>> Amiko Kauderer: Hi, welcome
to the International Space Station flight control room.
We are here with the Orbit two team now is monitoring the
systems aboard the International Space Station
and also the crew's activities.
Here with me today, I have Tara Rutley.
Tara, thank you for coming.
Tara is the Associate Program scientists
for International Space Station.
And so what she's going to do,
we're going to have here today is a, just a wrap up of,
it's this, we're going to call this science Friday
so what we're going to do today is have a wrap up of the science
that has been worked on, on Orbit all during this week
and then we have some other little things we want to talk
about that had gone up on the Space X, Dragon spacecraft
that is going to be leaving Sunday,
this weekend, so welcome Tara.
First of all before we get into any of all this stuff,
I just want you to explain to me a little about your roles
and responsibilities here as the program scientist
for the International Space Station.
>>Tara Rutley: Sure, let's see there are many.
First and foremost I'm involved in helping
to coordinate the research plans that happen on space station
and look across all investigations then
as the investigations are happening on Orbit,
I help identify impacts to science that may be important
for pursuing or promoting the science that happens on station.
So we help prioritize the science,
make sure it gets implements, we meet the needs
of the investigators and then after the experiments are done,
our team works to get the results and turn them
into something that's communicable to the public.
So we try to communicate the value of what's happening
on space station as well.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Great and okay we're going
to do a little recap of some
of the science that's been taking place and there's a lot
of science and I think that it's gone on.
I think sometimes we hear a lot about that you know,
oh we had to fix this or we had to fix that, and while we have
to understand that this is their home that is orbiting
so there is maintenance required but meanwhile it is a laboratory
and we don't want to forget that
and that science is taking place every day, 24 7,
even when the crew is sleeping at times depending
on what the experiment is or the study.
So first before we get into some of these experiments
or investigations that are taking place this week,
I want to go and talk about this education publication.
There's a recent publication that was done and it really kind
of goes over all the history of the space station and science.
Want to go ahead and talk about that?
>>Tara Rutley: Yeah, just this month our office put
out a new publication.
It's called Inspiring the Next Generation
and it's basically a compilation of the results
of the student participation in space station
over the last 12 years.
So just about every investigation that happens
on Orbit has some kind of educational component,
whether it's true student design and competition
where it's actual student experiments on Orbit
or it could be just all the way back to on Orbit activities
that can be pursued in the classroom in parallel.
Even crew calls downs to students.
All of these things are rolled into this publication
and in effort to communicate the value of station in a way
that promotes science,
technology, engineering and math.
So the STEM is critical right to space station value
and what we found is going through the publication
as we were putting it together looks
like space station has reached students across, students
and teachers across, 44 different countries
in the last 12 years and about 44,
42 million students have been reached
and on some level involving space station activities
which is really, really mind-blowing,
and nearly 3 million teachers as well.
So it was pretty eye opening as we were going through
and now the publication also details how you as students
and teachers can get on board and participate in competitions
that are up and coming and that are always ongoing.
So if you feel like this is something you want
to look through, which I highly encourage, if you have ideas
and you're a student and you have some ideas
and you're not sure where to go,
this publication is really a great place for you to start
because you can see what other students have done and some
of the results and how you can participate.
And to do that, you can, we have copies that are coming
out in print this month,
but in the meantime it's online right now.
If you go
to www.nasa.gov/iss-science you can find there's a
For Teachers section and a For Students section
and if you click on those links there's lots
of information there and you can find the online version in terms
of PDF format for this publication.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Great, thank you for sharing that.
That's really good information there.
So let's go ahead and talk about a couple of the experiments
that are taking place this week and they're going to be ongoing
but one of the things I know is the Meteron
and this is something that [inaudible] was working
with to deactivate and that sort of thing.
I think we have a little picture here of Meteron and [inaudible].
