Space Administration Research Research Articles

Maintaining Warp Speed: Policy Requirements for a Just-in-Time, Capability-Based, Scalable Medical Countermeasure Research and Development Enterprise.

Maintaining Warp Speed: Policy Requirements for a Just-in-Time, Capability-Based, Scalable Medical Countermeasure Research and Development Enterprise.

NASA RESEARCH REEVALUATED

FOR MANY YEARS, THE NATIONAL Aeronautics & Space Administration's research program has been under fire over its value and its relevance. Critics of the research efforts, administered by NASA's Office of Biological & Physical Research (OBPR), question whether the science being conducted on the space shuttle missions and the International Space Station (ISS) is important enough to justify the enormous cost. But recent events have brought into question an even more basic issue: Are human missions into space necessary? The loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew in the skies over the Southwest U.S. on Feb. 1 has prompted NASA to ground its remaining shuttle fleet— threatening the future of the space station—and Congress to initiate a thorough investigation of the accident and the overall space program. NASA, however, believes that, following a brief hiatus during the investigations, it will be able to get back on track with its long-range plans. I ...

E-mail and potential loss to future archives and scholarship: The dog that didn't bark

A pattern has emerged in starting presentations on the preservation of electronic materials: Disaster! In 1975, the U.S. Census Bureau discovered that only two computers on earth can still read the 1960 census. The computerized index to a million Vietnam War records was entered on a hybrid motion picture film carrier that cannot be read. The bulk of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's research since 1958 is threatened because of poor storage. These tales are akin to Jorge Luis Borges's short story in which the knowledge of the world is concentrated in one mammoth computer - and the key is lost. The essential question for the Information Age may well be how to save the electronic memory (Stielow: 333).

Arctic ozone levels predicted to decrease

Warmer than normal temperatures allowed the northern polar regions to escape severe ozone depletion this past winter. Nevertheless, scientists who participated in a National Aeronautics & Space Administration research study remain concerned that major ozone losses will occur over the Arctic within the next decade. Furthermore, the scientists have definitively linked a previously reported subtle but serious decrease in ozone levels over northern mid-latitudes to chlorine and bromine in the stratosphere. This ozone destruction—though not so dramatic as that of the Antarctic ozone hole—is especially significant because it is occurring throughout the year over densely populated areas. The researchers conclude such depletion of Earth's ozone shield is likely to worsen over the next 10 years, because halogen concentrations in the stratosphere will continue to increase during the 1990s despite current regulations controlling the production of man-made sources of chlorine and bromine. The NASA-sponsored second Ai...

International Effort To Examine Arctic Ozone Loss Gets Under Way

Two National Aeronautics & Space Administration research aircraft were scheduled to begin flying into the Arctic stratosphere this week, looking for signs of ozone depletion catalyzed by chlorine from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The ambitious international mission has been prompted by the uncovering of significant losses of ozone at high northern latitudes in winter. For the next six weeks, scientists from the U.K., West Germany, Norway, and Denmark as well as from U.S. federal agencies and universities will take part in the $10-million Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expedition. In addition, scientists from the U.S.S.R. will share data they gather simultaneously over Soviet air space. The researchers hope to determine if the heterogeneous chlorine chemistry that is responsible for the massive ozone depletion over Antarctica each spring is also taking place to a lesser extent in the Arctic. There is no Arctic ozone hole comparable in size to the Antarctic's, where in the worst year to date (1987) ...

Expedition to probe Arctic ozone layer

National Aeronautics & Space Administration research aircraft will probe the Arctic stratosphere next January and February, looking for signs of ozone depletion catalyzed by chlorine from chlorofluorocarbons. Scientists and planes from the U.S.S.R. are expected to participate in the expedition. This mission clearly offers a unique opportunity for international cooperation, says Michael P. Kurylo, NASA program manager for the project. Other NASA scientists and their Soviet counterparts have been preparing a cooperative research plan in Moscow, but an agreement had not been finalized at higher government levels at press time. The research mission is motivated by the recent uncovering of significant losses of ozone at high northern latitudes in winter (C&EN, March 21, page 6). Atmospheric scientists are wondering if the chlorine chemistry that is responsible for the massive ozone depletion that has been occurring over Antarctica each spring for the past decade is also taking place to a lesser extent in the...

Effect of immersion on urinary lead excretion.

The physiological effects of water immersion in man were studied by Epstein1 in the 1970s in conjunction with the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration's research into weightlessness. This showed that immersion up to the neck in water at 35?C produced a profound diuresis, naturesis, and an increased urinary excretion of calcium. These pro nounced alterations in renal function brought about by immersion probably occur because the hydrostatic pressure of the water produces a redistribution of extracellular fluid in the body. There is a shift of about 700 ml of blood from the limbs to the thoracicocardiac compartment. This increase in the effective extra cellular fluid volume is thought to mediate the renal changes by hormonal mechanisms. A recently discov ered hormone, atrial naturetic peptide,2 has been found to have a role in regulating these changes but is unlikely to be the only factor concerned. One study of the treatment of lead poisoning by Bath Spa therapy during the eighteenth century3 has shown that a cure rate of about 49% was achieved in patients who had paralysis due to lead poisoning whereas in hemiplegias or paralyses of unknown aetiology the cure rate was only about 11 % and about 6% when the condition was secondary to spinal defor mity. Admission to the Bath Hospital was conditional on the charity patients complying with the prescribed treatments and they were not discharged until a com mittee of the attending physicians considered that they had obtained the maximum benefit from the spa treatment and had agreed on both diagnosis and out come. The doctors were to keep good records, an analysis of which was published annually. It was stated that many of the patients had been discharged as incurable from other hospitals before their admis sion to Bath. Between 1751 and 1758, 15 of the 31 patients with occupational exposure to lead had been referred from London hospitals as incurable; when they were discharged after a stay at the Bath Hospital, seven were cured and eight were much improved. Spa therapy was multifactorial necessitating removal from exposure, a change in diet (probably for