PART 1: Live chats with NASA folks; a NetDay96 celebration
PART 2: The Great Plant Debate reminder
PART 3: Connecting with other teachers
PART 4: What's up in space?
PART 5: These things happen all the time

In many places, this coming Saturday (October 12) is a time for
volunteers to materialize at schools around the United States and
install network cabling. This wonderful ritual is called NetDay. In
support of the activity, NASA is organizing a full day of content to
go with all of the connectivity. The idea is to help the NetDay folks
get a glimpse of how schools bust down walls to connect with
exciting resources.

Called "NetDay & Beyond," it features three separate tracks:
1) chats with network experts to help resolve connectivity issues
2) a stream of K-12 Internet videos, including a Passport To Knowledge 
summary tape
3) chats with experts, discussing cool, space and environmental topics

From 1-2 PM (Pacific), the focus will be on S/MORE, the Shuttle/Mir
Online Research Experience. We'll have a few bright-eyed NASA folks
sharing their insights about the life sciences work happening on Mir,
including:
- Deborah Harm, who studies human adaptations to spaceflight
- Scott Smith, working on astronaut nutrition issues
- Kathryn Hamilton, student intern doing administrative support

A few lively S/MORE teachers would sure help show the nation and world
why networks are so vital for schools. Please consider joining us.

To learn more, visit the "NetDay & Beyond" pages at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/netday96
or go straight to the chat rooms at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/netday96/rooms/class.html



THE GREAT PLANT DEBATE


In the last SMORE #3 message, we provided details about The Great Plant
Debate, a collaborative activity in which classrooms around the world
design plant-growing hardware for space, debate the strengths and
weaknesses of various approaches, and then compare with NASA designs.
(See http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/smore/events/datashare.html)
By now, participating classrooms should be deep into the phase in which
they design their own plant-growing space hardware, in preparation for
providing these plans to NASA for sharing online.  The original timeline
called for an October 14 due date, and that date is coming up very
rapidly.

We are considering an extension if it would help more classrooms get
involved, but we need your feedback.  If you are doing the activity or
would like to, please send a brief note to marc@quest.arc.nasa.gov.
Include a statement about the October 14 deadline.  Are you on track to
meet it? Or would an extension (to November 4) help you get involved?

Thanks.  We do think The Great Plant Debate will be a good educational
experience, so please do consider getting involved.




CONNECTING WITH OTHER TEACHERS


A big part of S/MORE is the connections that form between
people. Not only connections between students and NASA experts, but
bonds between teachers and with S/MORE staff. If you are not a part
of these conversations, you may be missing something of great value.

Not only can other teachers help you figure out things, they can be a
sounding board for your brainstorms. As well, the S/MORE team is easily
influenced. Your ideas may sway the entire direction of the project
(as past history demonstrates).

Every week, two hourly chats are regularly scheduled.  Each Thursday
at either noon or 3:00 PM Pacific (schedule alternates), folks gather in
the chat room for an hour. Also, each Wednesday at 11:00 AM Pacific, a
special homeschool forum is hosted by master homeschooler Gayle
Remisch, from London, Ontario, Canada. For more info, see the WebChat
section of http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/smore/events/interact.html
On October 17, the Thursday chat (scheduled for 3:00 PM Pacific) will be
extra special. NASA's life sciences outreach group will be sponsoring a
booth at the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) conference
in North Carolina.  They'll be online in the chat room, sharing
information about what their learning at NABT. Please join us!




[Editor's note: This regular feature will report on the latest
activities

onboard the Mir space station.  The original source is NASA's

Shuttle-Mir pages ]


WHAT'S UP IN SPACE


Mission Control Center -- Korolev
October 4, 1996


Having settled into his new home on the Russian Space Station Mir,
NASA astronaut John Blaha has spent his first full week aboard Mir
beginning a variety of science experiments that he will conduct over the
next four months (more about that below).


Blaha told interviewers this week that he hasn't had a chance to get
homesick since the Space Shuttle Atlantis left the Mir last week.


Blaha said the best advice given to him by his predecessor, astronaut
Shannon Lucid, was where to find different items around the station. He
said Mir 22 Commander Valery Korzun and Flight Engineer Alexander
Kaleri have been helping him adjust to life on the complex and have
assisted him in learning about the equipment on Mir as well.