>>Tara Rutley: This little guy is actually called Mockup
and he's part of the Meteron Project which is an ESA,
European Space Agency sponsored investigation
and that'll actually happen over a period of two to three years
on station and the goal of this Meteron project is to,
is to check out and just basically characterize
and understand human robotic interaction from when you're
on Orbit and down to Earth.
So it's a unique capability to be able to,
what Sunny did this week, which was pretty cool,
was she actually controlled this little creature called Mockup
from ISS and this mock up is located
at a ESA controlled facility in Germany.
So she actually commanded it
from space it was pretty exciting.
The robot from what I understand is on a,
in an area that's simulated, you know,
simulated Mars environment.
So what you're doing is simulating controlling a robot
from far, far away in space.
So I understand the communication hesitation
or delay was only two to three seconds
from when Sunny sent the command
to when the little robot did perform her command.
And then so really what this is proving
out is something called The Delay Tolerance Networking.
A really critical component of technology demonstration from,
for use on space station is being able
to use technology that's going
to take us beyond low Earth orbit.
So delay tolerant networking is a series
of network communications established for networks
like space station that have loss of signal
and there are DTNs,
delay tolerant networks on Earth as well.
So anytime that we lose signal on Orbit,
what happens is the little packets
of information get stored and then,
I guess you could think projected forward once the
communication is re-established.
So this is a way for us to test
out a very basic human robot interaction along
with the DTN network and think
about how we would evolve these robotic features
out past just this little Mockup robot.
Now Mockup is the first but in the series
over the next several years, ESA plans to progress
and all the way
up to exoskeleton type wearable components
of human robot interaction so basically you can don a big arm
or a glove and control it that way versus just computer
and joystick which is on station now.
So Meteron is a really good example
of technology demonstration, it's very visible, it's very fun
to watch and we're looking forward
to just more progression as this one goes on.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So what she did actually with her commanding
at Meteron or the Mockup
from the space station was almost a little reverse
of what we see here because here the ground teams will often be
operating the robotics on station so that's kind
of interesting to see that.
Great. So another one we have here, I have a list,
this one I like just because I like fitness.
I want to talk about VO2Max
and I understand it's not really that fun to do.
>>Tara Rutley: Pretty strenuous.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So maybe Sunny enjoys it.
She loves fitness so much but I don't know.
So talk to me a little bit about VO2Max.
What exactly, I mean it's the measurement
of your aerobic capacity but tell me why this is important.
>>Tara Rutley: VO2Max is a measurement of aerobic capacity
so how well the crew members can take up their oxygen
as they're exercising and it's done on Earth too with athletes
and anyone who's interested and it represents, it's a reflection
of your cardio fitness, you're cardiovascular fitness
and your respiratory fitness and that has huge impacts
on your physical over capabilities.
So in terms of crew members, the reason why I want to check it
out is because you know when the crew has
to potentially maybe emergency egress,
what kind of fitness are they in and what kind of cardio
and respiratory shape are they in, can they do it?
Can they go on long intense UVA's
if we should go beyond low Earth orbit and arrive
at a terrestrial location and they have to get out
and really manually laboring for a while?
So the really cool thing about VO2Max is
that it just directly measures the crew as they're exercising.
The crew breathes into a device and out of a device
as they're really high intensity exercising.
They've got to max, that's what the Max stands for.
So it's pretty intense and the device that they're breathing
in measures the carbon dioxide to oxygen ratio
that they are taking in and producing
and then their calculations back on how efficient their lungs
and cardio vascular system are.
With VO2Max with week there was the very last session
that was performed ever, so they wrapped up a study
that I think has been ongoing since 2009,
and they needed 12 subjects to be successful, human subjects,
and human subjects is very valuable and very sought
after commodity on space station but it's very critical
to the human research program
that we understand these things before we go beyond low
Earth orbit.
So it's really cool to get the last subject in.
They needed twelve and they got an additional two more
for good measure.
As a scientist you want to make sure you cover all your basis
and have as much data as possible.
