UPDATE # 18 - March 27, l998

PART 1: Columbia's in position
PART 2: Calendar of Events
PART 3: NeurOn at the Launch
PART 4: Where's BJ? A letter home from "the front"
PART 5: It's sterile (and it's not bad tasting either!)
PART 6: Subscribing & unsubscribing: how to do it!

COLUMBIA'S IN POSITION!

Have you seen it? Columbia is now vertical! Last Monday (the 23rd) the
Space Shuttle Columbia arrived at the top of Launch Pad 39B after its
morning rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building. See pictures at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/photos/KSCMar23.html

Now let's fuel some new discussion: While the shuttle was horizonal, it
wasn't hard to envision getting the animal habitats aboard and sliding
them into their assigned racks. Obviously, this loading cannot be done
until the last few hours before launch. Now that Neurolab no longer has
the horizontal orientation, how on Earth do you (or your classroom) think
this will be accomplished? More on this later. Begin to formulate your own
classroom's questions about the launch. Post them online to your NeurOn
reporter (me!). I will be on the job trying to get those answers for you.
See Part 3 below.

Last week I accompanied BJ Navarro, Neurolab's Stowage Manager when she
shared her enthusiasm for her job at NASA with a classroom of very bright
third grade students. In an era in which space travel is no longer the
marvel it was just 30 years ago, I was delighted to see BJ's personal
touch inspire excitement and generate healthy curiosity. It reaffirmed my
belief in what our Quest projects are all about: connecting classrooms to
NASA's people. I think you'll enjoy a touch of BJ's humor from the letter
she wrote to family and friends after her last trip to Kennedy Space
Center. I've asked her to include us in her list of family and friends for
future letters!

Speaking of classrooms we finally have received some pictures of students
doing "the NeurOn thing!" The photos are from Park Forest Middle School in
Pennsylvania taken as they did the WITN experiments. They're great! Take a
look - Be inspired - Send us yours!
	http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/kids/atwork.html
For more information on the experiments go to:
        http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/video

I can't think of any experience that could have bonded me more with the
subjects of the Neurolab experiments than to taste the cuisine that some
of the four-legged astronauts will be eating onboard STS-90! Read all
about it in Part 5 below.

Enough for now!
Linda

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

->Wednesday, April 1 at 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Pacific Time:
WITN Chat with Steve Sokol, Lead Forecaster, Space Meteorology Group
Steve is the lead forecaster in the Space Meteorology Group and has worked
over 70 Space Shuttle Missions.

->Thursday, April 2 at 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Pacific Time:
Liz Bauer, Hardware Engineer, Johnson Space Center
Liz is a hardware engineer for SIR [Standard Interface Rack], a system
used to take Earth things to space. She manages the work for 4 racks in
the Spacelab.

->Monday, April 13 time TBA
Linda Conrad, Your NeurOn eyes and ears
Live Webcast from Kennedy Space Center. Stay in touch with plans at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/events/launch

->Wednesday, April 15 at 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Pacific Time:
WITN Chat with Janis Davis-Street, Nutritionist returns!
Janis is part of a team whose job is finding out what foods and nutrients
are important for the astronauts as they venture into space. See Janis'
journal below.

All chats may be reached from: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/chats

NEURON AT THE LAUNCH!
Linda comes to you live from the launch of STS-90

http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/events/launch

NASA-TV and reporters from all types of media will be receiving the VIP
treatment at Kennedy Space Center and reporting to you the glamorous side
of a special NASA shuttle launch. They'll wow you with magnificent
pictures as rockets fire up and Columbia ascends! It's thrilling!

But, throughout this project, we have focused on the people behind this
Neurolab flight. You've gotten to know some of them through their bios,
journals and online chats. Do you ever wonder what are they doing during
all this excitement? That is the story I will tell you.

April 7, I will join the team in their work (may even get to help run
errands and such) so that I can convey to you some of the excitement of
the "worker bees." No, I don't intend to miss the launch! But I will watch
it from the place that "our team" working behind the scenes watches it. I
will try to express to you what it's like for first timers, like Chris
Barreras or veterans, like BJ Navarro. Be there with us live:

The week of April 13, I will be reporting to you live over Learning
Technologies Channel as often as possible. To attend the live sessions and
to post your questions in advance go to our LTC page at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/neuron/event2

The Webcast schedule will be posted after I have reached Kennedy Space
Center, so bookmark the LTC page and return often.

WHERE'S BJ? A LETTER HOME FROM "THE FRONT"

by BJ Navarro
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/navarro.html

March 3, l998
Family and friends:
I've been very tied up supporting the upcoming launch of STS-90,
Neurolab which is still scheduled to launch on April 16, 1998. I
previously sent you a website crew page to check out that would lead
you to a Kennedy Space Center Site, an ARC site and many other links
to find out about this awesome mission I'm working on. Well, it seems
in my trip to Florida and interactions with crew members, there have
been photos taken. Dummy me wasn't really paying attention, just doing
my job. Someone here at work found a web site with photos on them,
see if you can locate me. You'll have to look for my better features, gray
hair and a big rear, to know it's me. Some people might say it's my
better side but I personally wouldn't agree.

