 2013 Bank of Canada news release,

While orbiting more than 350 kilometres above Earth, Commander Hadfield gave Canadians their first look at the new $5 polymer note. It features images of Canadarm2 and Dextre – robotics innovations used to build and maintain the Space Station and that symbolize Canada’s ongoing contribution to the international space program.

“I try to inspire young Canadians to aim high. This new $5 bill should do the same,” Commander Hadfield said. “By giving prominence to Canadian achievements in space, this bank note reminds us that not even the sky is the limit.”

The front of the $5 note features a portrait of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911.

One of the Canadian leaders in our robotics space exploration programme is MDA, which was founded in Richmond, BC. From MDA’s space exploration webpage,

MDA’s robotic systems have enabled human spaceflight for nearly three decades, assembling space infrastructure, servicing space assets, supporting spacewalks, and safe berthing of visiting space vehicles. With exploration entering a new era of deeper space transportation and commercial crew and cargo services, MDA’s next generation robotic systems and advanced technologies are being developed to meet the future needs of human space infrastructure.

As global space agencies turn their attention to the next steps in planetary exploration, MDA has developed a broad portfolio of advanced planetary technology spanning robotics, vision, instruments, and complete rover vehicles to support future international missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

MDA’s solutions have helped advance the boundaries of robotic exploration, from vision systems for orbital rendezvous and proximity operations, to robotic arms and mechanisms aboard every one of NASA’s Mars rovers and landers, and planetary science instruments that include the Phoenix Meteorological Station, MSL’s APXS spectrometer currently en route to Mars, and the OLA mapping LIDAR for NASA’s OSIRIS-REX asteroid mission.

You can find out more about Canadarm2 and DEXTRE on the MDA website. As for the new $5 and $10 bills, they will be put into circulation in November 2013.

I last mentioned in Hadfield in connection with a National Film Board of Canada Space School in my Apr. 22, 2013 posting.

Canada’s National Film Board launches Space School for 11 – 15 year olds and TRIUMF celebrates award-winning photo

Exciting news from the National Film Board of Canada arrived in my mailbox this morning (Monday, Apr. 22, 2013),

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have teamed up to create NFB Space School, a free and fun interactive learning experience for families and classes alike that engages young Canadians in the wonders of space exploration by giving them their own front-row seat to CSA Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s historic mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Designed for youth between the ages of 11 and 15, NFB Space School helps kids discover more about space, science, technology and leadership, reigniting a wonder about our universe through cutting-edge interactive features.

The out-of-this-world new website will blast off with an online launch from Halifax’s Discovery Centre, featuring a 20-minute Q&A with Commander Hadfield, the first Canadian to command the ISS, via a live downlink from 12:10 p.m. to 12:30 p.m., Atlantic Time [8:10 – 8:30 am PDT]. Commander Hadfield will answer questions from Halifax-area school children and media while he orbits the Earth aboard the ISS. [This event has occurred.]

NFB Space School is launching with two modules, Mission and Leadership, featuring exclusive footage of Hadfield training for his historic mission, along with interactive videos and quizzes. The site will be updated with new modules on such subjects as astronomy, history and astrobiology.

Available in both English and French, NFB Space School is also ideal for classroom use, with additional educational resources available through the NFB’s subscription-based educational portal, CAMPUS, in September 2013.

NFB Space School is a unique partnership between the NFB, one of the world’s leading digital content hubs and Canadian pioneer in online streaming for educators, and the CSA, committed to leading the development and application of space knowledge for the benefit of Canadians and humanity. Paul McNeill is the creative lead and producer of NFB Space School. Graham MacDougall is the interactive strategist, with interactive design, development and programming by Halifax-based web developers theREDspace. Ravida Din is the executive producer for the NFB. NFB Space School was developed and produced by the NFB’s Atlantic Centre in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

To learn more about the Expedition 34/35 mission and the CSA’s activities, visit Chris Hadfield’s Astronaut Mission page. For up-to-the-minute updates, follow the Canadian Space Agency and Chris Hadfield on social media.

