1 00:00:20,450 --> 00:00:25,970 We're going to burn some small fuel samples, solid fuel samples in a wind 2 00:00:25,970 --> 00:00:29,720 tunnel aboard the International Space Station. So what happened here is shortly 3 00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:34,760 before the incident the building had gone through some renovation so 4 00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:39,020 cladding were added to the building facade for for energy and cosmetic 5 00:00:39,020 --> 00:00:43,460 consideration. So when fire entered this cavity space the thermal expansion of 6 00:00:43,460 --> 00:00:47,690 the compacting gases and the flow confinement forced the flame to accelerate 7 00:00:47,690 --> 00:00:53,780 and so it spread way faster than usually seen. We know that on Earth hot gas rises 8 00:00:53,780 --> 00:00:59,989 right, so fire is hot so you unavoidably associate it with a buoyancy flow. The 9 00:00:59,989 --> 00:01:04,640 problem about buoyancy flow is it's really hard to characterize and this complex 10 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:10,100 flow may mask the underlying physics we want to observe. On the other hand in 11 00:01:10,100 --> 00:01:14,960 microgravity conditions we eliminate the the buoyancy flow and instead we can 12 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:20,270 impose, like in a controlled manner, impose a flow externally. And it's a 13 00:01:20,270 --> 00:01:24,229 small wind tunnel so we actually force air flow past a sample because without 14 00:01:24,229 --> 00:01:28,070 gravity if you just left it burning it would probably go out by itself to be 15 00:01:28,070 --> 00:01:31,729 honest so you need some airflow. But the nice thing that, as Ya-Ting said, we 16 00:01:31,729 --> 00:01:35,689 can control the airflow from zero to any arbitrary value so we can actually probe 17 00:01:35,689 --> 00:01:40,130 that scientifically, get resolution in regions we can't study on Earth at all 18 00:01:40,130 --> 00:01:44,659 so it's very useful. So the main idea here is we would have the astronauts 19 00:01:44,659 --> 00:01:48,649 change the spacing. We moved the black walls in and out and we could change the 20 00:01:48,649 --> 00:01:52,759 amounts that the the distance from the fuel sample to the walls effectively 21 00:01:52,759 --> 00:01:58,100 making a narrow space or a wider space as you heard earlier that the importance 22 00:01:58,100 --> 00:02:02,030 of the fire that we saw on Earth was a confined space so we're looking at that 23 00:02:02,030 --> 00:02:07,219 effect on these flames. The focus of this project is a protein that we call 24 00:02:07,219 --> 00:02:11,630 myostatin which we discovered many years ago and we showed that myostatin normally 25 00:02:11,630 --> 00:02:16,160 acts to limit muscle growth and the dramatic illustration of this was that 26 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:21,230 when we genetically engineered mice to lack myostatin entirely the muscles in 27 00:02:21,230 --> 00:02:25,520 those animals grew to be about twice the normal size. So all of this immediately 28 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:30,140 suggested to us the possibility that drugs targeting myostatin that is 29 00:02:30,140 --> 00:02:34,310 blocking myostatin activity could be useful in a wide range of conditions 30 00:02:34,310 --> 00:02:39,200 in which muscle loss or muscle wasting is a problem. And one way to mimic that 31 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:43,459 type of muscle loss is in microgravity as you've heard where you get the 32 00:02:43,459 --> 00:02:49,880 systemic loss of muscle because of the inability to bear weight. By testing this 33 00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:57,410 experimental drug we are hoping to be able to test a novel therapeutic method 34 00:02:57,410 --> 00:03:05,360 of combating really both muscle loss and bone loss, not only in astronauts in 35 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:11,239 space but really for a lot of people here on Earth. Imagine if you will you're 36 00:03:11,239 --> 00:03:15,920 responsible for operating a satellite that's orbiting our beautiful planet and 37 00:03:15,920 --> 00:03:20,420 you need to track it and command it so that you can bring down data from it 38 00:03:20,420 --> 00:03:24,019 and then it comes right above you and then it leaves you and that takes about 39 00:03:24,019 --> 00:03:28,730 three to seven minutes. So you get a couple of opportunities a day and that's 40 00:03:28,730 --> 00:03:31,069 it. About a decade ago we started 41 00:03:31,069 --> 00:03:34,760 investigating well what about using infrastructure that's already in space 42 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:40,430 and guess what have our data downloaded 24 hours a day seven days a week. This 43 00:03:40,430 --> 00:03:45,079 gave us an opportunity to formalize our first spaceflight collaboration with 44 00:03:45,079 --> 00:03:51,500 Mexico through Mexico's space agency. So mission objective number one demonstrate 45 00:03:51,500 --> 00:03:55,840 that we can use the infrastructure already in space, that we 46 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:59,380 can connect with the global star constellation and have it download our 47 00:03:59,380 --> 00:04:05,590 data. Objective number two is give an opportunity a spaceflight project 48 00:04:05,590 --> 00:04:10,420 hands-on opportunity to the next generation. There is an electronic board 49 00:04:10,420 --> 00:04:14,680 that we actually designed and it's in charge for the communication with global 50 00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:19,000 star satellites and for me to be participating in such a huge project was 51 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:25,480 like only in my dreams, so it's actually like a great opportunity because it's 52 00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:32,550 also a new career in Mexico. HISUI is named after the bird is an imaging 53 00:04:32,550 --> 00:04:38,500 spectrometer for Earth observation. It can observe more than 100 spectral 54 00:04:38,500 --> 00:04:45,190 bands. Using this technology we can identify minerals and other things from 55 00:04:45,190 --> 00:04:51,669 space. Minerals have its own specific absorption band in spectra. Using this 56 00:04:51,669 --> 00:04:57,370 signature we can distinguish and identify minerals. Distribution of 57 00:04:57,370 --> 00:05:02,410 minerals are strongly related to natural resources. The sensor developed 58 00:05:02,410 --> 00:05:08,530 in Japan is transported to United States and launched by United States rocket and 59 00:05:08,530 --> 00:05:12,080 attach to Japanese experimental module.