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UPDATE # 11 - January 30, 1998 PART 1: Whew! Will I ever catch up? WHEW! WILL I EVER CATCH UP?
The Great Habitat Debate has kept my mailbox full and my fingers busy as I post the terrific designs that classrooms and individual students have sent. I promise you that barring some catastrophe I will have all those received up by Monday morning. So, if you sent one and it's not up -- that's right! You'd better write me and let me know. I'm at: lindac@quest.arc.nasa.gov Our Web chat with Chris (see the schedule below) is filling up nicely. I suspect that most of us are anxious to discuss the designs with him, and I will try to show as many as possible to him by then. I am anxious for us not to miss, however, the fact that Chris has just returned from Kennedy Space Center and will have tales to tell about his adventures there. Because I suspect that this will be an active chat, I'd like to especially ask that those attending be prepared by having read Chris's bio and journals. I placed a couple of his journals below just to entice you. I'm going to be brief here so that I can get back to posting your designs: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/events/habitat/designs (and a few logos that have continued to trickle in - http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/events/logo/entry.html) See you online, Linda
For those who have been participating, this is not a new item, but if you're not one of our designers, you're in for a treat! We have at this moment 16 designs to house everything from hamsters to fish in space. By the end of the weekend, I expect to have more than 20 for your review. The next step in the Great Habitat Debate event is to have our NASA expert(s) look at them and comment and to compare them with the "real" thing. I have received some terrific photos from Paul Espinosa: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/espinosa.html and plan the official "opening" online soon. In the meantime, make your own comments about the designs on the debate-nrn list: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/events/habitat/debate-nrn-lwgate.html UPCOMING WEB CHATS
Wednesday, February 4, at 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Pacific Time:
Chris Barreras, Payloads Engineer
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/barreras.html
Chris is working to make sure that when the rodents fly on Neurolab in
April they will get plenty of water, food, air, and they can go to
the bathroom. Sound familiar, you habitat designers? Your creative
solutions should give us some great conversation with Chris.
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Thursday, February 19, at 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Pacific Time:
Joint NeurOn and Space Team Online Chat with Janis Davis-Street
Nutritionist
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/davis.html
Janis works in the life sciences division at NASA Johnson Space Center.
Janis will be featured in the Nutritionist Career Video Segment and has
helped us with some of your questions about food choices on the shuttle.
This chat is a part of our special feature of African American NASA team
members during Black History Month. Plan to join us!
EXPERIMENTS ACT-UP ONLINE
Another great source of activities for the classroom is tucked in our video section: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/video As you look at the "Program content and scheduling" you will see four experiments that are similar to the ones being done on the space shuttle. You are encouraged to participate, submitting your findings to WITN. After the flight your results will be compared with NASA's. For those of you who have a pretty fast machine and connection, you can even view a tiny video clip of the experiments on site. Check out the little boxes that say: "Try this!" that you'll find within the experiment instruction pages. [Editor's note: Katie is the writer and one of the on-air hosts for "What's In The News," a children's current events television program. Eight of their segments feature Neurolab and are the video component of the NeurOn educational outreach. Bon appetit!] THE NEXT BEST THING TO DIAMOND EARRINGS Katie O'Toole http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/video/otoole.html January 23, 1998 For the past two months, I've been traveling to classrooms and observing kids doing the Neurolab experiments. Who ever thought science could be THIS MUCH FUN? Since the Neurolab project began, it seems I've had nothing but the brain on my mind. And lately, it's been on my stomach too! For my birthday, my kids got me a jello mold of the human brain. (I was sort of hoping for diamond earrings, but I guess a jello brain mold is the next best thing.) Man, is it disgusting! In our experimentation we've learned that peach or watermelon are the best colors to get a nice pink brain. If you want your gray matter to be gray, try a mixture of 15 drops each of red, green, and blue food coloring. (You can do this with other shaped molds and then customize it to get that brainy effect.) To get an incredibly life-like texture, try this recipe: Two 6-ounce boxes of gelatin mix 1 3/4 cups boiling water 3/4 cup cold water 9 ounces fat-free evaporated milk. It's important to use fat-free milk because any other kind will curdle it. And after all, we want it to look like a brain mold; not a moldy brain. As for the taste...well, my kids claim it's the best thing I've ever made. Which probably tells you something about my cooking abilities! [Editor's note: Chris is Payloads Engineer working on rodent hardware to make sure that water, food, air, and "bathroom" facilities are adequate for the rodents flying on Neurolab.] RAHF PICTURES AND REPAIR Chris Barreras http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/barreras.html January 15, l998 I have just finished MITS training. This is a training effort where NASA simulates the mission experiments with all parties involved. We practiced working on experiments with the crew for Flight Day 15 of the mission, and we practiced working through hardware failures including the RAHF. During Web chat I can answer more questions on this. KSC [Kennedy Space Center] is presently fixing our light bulb problem, and I am nervous about how the fix will work. This is an area for redesign for future flights. KSC is also monitoring our water in the RAHFs making sure the bacteria count stays low. If the bacteria grows, then we will have to drain, flush and refill. Earlier this week I had a good meeting with one of our Scientists. That's all for now... I will talk to you again next week.... [See the online version for pictures: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/journals/barreras/01-15.html MY TRIP TO KENNEDY SPACE CENTER Chris Barreras http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/barreras.html January 27, 1998 I just returned from KSC [Kennedy Space Center] where I traveled in support of our RAHF drinking water system effort and the fix of our light bulb problem. I also assisted one of my fellow Ames Engineers in testing and submitting for flight some of our video hardware we will be using in the mission. Our RAHF systems require that we provide our animals with the best water possible. In order to do this we monitor the bacteria growth in the RAHF systems. Since the RAHFs are integrated in the SPACELAB now, it takes a little more effort to check our water system as compared to two or three months ago. We must follow clean room operations so as to limit and keep at a minimum the amount of foreign debris our personal bodies may give off. What we did on the RAHFs was straightforward. We checked the bacteria growth, then we drained the RAHF system of water, then we refilled the system with fresh iodinated water. Each RAHF can hold up to approximately 10 liters of water. Question for the students- What is 10 liters in gallons of water? What is the weight of 10 liters of water? We use iodine in the water (like what is used in our own drinking water) system so as to prohibit bacteria growth. The trick here is that the iodine will decay in our RAHF systems to a point were the bacteria starts to grow. So we must monitor the water up to launch time. We follow procedures in preparing the water and also when filling the water in the RAHFs. Allow me to enter a side note: Everything we do in the space effort is documented on drawings and procedures. This allows us to keep a history of what we have done, instructions for operations, and areas for review and improvement. Anything we build to fly in space is controlled by an engineering drawing and at times is also controlled by a procedure for a specific test or assembly process. 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
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