Also this week, Blaha began his work with the Binary Colloidal Alloy
Test experiment. BCAT, housed in the glovebox of Mir's Priroda
module, offers researchers an opportunity to study the long-term
behavior of crystal alloys made from two separate materials that
normally don't mix with each other. (Oil and water are an everyday
example of colloids.) The crystals that Blaha has processed this week and
will process again next week are designed for rapid growth. Another set
of crystals will be allowed to grow for about 90 days.


Blaha also continued his work with the Biotechnology System. The BTS
uses a rotating vessel to suspend cells in a low gravity, stationary
environment, allowing them to grow and develop. The Mir 22
experiment will use cartilage cells from a cow's knee to investigate
long-term on-orbit cell growth in the microgravity environment of
space.


Throughout his flight, Blaha will use the cameras onboard Mir to
document changes on the Earth's surface as part of another battery of
experiments. This week, Earth observation targets included the Panama
Canal zone, the central Namibian Coast, the South Falkland Island ocean
currents and South Africa.


On Monday, Blaha will checkout a device that will be used to help
evaluate the skeletal muscle performance of all three Mir crew members
throughout their mission. The Metabolic Gas Analyzer System measures
the breath of the cosmonauts to determine the amount of stress the body
undergoes during exercise. Blaha is scheduled to remain aboard Mir
until January. Korzun and Kaleri will continue their mission until
February.


* * * * * * * * * * * *


Life Science activities over the past week (for more information about
these activities, see the background section of the S/MORE web:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/smore/background)
Space Biology
Greenhouse operations are proceeding and the plants continue to grow.
Soil-moisture probe and flowmeter data were called down last week. Video
was
downlinked and copied for both the Russian and US investigators. Fixation
#4 was completed nominally on Sept. 26.


Human Life Sciences

The in-flight portion of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
investigation
was concluded with the NASA 3 crewmember completing his final daily
questionnaire on Sept. 29.

Personal and Area Formaldehyde Monitoring occurred as scheduled on
Sept. 27.

The Mir 22/NASA 3 crew were scheduled to complete questionnaires for the
Crewmember and Crew-Ground Interactions investigation. This will
continue once per week throughout the mission (on Wednesdays). It has been
reported that the Russian and American ground crews and American ground 
also completed their questionnaires.

The Solid Sorbent Air Sampler (SSAS), part of the Volatile Organics
investigation, was activated Sept. 30 and deactivated Oct. 1, as planned.



[Editor's note:Andy Lott is a payload engineer for the Shuttle/Mir
Mission and he works in the project management office.
Project management requires interfacing with all internal groups (i.e.,
engineering, science, etc.), as well as external mission management
groups. That means that Andy Kitt is one of the people who makes sure
everything comes together to meet the requirements of mission
management, to get hardware accepted and approved for flight, to
meet the requirements of the Russians, and to maintain schedules
and manifests pertaining to shipping and flight dates.  See 
Andy's biography]

THESE THINGS 
HAPPEN ALL THE TIME

Andy Lott

July 30, 1996

In one instance, the hardware for one of the experiments had already
been built, but the labels for the equipment had not come in.
Because we must make quick decisions in the group, we decided to
ship the hardware to a hotel and have the labels held back until we
arrived at the hotel. When we arrived at the hotel, we put the labels
on ourselves, and took the equipment in ourselves. We still made
the delivery on time.


Sometimes during shuttle missions, astronauts cannot find items and
they may only have a small amount of time to find them. We can't
talk directly to the astronauts. Sometimes they go into a blackout
during orbit and they can't communicate with ground control. We
cannot talk to the astronauts when they are sleeping. There is also a
hierarchy of people that can speak directly with the astronauts and
our group is low on the hierarchy. Therefore, if the astronauts call
down asking about equipment, we must be knowledgeable about the
hardware and how to get it.


Sometimes we have to just let our experiment go if something
doesn't work. We must not only understand our own priorities for
the mission but also those for the shuttle.


If a principal investigator (scientist) wants to change an experiment,
that request may mean that we must go from one group to another and
try to understand how the changes will affect the mission.


There are also other questions that must be addressed. On an internal
level we have to determine if a project can be built, whether or not
crew training is already completed, and if a model of the equipment
can be built. On an external level we have to determine if there is
enough room on the shuttle for the experiment, if the experiment can
be returned on the shuttle, if the crew has enough time to do the
experiment, and if the equipment for the experiment can qualify for
flight.

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