I was a little disappointed I didn’t receive the announcement a little sooner as I would have liked to view the livestream interview with Hadfield. It’s easy to forget just how big Canada is and that four hour time difference really has an impact when you’re on the ‘wrong’ end of the country.

It was a great idea to launch the school with a live event with Hadfield communicating from the space station. Unfortunately, there’s no follow through on the rest of the website.  For two suggestions/examples. (a) An ‘explorer’  doesn’t get to amass enough points answering the quizzes to perhaps get a special session with Hadfield or someone else on the space station. (b) There aren’t any projects where a student could create their own space film and submit it for a contest. In all, this interactive site is curiously unidirectional. Information is pumped out and the participant/student answers quizzes, very much like school.  In the end, the Space School seems to be designed more for teachers than explorers of all ages (but especially those from the ages of  11 to 15). Anyway, it’s early days yet for the school and hopefully there are already some changes being planned.

Now, here’s a bit of news from the pacific end of the country. TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for nuclear and particle physics, has been recognized with a second place standing in an international photography exhibition, the second Global Particle Physics Photowalk. From the TRIUMF Apr. 19, 2013 news release,

TRIUMF is pleased to announce and congratulate local contestant Andy White, a 3rd year Visual Arts student at UBC from North Vancouver, who was awarded 2nd place in the juried competition for his winning photo of TIGRESS.

Along with studying art and photography at school, Andy is also a competitive Javelin thrower on the varsity track & field team. His spirited nature served him well in this competition. “I come from quite an Arts-based background and really don’t have much involvement with science, yet I have always been fascinated by technology so I was eager to get involved. This would be my first time visiting TRIUMF and I had no idea what to expect,” explained Andy.

What he found during his visit to TRIUMF was TIGRESS, a nuclear physics spectrometer, in the ISAC-II building. This equipment allows researchers to study the structure of the nucleus and the forces that hold it together by analyzing rare nuclear reactions.

“What drew me to TIGRESS was its element of fine craftsmanship, colour and shape. I chose to photograph it symmetrically and end-on to reveal these features as they were best presented,” said Andy.

Greg Hackman, research scientist at TRIUMF, is responsible for the operation and maintenance of TIGRESS. “This is a gamma-ray detector designed for nuclear structure experiments and specifically to make optimal use of ISAC,” says Greg. “The function entirely drove the form.”

Andy muses, “It was great connecting the arts with science, and this photowalk offered me a unique challenge to present technology in a creative way. What is most fascinating is our human capability to create such instruments, and this is what I intended to bring forward in my images.”

To decipher the science behind TIGRESS, as displayed in Andy’s photo, Science Division Head Reiner Kruecken explains, “Instruments like TIGRESS allow us to peak into the femto-world of the atomic nucleus and deduce what is happening in this otherwise invisible world which is only the size of one millionth of a millionth of a millimeter. What you see in the photo from inside to outside are Germanium crystals and two layers of so-called BGO shield detectors. These shield detectors look toward the center of the array where we induce nuclear reactions and show us something about the structure and dynamics in atomic nuclei.”

Just as physicists are enticed by symmetries in nature as they unleash mysteries of the universe, photographers are drawn to symmetries in their subjects as they create alluring images to captivate their audience.

Here’s White’s award-winning photograph,

Credit: Andy White

Credit: Andy White

Interactions.org, one of the event organizers, has provided more detail about this international event in an Apr. 18, 2013 news release,

In September 2012, hundreds of amateur and professional photographers had the rare opportunity to explore and photograph accelerators and detectors at particle physics laboratories around the world.

