S3 Project and Human Body Modeling and Scanning

We now have the capability to scan in the human body and build a suit around it, if we decide to. Body scanning technology is changing all the time and becoming more sophisticated. The next spacesuit designers will be bio-engineers, and will involve a human-centered design approach. This is the heart of my project. We start with the human body and work out to accommodate it, as opposed to designing something generic that the astronauts must make some sacrifices to accommodate the generic design. (Currently, NASA has body scanned all astronauts and astronaut candidates. This information is a part of what is known as the CAESAR Database. CAESAR stands for Civilian American and European Surface Anthropometry Resource.) NASA/JSC will be developing its own database for scanned astronauts, which will be apart of the NASA/JSC Anthropometric Initiative.

This works around the 3D interactive virtual human that I am working to develop. My hopes are to scan in an astronaut's body, giving us a 3-D representation enabling us to see how he or she moves, by computer modeling. Technology is at a point where we can scan in an existing spacesuit, or a prototype (test model), and see how the astronaut will fit in that suit, including the astronaut's range of motion. The special software that would be used will show us where the suit is too tight or too loose, or when an astronaut will feel muscle fatigue after so many movements or repetitive movements. We plan to scan several suits - our current EMU, and four existing prototypes costing about $500,000 each. This allows us to do virtual and rapid prototyping, and is what we call the S3 Project, or the Somatic Sciences Simulation. Somatic means the body's neuromuscular skeletal system. This project is 3D and interactive and can simulate all types of gravity - 1/3g, 1/6g, 0g and 1g. S3 will simulate body mechanics (static and dynamic), and the forces/loads exerted by body movement, and the relationship between joint and muscle action (kinematics).

Part of my job includes finding funding for this project each year. This is a never-ending job. I have secured funding for this fiscal year, and each year we make more advances in the S3 Project. This is the project I work with Dr. Rice on, and you can read more about it in my previous journals. In 1997, Dr. Rice funded the "Proof of Concept" and began working on the back, shoulder and skeleton. In 1998, we did the upper extremities - fingers, hand, wrist and arm attached to shoulder. In 1999, we did the lower extremities - toes, foot, ankles, legs and hips. This year we are working on the thorax - chest, abdomen and pelvis. Next year, we will finish with the head and neck, providing funding is received. This is all for somatic, or the basic neuromuscular skeletal, systems.

Once we have this part completed, we want to start on the visceral systems, or the internal components of the body like the heart, lungs, and other organs. Our primary objective is to model the entire body, internally and externally, so we can monitor the entire body when astronauts go to Mars, in real time. The first couple of years were spent doing research, and now we must begin proving applied research. Applied research involves showing how our project will support an existing problem and how this technology will support new spacesuit designs. In October of this year, we should be finished with the development, and by December the training module should be desktop-ready.

I am slated (this is my challenge) to deliver an on-site desktop-capability to do virtual and rapid prototyping. The computer programming and advanced mathematical computations supporting this project is being done at the University of Houston Virtual Environment Research Institute. It is high-end computational computer science done by graduate and Ph.D. students. The end result will be condensed down to a software training module to run on desktop computers. Virtual and rapid prototyping is being done in many industries now - companies building ships, airliners, roller coasters, cars, etc. You can design, develop, and test before spending a bunch of money and time, allowing for system engineering/integration, end-to-end testing, and validation and/or rewriting of systems and functional requirements which saves time and money. Build a little, test a little, build a little more, and test a little more and doing it all in "parallel" in the computer is what virtual and rapid prototyping is all about.

You can read more about this technology and this project in an article written by Audrey Doyle, in December 1999 Computer Graphics World. The Discovery Channel is doing a special on this, too, which is scheduled to air in the fall. I'll let you know when.