On my recent trip to Kennedy I had the opportunity to actually step into
the shuttle Columbia and sit in the commander's seat (left  front seat). I
checked out the orbiter systems and determined there is no way   I could
sleep in one of those sleep stations. I also got a unique tour of the
orbiter engines. The orbiter was horizontal and being prepared for rollout
to the Vertical Assembly Building, I was taken inside the engines where
the technicians actually crawl around and do the refurbishment and
repairs. I sat right behind engine number one. This was a fantastic
opportunity and a first. This mission is billed as the last Spacelab
mission, so I may never get the opportunity to do something like this
again. It really made my year. Four trips to Florida since January has
been a bit much for my family and myself. It'll all be worth it when we
have a successful launch.

Where will BJ be next?

I'm off to Houston next week for the Middeck Bench Review where the
crew member look at all the space stuff, experiment hardware, their
clothes, food etc. that goes into the middeck lockers. On or about April
2, I go to Kennedy Space Center to support the final turnover integration
of the late loaded experiment hardware and the animals. I'll return after
launch to monitor the inflight activities at Ames Research Center.

Have fun looking at my goofy picture. Just in case anyone wants to
know my whereabout on January 9, go to:
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/captions/1998/jan/98pc145.htm

Cheers! bj

IT'S STERILE (AND IT'S NOT BAD TASTING EITHER!

by Linda Conrad
Pictorial version at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/team/journals/conrad/03-20a.html

March 20, l998
Who knew that rat food could be so fun! Actually I have been teased in my
office for being fixated on observing the loading of the rat food for the
RAHF [Research Animal Handling Facility] habitats. It seemed very
logical to me, what with having watched the construction of the waste
trays for the same cages.

My habitat designing friends will want to take a close look at the
pictures of the RAHF habitats at
        http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/photos/RAHF.html
to get an idea of the layout. Essentially, each habitat has two
"apartments" laid end to end. Notice there are two slots on the end, one
for inserting the waste tray and the other for the rat food cassette. Each
of these slides down the entire length of the habitat, servicing both
compartments.

The food bar cassette is a long spring-loaded, double-barreled instrument
with rectangular shaped tubes that will hold the food bars. As food is
consumed, the food bar will self-feed into an exposed area making it
readily available at any time. Matt, pictured here with a cassette in
hand, is studying the drawings to make sure everything is done precisely
as planned.

There were two other people who made observing this project lots of
fun: Kerry, whose hands were inside the Biohazard hood I described in
"But is it sterile?" quipped throughout the process. He's the one that
did the tough work. The other person was also named Linda, which got
a little confusing when Kerry would say, "Linda!" Both of us jumped
to attention, though the other Linda claimed she could tell the difference
in his tone when he addressed each of us. Linda was camera shy and
made me promise I'd only picture her hands so, sorry, you don't get to
see what she looks like.

When it comes to the food bar, this isn't just your ordinary
run-of-the-mill rat food! It is sterile, wheat-based, vitamin packed, and
not too terrible tasting -- yes, I did! I don't think Kellogg's and
General Mills will be lining up for the rights anytime soon, but I would
have to say that it didn't taste any worse than some of the cereals I've
eaten. Actually, it was the aftertaste that I objected to! Afterwards it
tasted like I had been grazing on dry grass. Notice Linda's hand (in
sterile surgical gloves) spraying the package of food bars with sterilant
before opening the outer package to allow Kerry to remove the
pre-sterilized inner package.

Time for the hand off: Kerry, careful not to touch the outside wrapper
(even though it's been sprayed) removes the inside package containing food
bars, and removes one food bar.

He then put the first bar on the scales that he has inside the cabinet to
weight it, and here's where I got to "help!" As he weighed "side A," Kerry
would read out the weight, and I recorded it on the sheet under the
appropriate foodbar cassette serial number. Then, we followed the same
procedure with another bar for "side B." Okay, so it wasn't a big deal,
but I felt like I was a part of the process, and that was fun!

Following each weigh-in, Kerry would then insert the food bar into the
channel of the appropriate side of the cassette. With both foodbars in
place, Kerry would then read me the measurement to record on the list. I
then created a label for identifying this particular food bar cassette.
Now some green metallic hardware is attached. And finally the whole
cassette is packaged in a protective sleeve that Kerry slid into a plastic
bag held by Linda (with a label put in place by me!)

There you have it! One food bar cassette is ready to be packed for
shipping to Kennedy Space Center for loading onto Neurolab. Happy
eating my furry friends! I'm jealous! I'd put up with the aftertaste if I
could go along!

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