UPDATE # 1 - October 15, l997

PART 1: Welcome to the project
PART 2: Gearing up for Neurolab
PART 3: Subscribing & Unsubscribing: How to do it!

Welcome to NeurOn, your online look at a special Space Life Sciences mission: Neurolab!

Over the next few months you will receive a unique perspective on NASA's
Neurolab mission: a 16-day flight of the Shuttle Columbia in which studies
will be done on the reaction of the brain and nervous system in
microgravity. We are recruiting people who are working on this project to
share their stories with you.

Through this mailing list, you'll receive a series of Field Journals which
will describe in detail the day-to-day lives of the scientists and
engineers on the front line at NASA to help you and your students
understand the diversity of skills and people directly involved in the
success of this mission.

We plan to publish these email updates about twice a month to bring you
"the latest" information on the Neurolab Mission, STS-90, as it gathers
steam toward the anticipated launch date: April 2, l998.

Throughout the NeurOn project, our team will be interested in receiving
your ideas and feedback. Send any comments to Duncan Atchison
(datchison@mail.arc.nasa.gov) or Linda Conrad (lconrad@mail.arc.nasa.gov).

We're not officially scheduled to "activate" our Website at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron until November 1, but I
know many of you out there have already signed on and looked around. I
thought I'd take this opportunity to share with you some of my personal
experiences as this project is developing and to acquaint you with the
flurry of activity that is building to make this mission successful.

GEARING UP FOR NEUROLAB
Linda Conrad

Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person alive! When it was suggested
that I manage this project, I was both excited and nervous. What do I, a
foreign language teacher, know about a shuttle mission, let alone one that
deals with the brain and nervous system? I have been involved in several
of our projects here at Quest, but felt unprepared for something as
"scientific" and sophisticated as this one. As it turns out, my ignorance
is probably one of the best things that I bring into this project, because
it is easy for an "insider" to assume that everyone knows what they are
talking about. I don't, and as a result ask questions that I think
students probably would ask. It's been a great learning adventure thus
far, and I hope you'll enjoy it even a bit as much as I. Let me share some
of the adventures I've already had.

Investigators' Working Group at Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas

All our projects at Quest focus on the people behind the missions
as well as the science. To get to meet the scientists behind the
experiments that will be going on our flight (STS-90), I traveled to
Houston for the last official meeting where the Principal Investigators
and their Co-Investigators got together for planning.

Years before a mission like Neurolab gets launched, these scientists who
have a special interest in some aspect of the brain and/or nervous system
asked for permission and funding to have their experiment flown in space.
All of these requests were reviewed thoroughly and only some were selected
as part of the mission.  Then the scientists began to refine the
experiments for the special information that spaceflight and microgravity
can help them learn.

One of the complications of Neurolab is that many scientists from all over
the world are using the same flight, the same specimens, and the same crew
to study very different aspects of the nervous system. Another
complication involves timing of the work done onboard the shuttle and
available space. Some experiments cannot be done at the same time because
of cramped quarters (for instance, when the revolving chair --  see
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/background/astronauts.html -- is being
used, nothing stored or done in that area of the shuttle can be accessed).
Another complication is the timing of the flight itself. What if the
launch has to be delayed for bad weather conditions? What would happen to
the experiments that need to be timed perfectly in the life cycle of a
cricket, for example? These kinds of complications were what this
Investigators' Working Group meeting was all about.

Something that may have been obvious to everyone except me is that the
astronauts do all the science in space. Can you imagine if you were one of
the scientists, having to take all of your years of scientific research,
preparing it so someone else can do the actual experiment, and then
training them to do it so that they will bring back the results that you
need to complete your studies? Now you know why strategic meetings like
this one are needed. I was excited to be able to watch the process.

Payload Planning Meeting: Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California

Back here at the home of your Website Quest, I had the opportunity to
visit a planning meeting for the Payload group. These are the engineers
and scientists who set up the parts of the shuttle hardware that will
house the experiments. Some of these are the animal habitats (see the
Great Habitat Debate at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/events/habitat/index.html). In this
meeting I felt like I had stepped into a world that spoke a language of
alphabet soup. Clearly a lot of what was said went over my head, but I did
see two things that impressed me a great deal. One was the preoccupation
that was obvious for the animal and human safety and comfort. The other
was the great interest these individuals showed in letting you in on what
they are doing. They are very busy, but we are hoping that they will take
a little time to share with you what it is like to rush toward the
deadlines involved in an April 1998 flight.

Lunch with Astronauts

I met the crew that will be flying the Neurolab shuttle flight at
the Investigators' Working Group in Houston, and shared with them what we
wanted to give you, the K-12 classroom, through NeurOn. Almost before I
reached home, I had already begun to receive some terrific inputs from
Payload Specialist Jay Buckey. His daughter Alexandra, has designed a
logo that he's very proud of. I have to agree it says it all! Jay has
already begun an exchange with Mrs. Force's classroom that he was willing
to share with us online. Take a look in the Student Gallery at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/kids/work.html.

I had the privilege to get to know Jay and Dave Williams, the mission 
specialist, a little better over lunch back here in California. I
was impressed with their genuine enthusiasm about you and the NeurOn
project. The reason they met with us was to find out how they could help
to give you a glimpse into their lives and work. Jay has a son and two
daughters, and Dave has a son and a brand new baby. Their interest in kids
is obvious!

So now you know why I consider myself so lucky! I'm involved in a project
that is exciting, a shuttle mission that promises to bring back lots of
good science from space, and a group of enthusiastic, very busy
individuals whose hearts are in the right place (with you)!

I hope you can feel that you're experiencing it all with me and with them
as we all embark on this mission together.

Welcome aboard!

Linda

SUBSCRIBING & UNSUBSCRIBING: HOW TO DO IT!

If this is your first message from the updates-nrn list, welcome! To catch up on back issues, please visit the following Internet URL: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/updates To subscribe to the updates-nrn mailing list (where this message came from), send a message to: listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov In the message body, write these words: subscribe updates-nrn CONVERSELY... To remove your name from the updates-nrn mailing list, send a message to: listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov In the message body, write these words: unsubscribe updates-nrn If you have Web access, please visit our "continuous construction" site at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron