|
   |
 |
|
PART 1: Final WebChat session
REGISTER FOR THE GREAT PLANT DEBATE, PART 2 [Editor's note: this regular feature will report on the latest activities on board the Mir space station. The original source is NASA's Shuttle-Mir pages at http://shuttle-mir.nasa.gov/shuttle-mir/mir22/status] WHAT'S UP IN SPACE NASA 3/Mir 22 Status Report-13 Mission Control Korolev December 13, 1996 In a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk on Monday, Mir 22 Cosmonauts Valery Korun and Alexander Kaleri installed a new docking antenna and completed the connection of the Cooperative Solar Array (CSA) to the Core Module of the Mir Space Station. While his Russian crewmates were on their spacewalk, U.S. Astronaut Col. John Blaha remained inside to monitor Mir systems and videotape the Cosmonauts through the Mir Core Module window. The first task for the crew was installation of the KURS (Course) system Antenna to the Docking Module. The KURS system is used for long-range rendezvous operations with Progress and Soyuz spacecraft as they approach the station for docking. Following a successful installation of the antenna and its module-mounted bracket, the Cosmonauts completed the cable connection of the CSA to the Core Module, which significantly boosted the power available to the station. During the spacewalk, the Cosmonauts found that the Mir's ham radio antenna system, which had become inoperable following last week's spacewalk, had a loose connection which they fixed before returning inside. Shortly afterward, Blaha used the short-wave radio to receive ham radio conversations over Brazil, and he initiated conversations over Madrid. On Thursday Blaha was interviewed by reporters about the progress of his mission on the Mir. He was asked about the wheat crop experiment which he harvested from the greenhouse experiment on December 6 and described the scientific process which led to learning how to successfully grow a crop from seed to seed for the first time. Blaha pointed out that such space-based experiments could help scientists make improvements to agriculture on Earth. He explained that in space the near absence of gravity means there is one less thing affecting the way plants grow, thus allowing for a more controlled experiment. Scientists can study other factors such as light, temperature and nutrients in order to learn how each of those elements influence plants without the presence of gravity. Blaha, who is completing three months in space, also discussed his thoughts with the holidays approaching and how he feels about his mission to date. He said that the high point in the mission was the arrival of the Progress resupply ship which brought a number of items needed on board Mir as well as personal items for the crew. Items aboard Progress vehicle included clean clothes, books, movies, tapes of football games and Christmas gifts from his family which he will wait until Christmas to open. The crew also had a full schedule of science experiments this week. Blaha harvested the first wheat crop growth in the greenhouse experiment, and using seeds from this harvest, started a second planting for the upcoming flight of Astronaut Jerry Linenger on Mir. At first, temperature readings higher than 25 degrees Celsius were reported in the Krystall Module which is higher than they should be for proper seed germination. Russian flight controllers sent commands to drop the temperature in the end of the Krystall module where the greenhouse experiment is located and temperatures returned to the proper levels. Daily direct media feeding to the cartilage cells in the Biotechnology Systems (BTS) cartilage growth experiment are continuing. Blaha performed a media sample processing on Saturday with the Portable Clinical Blood Analyzer, and daily visual inspections of the growth of bovine cartilage cells (CART) in the BTS. The Human Life Science Humoral Immunity experiment began Wednesday with an injection of antigen, followed by medical conferences, photography of the injection site, and six days of blood and saliva sampling over a four week period. Other activities during the week included monitoring of the Materials in Devices as Superconductors (MIDAS) experiment; air sampling of the Mir core module was performed Tuesday with the Solid Sorbent Air Sampler (SSAS) and a Grab Sample container (GSC). All of the Mir systems are functioning normally as the space complex orbits at an attitude of 235 statute miles. NASA HARVEST OF MIR SPACE WHEAT
U.S. astronaut John Blaha recently harvested the first crop of healthy plants grown through a complete life cycle in the microgravity of space aboard the Russian space station Mir, according to NASA scientists. Called "Project Greenhouse," the 32 plants, a super-dwarf wheat variety involved in this experiment, are part of a joint cooperative initiative with NASA; Utah State University, Logan, UT; the Institute of Biomedical Problems Research Center in Moscow; and the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. Unlike previous short-term experiments, these plants were allowed to develop at a normal growth rate and appear to have matured fully to produce the desired seed-containing heads, project scientists report. "Harvest of this wheat on Mir represents the first time that an important agricultural crop and primary candidate for a future plant-based life support system has successfully completed an entire life cycle in the space environment," said Dr. David Bubenheim, project co-investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA. "The development of plant-based, regenerative life support systems is critical to sustaining a crew during long- duration missions