In the InterActions Physics Photowalk, ten of the world’s leading particle physics laboratories offered special behind-the-scenes access to their scientific facilities:

Brookhaven National Laboratory
 (New York, USA)
Catania National Laboratory
 (Catania, Italy)
Chilbolton Observatory
 (Hampshire, UK)
Daresbury Laboratory
 (Cheshire, UK)
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 (Illinois, USA)
Frascati National Laboratory
 (Frascati, Italy)
Gran Sasso National Laboratory
 (Gran Sasso, Italy)
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
 (Oxfordshire, UK)
TRIUMF
 (Vancouver, Canada)
United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre
 (Edinburgh, UK)

Participating photographers submitted thousands of photos for local competitions. Each laboratory selected local winners, and advanced these top photographs to two global competitions. [emphasis mine]

More than 1,250 photography enthusiasts voted online to name the global people’s choice winners. [emphasis mine] Nino Bruno’s photograph of a tunnel connecting the underground halls of INFN’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory garnered the most votes, followed closely by Enrique Diaz’s side view of the STAR detector at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Steve Zimic’s photograph of the tunnel that houses Brookhaven’s RHIC accelerator.

A panel of international judges also selected three winners. [emphasis mine] The judges—photographers Stanley Greenberg from the United States, Roy Robertson from the United Kingdom, Andrew Haw from Canada and Luca Casonato from Italy—awarded the top prize to Joseph Paul Boccio’s detailed photograph of the KLOE detector at INFN’s Frascati National Laboratory, second prize to Andy White’s photo capturing the color and symmetry of the TIGRESS detector at the Canadian laboratory TRIUMF, and third prize to Helen Trist’s photograph of data storage at the UK’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. [emphasis mine]

There are prizes for the winners,

The winning photographs will be featured in upcoming issues of the particle physics publications the CERN Courier and symmetry and the Italian popular science magazine Le Scienze. The participating laboratories will also feature the global winners and their local Photowalk selections in temporary exhibits.

I wonder if White and other local contestants will be have their photos displayed not just in Vancouver (Canada) where TRIUMF is located but perhaps also at some of the member institutions across the country.

NanoRacks and Science Exchange

I had written about Science Exchange (a marketplace for scientists and research facilities) in my Sept. 2, 2011 piece posted about one month after the service was publicly launched. I generally wouldn’t write about them again for a while but a Dec. 14, 2011 article by David Zax for Fast Company (Need A Lab In Outer Space? Try ScienceExchange, The Airbnb Of Weird Science) caught my eye,

Let’s say you’re a scientist, and you’re running an experiment, but there’s just one pesky thing getting in your way: gravity. A few years ago, you’d pretty much have been out of luck. But now, with a startup called ScienceExchange, a marketplace for research assistance, you can send your samples up to the International Space Station in about nine months. ScienceExchange, which opened to the public in August, was originally intended to help forge much more sublunary connections within the research community. But in the few months it’s been operational, says cofounder Dan Knox, ScienceExchange has also become a marketplace for extreme and weird science, too.

“It’s been one of the most fun aspects, hearing about these amazing resources,” Knox tells Fast Company, “and realizing that at the moment there isn’t a good way for them to gain exposure outside of creating their own web presence…I love the fact that NanoRacks listed their facility.”

NanoRacks is where you turn if you want to remove gravity from your experiment. NanoRacks works together with astronauts at the International Space Station, where it maintains laboratory equipment. In 2005, Congress designated a portion of the ISS a national laboratory and directed NASA to “increase the utilization of the ISS by other Federal entities and the private sector.” NanoRacks, which has been open for business a little over a year, is a part of that.

Given my particular interest in all things nano, I felt compelled to investigate. I still don’t understand why this business calls itself NanoRacks (what makes it nano?) but I was able to find out a little more about the services that are offered (excerpted from the About us page,

NanoRacks provides the ultimate ‘Plug and Play’ microgravity research facilities allowing small standardized payloads to be plugged into any of our platforms, providing interface with the International Space Station power and data capabilities.

Our philosophy is to bring together three concepts as our driving force: low-cost, standardization of hardware, and understanding the customer. We like to believe that in space, small is the new big. …

Our company brings together entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers who have real-life experience and share a passion for space including humanity’s utilization of low-earth orbit.

I believe this organization is in Kentucky as they are affiliated with a number of agencies based in that US state. From their Vision page,

Our philosophy is to bring together three concepts as our driving force: low-cost, standardization of hardware, and understanding the customer. Our corporate structure includes a Houston team steeped in the experience of working payload development for every launch vehicle and space stations from Mir to ISS. We are seamlessly interfaced with our non-profit partner Kentucky Space –which includes University of Kentucky and Morehead University, which handle payload operations as well as having their own interest in space-based educational programs.