>> Amiko Kauderer: And so I understand though before they do
this, they actually do their VO2Max, measure that,
before they leave so they have a baseline and then on Orbit
and then on post flight.
>>Tara Rutley: Pre-flight, in-flight and on return
to just measure across how much is lost
and then how much they actually will regain back once they land
as well, over time.
>> Amiko Kauderer: I wonder how they compare with some
of the Olympic athletes.
[crosstalk]
>> Amiko Kauderer: So the next one, this is kind
of a fun one too, and actually we were talking
about this earlier, [inaudible] was actually just measuring the
water volume of this particular habitat
and it's called the Aquatic Habitat and this is kind
of exciting, it's for fish.
So talk to me a little bit about this.
>>Tara Rutley: Yeah, this is the fun stuff right?
So the Aquatic Habitat was actually itself, the hardware,
was launch this summer on a HTV vehicle
and in the meantime the crew have been working on and off
to set up the water, test the ph, get all the bubbles out,
surprisingly bubbles and a bad thing to have
in a fluid environment in space.
Set up the filtration units and get ready for the fish
that just arrived on 32S.
And I heard as of this morning the fish, Medaka fish,
have been inserted into the aquarium and so the purpose
of these Medaka fish is to basically start an investigation
that looks at the development of fish over time in microgravity.
The longest time a fish, a particular fish,
has lived in microgravity has been about 16 days or so
on space shuttle missions.
And so now we're looking at a breeding tank that can hold fish
over three generations of breeding.
These fish breed pretty quickly, I think over two to three weeks
and so you can start to see different generations
of development and you can also look at them under a microscope,
you can tag them with red and green colors that you can see
on the screen that drive certain cells to behave in certain way,
you can see what's happening with those certain cells.
So if you tag bone cells red, you can see what's happening
to the bone, the skeletal system as they involve
in a microgravity environment.
Crew on Orbit, the longer they stay, they face muscle
and bone loss because of disuse.
They're not using it as often as they are on Earth and so we want
to understand some of the issues associated with that,
the process that control that.
And one way you can do it is through these fish especially
as you look at their development over time.
So the first study we'll look at, the bone development
and then follow on studies, I backed myself
into a corner with that one.
Follow on studies we'll look at other parts,
other physiological processes of the fish
and really cool it would be to see just how they develop
and what they end up acting like and looking
like after generations in space.
So it's exciting.
>> Amiko Kauderer: And you mentioned 32S
so that just arrived so you were talking about the [inaudible]
with Kevin Ford and his two cosmonaut crewmates as well
and they just arrived this week.
>>Tara Rutley: 32 fish are now on station and most
of them are inside the aquarium.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So, last but not least, we have one other one
and Sunny was also working a little bit with it,
I think just replacing it on station this morning.
And this is called the Micro-6.
One thing about Micro-6 is it actually came up,
and I want to talk about more other things, this is something
that they're working on this week that it is one
that actually arrived
at the International Space Station aboard the first lease
supply cargo craft, commercial, lease supply cargo craft,
the Dragon, which is actually set to splash down,
depart from the station and splash down on Sunday
but so talk to me, first I want to talk about more science
that was brought up on Dragon but first talk to me a little
about Micro-6 since that's something they have been working
on this week as well.
>>Tara Rutley: Absolutely, Micro-6.
It's what's called a sorty, and we haven't had sortys
since retirement of shuttle so a sorty is an investigation
that you launch up on a vehicle, activate it during the time
that the vehicle stocked and return that right away home.
And since we haven't had return capabilities,
we haven't had a sorty in a long time so Micro-6 is one
of two sortys that are on station right now
and it's coming home, like you said.
I saw the video of Sunny packing these what's called these gaps,
these circular components inside
of a return box that's coming home on Space X,
and inside of these particular gaps,
that's what the hardware is called,
is a type of yeast called Candida Albicans
and candida albicans is a normal part of the micro flora
that are located in your guy and they're part of who we are
and sometimes if your balance
of these microbes inside your guy get off, these yeast,
these type of yeast can become more active and take over
and cause issues such as yeast infections and thrust
in the mouth and so these infections can become an issue
on Earth but you can imagine they can also become an issue
in space as well.