such as Mars exploration," he continued. "Successful growth of the wheat crop through all developmental phases, culminating in the harvest of seeds, demonstrates that the environment of space poses no obstacles to the biological components of a regenerative life support system. This information is critical for the future application of these systems to recycle wastes and provide a crew with water, air and food. This, in turn, makes the crew self-sufficient, thereby enabling the practical and economical exploration of space," Bubenheim concluded. "Completion of a plant life cycle in microgravity would prove that there are no 'show stoppers' -- no stages in the life cycle that absolutely require gravity for completion," said Dr. Frank Salisbury, Principal Investigator, Utah State University. "Based on first-hand reports and videos of the plants growing aboard Mir, it appears that our super-dwarf wheat plants have achieved that critical goal," he concluded. The plants were grown in "Greenhouse" Svet, a small growth chamber originally built in Bulgaria during the late 1980s according to a joint Russian/Bulgarian design. The hardware was sent to Mir in 1990. Svet has a compact growing area of about one square foot and can accommodate plants up to 16 inches tall. Fluorescent lamps provide light at about one fifth the intensity of sunlight, which is adequate for plant growth. The wheat was grown in a substrate material similar to kitty litter but loaded with plant nutrients. Water was injected directly into this material and transferred to the wheat seeds by a system of wicks. Day length and water injection into the plant growth medium were both controlled automatically to set points adjusted throughout the experiment by project scientists. A key objective of Project Greenhouse is to determine the relative effects of the microgravity environment of space on plant growth versus other environmental factors. These include light, temperature, carbon dioxide and oxygen concentrations, water vapor, water availability, substrate moisture levels and cabin pressure. To that end, instrumentation built at Utah State University was sent to Mir and added to Svet to monitor the key environmental parameters of interest. Bulgarian collaborators added new lights and a new controller. Additional information on the effect of environmental factors will be provided by a second experiment currently underway on Mir. Immediately following the first harvest, a second set of wheat seeds was planted. These plants will be frozen when about forty days old and returned to Earth for biochemical analysis. This will provide the first opportunity to analyze the biochemistry of growing green plants as they were in space, before their fast-paced biochemical processes have a chance to re-acclimate to Earth's gravity, according to project scientists. [Editor's note: Paul Savage is the payload manager for the Fundamental Biology Research Project for the NASA/Mir Science Program. In this role, he manages about 20 people. He is the person ultimately responsible for delivering the payload hardware, and works with management at NASA Headquarters and at the Johnson Space Center on this. Also he works with Russian counterparts.] PREPARING FLIGHT EQUIPMENT Paul Savage - http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/smore/team/psavage.html October 31, 1996 Right now, we're dealing with a lot of stress with getting flight equipment out that's eventually going to take up a beetle experiment. It's really exciting to be sending up a native Russian Black Body beetle. It will launch on the shuttle next May. We've developed a system for housing the beetle and monitoring its activity. The experiment involves looking at circadian rhythms, which is the body clock. We have to have the hardware ready and delivered to Houston to sit with the Russians. We'll again start up the process of showing to bring it over to Mir. So that process started up again in November. Basically, about seven to eight months before each shuttle flight we take the hardware to Houston, show the Russians and work through any issues they might have with its design or operation. So most of my job has been trying to make sure that we will be delivering on time, that we're in synch with management's, NASA's and Houston's schedules, that we have all the paperwork ready for the Russians. The challenge of this program is in juggling so many different aspects that, typically on any Shuttle program, happens linearly. On the Mir program, you can be dealing with, all at one time as we are right now, post-flight analysis of quail eggs that came back on STS-79, support of the wheat experiment that's going on right now, responding to any questions or problems that the crew has, getting hardware ready for launch in January on Shuttle, which is the hardware we just finished doing for the Russians in Moscow, and building hardware at Ames now to ship to Houston for launch next May. All of these things are going on simultaneously. Whereas, typically, on a Shuttle or Space Lab mission, it's stepwise -- you build the hardware, you deliver it, you do the mission, you get the data, you do the analysis, and you write reports. All of these things are going on at one time right now, and that's been a real challenge to try and manage all of that. It's stressful, it's exciting at times, and everybody is working with smaller and smaller numbers of people available. >From September 13-21 I made a business trip to Moscow. The reason we went on this particular trip was to finish negotiations with the Russians to allow our flight equipment taken to the Mir Space Station. In other words, the Russians have to look