My tour of the Neurolab mockup

Hi! My name is Lori Keith, and I am one of the Space Team Online reporters. I work out at Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas. About a month ago, I got the opportunity to take a brief tour of the Neurolab mockup. The mockup is a life-size semi-working model of the Neurolab that is a part of the payload for STS-90, which launched April 17.

Neurolab is so exciting because they will actually do science experiments in space concerning microgravity (zero gravity) and its effects on our neural senses, ours and those of rats. I was also able to get a few pictures before another group came in.

The first thing I noticed was this wild-looking rotating chair used to test the vestibular system and the causes of motion sickness. The chair is called an off-axis rotator , but its proper name is Visual and Vestibular Integration System (VVIS), and was developed by the European Space Agency. The vestibular system is the combination of the balance organs in the ear and all the connections they make with the eyes, brain and muscles. The test subject is strapped into the chair and it spins attempting to make the person feel motion sickness. During the test eye-movement and pressure, ear pressure and fluid, and heart rate are measured.

On the left, not too far into the lab, are some small refrigerators that hold metabolic samples, which are stored in plastic bags and taped together. The doors to the refrigerator are held closed with special pins. Sometimes when there's room, ice cream is carried up for the astronauts -- single-serve novelties like Dove bars and ice cream sandwiches.

There were about 12 - 15 rodent cages, where the rats will be kept on the mission. These cages are a lot like regular cages, only instead of bars they were made of solid pieces of metal you can't see inside of. These, too, have special pins to keep them latched closed. Directly across from the cages is the glovebox. The scientists put their hands inside the white sock-looking things. This allows their hands to go inside the glovebox. This is where many things are performed, like dissections, that need a separate closed environment for containment. Containment is where certain things are kept from floating around in the Spacelab.

One of the last things I saw was a yellow power interface box. This box is like a power strip in that all Spacelab power comes in to the box and then the box reroutes the power to the individual payloads and drawers in the rack or SIR.

SIR, standard interface racks, are used to house the drawers that are used to repackage certain things to make them flight-ready. For more information on SIR, see Liz Bauer's Bio, (http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/bauer.html) which explains this in more detail. Liz is a hardware engineer, and this is one of her projects.

This quick impromptu tour was so much fun. Unfortunately for me, another group was scheduled to tour and shoot some film of the mockup, so when they arrived my tour was over. What an exciting morning this was!