So we're interested in them in terms of crew health
but what's really cool about the microgravity environment is
that we found with the way bacteria behave
and other microbes,
that sometimes certain ones become more aggressive in space
and so they'll up-regulate their kind of nastiness.
And so with that we've been able to identify types of genes
that are involved in driving that kind of aggressiveness
and if you can identify the types of genes that are involved
in that behavior, you can potentially get to a cure
or a vaccine or a treatment quicker.
So that's what's being done with the Micro-6 investigation.
The scientists who are sending this one up are going
to get the samples home and they're going to look at things
like what genes were up-regulated in these cells
and they were incubated on space station
in the microgravity environment?
Then they might think about what might cause their activation
based on these genes that are activated, what's causing this?
What about the microgravity environment that's doing it.
They're also going to look at their physical structure
because when sometimes when microbes become aggressive part
of that is that they create biofilms and they start,
that's a good way for them to communicate and hang
out with each other and become more aggressive.
And then lastly I understand
that this investigation is also testing an anti-fungal treatment
so it will be interesting to see the response in the cultures
to this anti-fungal treatment
as they were cultured in microgravity.
So these guys are going to come home on Space X
and we're looking forward to those results.
They're one of many that are going to come home.
About 400 kilograms are coming home on Space X in support
of countless investigations.
My job right now is to untangle the countless number
of investigations that are actually coming home.
They range from cold stowage samples,
which is a new capability for us as well, we haven't had
that since shuttle has gone away.
Being able to return samples that are frozen or cold
like the blood and the urine, the critical human samples,
the critical plant tissue samples, things that have been
up and in the freezers in space station for a while and need
to come home before they expire so to speak,
and the cells start to break down.
So the science return on these is critical
and that's a big return capability
of Space X. We also have some ambient samples coming home
in terms of materials, even some ambient samples
that don't require, that are human based
that don't require freezing as well.
We also have physical sciences capabilities,
some material samples that are bring returned
and even video tapes of the data
that was taken during investigations on Orbit as well.
So it's going to be fully loaded,
we've maximized our capacity for return on Space X.
About 200 kilograms went up on Space X to support about,
we have 165 investigations going on right now
in this six month period.
So it probably doesn't support every single one of them
but a good handful of those are being supported in the up mass
of Space X and they're return is going to be really exciting.
>> Amiko Kauderer: It's going to be big deal.
Not just the splash down and being able, the scene of it all,
but knowing that the stuff is home and it's returned safely
and we can collect and you know get some information
out of there that could be useful to us.
Not only in space and our endeavor there but also here
on Earth because some of these, a lot of these studies
that we're doing on the station, also have application here to us
on Earth, so I think it's very, very important.
As we know, also the Space X Dragon is going
to be splashing down on Sunday.
It departs from the International Space Station
Sunday morning.
We'll have live coverage for you here on NASA Television
of the [inaudible] and release and that will start
at 6 a.m. central time Sunday, again watch that
and then I will give you, I will provide some video later
that afternoon of the splashdown.
And here are some, the time of everything that's going
to be taking place again, the coverage will begin
at 6 a.m. central time here on NASA Television
with a release schedule of 8:26 a.m. and splashdown later
at 2:20 p.m. that afternoon.
Tara, thank you so much for coming here
and giving us this science Friday and giving us a wrap
up again like I said, I think it's a very important element
and something that we too often get caught up in the whole,
you know, we've got to keep our home cleaned and maintained
but it is a laboratory and so thank you very much.
We also have a website that you can go
to at www.nasa.gove/station/research
and you can find all the information you want
and then some, and thank you again for coming out.
>>Tara Rutley: Thanks, it's always so fun to come talk,
so thanks for inviting me.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Great, thank you.