at and actually watch us turn on the equipment. We have to prove to them that the equipment works and give them data showing that the equipment is safe and doesn't contain any hazardous chemicals. If it does we have to show that we've adequately contained them. So that's usually a two-step process. The first step started in the summer in Houston, during the month of July, and the second step was completed in Moscow during this recent trip. The meetings occurred in a building that's actually part of a university for civil engineers. The Russian organizations we worked with had rented it out. Unfortunately, we were there during a cold front. The Russians usually don't turn on any heating until the same time every year, usually in November or December. Then, the heat is left on, regardless of the temperature, until it is turned off sometime in March. Since we were there so early in the season, the Russians had not turned on any heat, and the rooms were very cold. We tended to huddle together in the little offices that were available to us. But overall, it was a very successful week. The negotiating process seems to involve days of no progress and butting heads. Then, when the final day of the meetings comes, and you're ready to sit down and start writing formal protocol outlining all your grievances, that's when all of the final compromises are reached. It's frustrating because you go day-to-day, not really knowing if you're making any progress and then you reach the end of the week and "Boom!" they're ready to talk and compromise, and you're ready to get to where you want to be. The Russian people tend to be business-oriented. They see an end result they want to get to, but they're not willing to make incremental agreements or come to any incremental decisions. We kind of go around in one big circle before we actually get to a completion. It seems like you have to get the Russians off-line and talk about what the problem really is. In a meeting, they will tend to take official positions on things, and try to save face by not compromising. So, most of it is developing a relationship prior to the meeting, and continuing during the meeting and saying, "I know you're really worried about this happening. We agree that we're going to do more testing in a certain area. This helps satisfy your concerns. So will you agree that we won't have to do some other things that will create problems for us?" So that seemed to be the key, as well as showing some firmness and willingness to stand up and tell them "no." That's one area that I'm finding that I actually should be improving. I'm not very good at being very firm on certain things, such as saying "no" to the Russians. The person I was traveling with was very good at that, so we made a good team. So a lot of times, success seems to be making sure that you understand yourself, your skills, and be willing to admit where your deficiencies are, and making sure that you've got somebody there who can complement and supplement you. Socially, I really enjoyed the trip. Moscow is a fantastic city. Upon arriving, my first impression was that the setting was a very large and industrial one. There were large gray buildings, and I didn't see any single family houses -- only really big apartment buildings. But the beauty is in being able to walk and investigate and find some of the very old monuments or religious icons or structures, and other things commemorating their hundreds of years of history. We happened to be there just after the celebration of City Day in Moscow was ending, in which the Russians celebrate the anniversary of their city. They're really gearing up for 1997, when they will celebrate the 850 year establishment of the city of Moscow. Each year, they celebrate with big fireworks and parades. That's really a neat experience. I had a really neat opportunity to go to the Bolshoi Ballet and saw Romeo and Juliet. It was the first ballet I had ever been to. It was really exciting. We got the tickets through the hotel. The face value of the tickets was the equivalent of fifteen dollars, yet they sold them to us for sixty five dollars. We were told that if we were Russian citizens, they would have sold them to us for the face price. But as soon as they know that they're selling to foreigners of any kind, they are going to charge the marked-up value. Even at sixty five bucks, we ended up with seats in the sixth row on the floor, almost sitting in the orchestra pit. To go to a ballet or any fine arts performance in San Francisco and have those seats would probably be double the price. So, it was great. Overall, the trip was successful. Another nice thing was that the lead of the Russian delegation hosted a lunch for us in the little cafeteria within the building. They took great pride in cooking up vegetables that they had grown in their dachas, or summer houses. Even though we were still in the middle of butting heads during the week and everybody was stern-faced, when we all sat down at the table, the Russians were really friendly and took care to make sure that we had everything we needed for lunch, and took great pride in having cooked it themselves. We had boiled potatoes and some other vegetables. They're very much into cultivating food in their own dachas. Deep-down, the Russians are really very caring people, and really take care of their visitors. Note: As this project has officially ended, these and other inactive mailing lists have been shut down.
If this is your first message from the updates-sm list, welcome! To catch up on back issues, please visit the following Internet URL: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/smore/updates |
||
|
|
|
