Meetings of the Minds

I have been quite busy since the last time I did a journal. In November of 1999, the EVA Technology Forum was held at Clemson University, in South Carolina. I have organized the last three forums, and this last one was the best by far. I worked on this one with Dr. Larry Dooley, who is the Head of the Department of Bioengineering, at Clemson University. These forums are held so many different members of the EVA community can come together for a "meeting of the minds."

The EVA community is made up of engineers, scientists, students, education folks from universities working on new technologies, NASA and its contractors - people involved in research and/or development of space hardware for suits, materials and life support systems. Each year someone different in the EVA community hosts the forum. This year, Clemson University was the host, which was great because they also have a renowned world-class service apparel facility, serving the military. They also had a brand new facility built to hold these types of events. November's forum was a world-class event, including media coverage. It really set the standard for all other EVA Forums to follow. A compact disc was produced from this event. This year's forum will be held at the University of Minnesota, next fall. These are what we consider external forums.

In June 2000, here at Johnson Space Center, we will be holding an internal forum to define architectures, requirements, and operations concepts for exploration and other things. This will be our first internal forum in years. This will help us when we have external forums so we can let the EVA community know what NASA needs and is looking for. Organizing the internal forum will be much easier than the external forums. Things we want to learn more about based on the Clemson University forum are tri-axial weaving and soft spacesuit bearings. Bearings are the rings around the suit - around the shoulders and waist, etc. On the suits used right now, the bearings are hard, and the suits weigh about 275 pounds, but when we go to Mars, we will need something more light weight - like between 60 and 90 pounds.