Here’s a video that demonstrates some of what NanoRacks is about,

Getting back to Zax’s article, there is some discussion of other projects such as imaging an entire mouse’s brain at the ‘sub-micron’ scale or needing to simulate a Category 5 hurricane. As for the reference to Airbnb, that is a business that also connects people (from the Wikipedia essay),

Airbnb is an online service that matches people seeking vacation rentals and other short-term accommodations with those with rooms to rent, generally private parties that are not professional hoteliers. The site was founded in August 2008 by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. In July 2011, the company had over 100,000 listings in 16,000 cities and 186 countries. Listings include private rooms, entire apartments, castles, boats, manors, tree houses, tipis, igloos, private islands and other properties.

I gather Airbnb suffered some sort of a scandal earlier this year when someone who used the service didn’t behave well in the other person’s home. Zax asks Knox about the potential for similar problems on Science Exchange,

Yes, it’s something I worry about,” says Knox. ScienceExchange is tightly controlled, though, where Airbnb is open: “We check who a provider is, verify who they are, and that they have the ability to provide.” These concerns are independent to ScienceExchange, he adds, and exist any time a researcher entrusts another facility with her samples.

So if you’re in the market for a research facility or you’re in a research facility that wants to sell its services, you have the option of forging out on your own or going through Science Exchange.

Space contest for teenagers

I caught this Oct. 10, 2011 news item (Google and Hawking seek space mad teenagers) on the BBC News website,

YouTube has enlisted the help of Prof Stephen Hawking in the hunt for budding young scientists.

The site – which is owned by Google – is launching a competition for teenagers to create an experiment that could be carried out in space.

Two winning ideas will be tested by the crew of the International Space Station.

Ravi Mandalla’s Oct. 11, 2011 article for ITProPortal provides more detail,

The competition, titled YouTube Space Lab, will allow students aged between 14 to 18 years to submit a 2 minute proposal on YouTube. The entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges comprising of astronauts, NASA scientists and Stephen Hawking. The winners will see their experiment streamed live from space as the astronauts perform it on the space station.

The BBC News item offers  a more complete list of the judging panel,

Alongside Prof Hawking, the judging panel consists of former Astronauts Leland Melvin, Frank De Winne, Akihiko Hoshide and noted “space tourist” Guy Laliberté. [emphasis mine]

Guy Laliberté, space tourist, is also the Chief Executive Officer for the Cirque du Soleil (founded in Québec, Canada). Professor Hawking also has a Canadian connection, he holds the position of Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute (news release announcing Hawking’s appointment), located in Ontario, Canada.

Getting back to the contest, here’s how Google describes the contest (from the YouTube Space Lab contest webpage,

Your experiment, 250 miles above Earth, for the world to see.
What will you do?

We’re asking you to come up with a science experiment for space and upload a video explaining it to YouTube. If your idea wins, it will be performed on the International Space Station and live streamed on YouTube to the world. And we’ll throw in some out-of-this-world prizes, too.

Can plants survive beyond the Earth? Could proteins in space reveal the mysteries of life? Science in micro gravity can help unlock the answers. The countdown’s begun.

Good luck!

ETA Oct. 13, 2011: There’s an Oct. 11, 2011 article about this contest, which includes more information and a video, by Nidhi Subbaraman for Fast Company,

The lucky teenagers who win will have their experiments flown into space, carried on board an ISS-bound rocket, and could find themselves catapulted into YouTube stardom. Their winning entries will earn a joyride to the International Space Station, where astronauts will perform their experiment while being live-streamed on YouTube. It doesn’t end there. They’ll get to pick between one of two grand prizes: a trip to Japan in summer 2012 to see their experiment take off, or, when they turn 18, a chance to participate in the astronaut training program at Russia’s Star City. The four other regional finalists will be given a Zero-G ride, courtesy of Space Adventures, and laptops from Lenovo.