>> Good morning and welcome to
mission control Houston and
international space station
flight control room.
The specialists here are
watching over the operation of
the system and the crew members
as they near the end of a busy
workweek.
They have been busy with science
and maintenance this week.
As well as getting ready for
some special activities next
week.
An U.S. spacewalk on Wednesday.
And the arrival of an uncrewed
soyu spacecraft.
>> This week the crew
appropriate for an up coming
spacewalk.
Nick Haig and Andrew Morgan
reviewed procedures for a
spacewalk.
The system sin tallalation of
the international docket adapter
to the space station.
It will provide a sect docking
port to accommodate the future
arrivals of commercial crews
spacecraft.
This will be the third spacewalk
for Haig and the first for
Morgan.
The launch of the soyuz is
helping the vehicle in
preparation for human launches
beginning next March.
This booster has been used for
cargo vehicle launches but not
yet for human space trips.
It will automatically dock to
the station two days after it
launches and two days at the
station before it is orbited for
landing in Kazakhstan.
The key is fuel.
Which is just as true in space
as it is on earth.
The technology to replenish the
crew does not currently exist.
This project will enable longer
duration of space exploration.
This will store cryogenic fluid
in space, and will demonstrate
the efficient use of importable
consumables.
It could apply to the missions
to moon and mars.
Keep sending these questions to
#ask NASA.
We'll see you next week.
>> Here are just a couple of
NASA TV programming notes.
Today at 1:00 Houston time,
we'll air a briefing previewing
of the spacewalk.
The coverage starts this
Wednesday morning at 5:30
central time.
The spacewalk should start about
7:20.
Later the same day we'll have
live coverage of the launch of
the uncrewed 60 soyuz.
That begins at 6:15 Houston time
Wednesday.
Then we'll be back next Friday
night, the 23rd, with coverage
of 60 s dock together station.
That's scheduled to take place a
half hour after midnight next
Saturday morning.
The spacewalk next week will be
the third in the career of
flight engineers Nick Haig.
You probably know he's a colonel
in the U.S. air force and an
astronautcal engineer by
training.
>> So we're an air force family.
Something that you may not know
about us.
I met my wife at the air force
academy back in 1996 when we
were in the same squadron.
I was from Kansas.
She was from New York City.
We never would have cross paths
had it not been for the air
force academy.
So the question I get all the
time are you a "Star Trek" fan
or are you a "Star Wars" fan.
But rarely anyone asks me about
Dr. "WHO."
That's the show that I watched
when I was young.
"Dr. Who" was a staple when I
was growing up.
Something that my wife
introduced me to is yoga.
We're regular practitioners of
yoga.
I got to tell you that I'm
extremely thankful that she got
me hooked because being crammed
up inside the module of the
soyuz capsule with your knees in
your chest for hours on end is
easier ever putting yourself
through a few hours of torture
doing yoga.
I don't know if torture was the
right word.
Growing up in a small school I
got to play every sport.
But the thing that really got me
hooked, and was my passion was
baseball.
I was a pitcher, and so one of
the things I did when I got to
the air force academy was walk
onto the baseball team.
I played for a couple of years
there on the junior varsity
team, and then got a chance to
throw an inning at the varsity
level, and then after that they
decided that my hobby was going
to go anywhere, and I got cut.
So everybody has their
individual tastes.
When it comes to food, it's
peanut butter and chocolate for
me.
That's an addiction I have.
Who doesn't love a bowl of
peanut butter and chocolate ice
cream.
The other thing that I enjoy is
crushed red pepper garlic.
If you put garlic on anything,
it makes it taste better.
So those are the things I crave
when it comes to food.
>> NASA's artimiss is working to
returning to the moon and the
surface of mars.
Those are both missions that
will deal with issues of
creating materials for the crew.
Mining may allow them to find
the materials they need rather
than bringing them from earth.
But there is a new investigation
on the international space
station studying how microbes
grow on and how they alter
planetary rocks in micro gravity
and simulated martian gravity.
>> The international space
station will soon host some of
the smallest miners in the
universe: microbes.
Microbes growing on the surface
of rocks can break them down and
extract useful metals.
Er this is a process called bio
mining.
We're looking to turn rock into
soil for growing plants and
food.
But before we can use this
technique in planetary
settlements, we first need to
test it in space.
On the space station bio
reactors will be placed inside
of enter--centrifuge.
Investigators will exam how
three types of microbes behave
within pieces of the salt, and
evaluate how well the different
microbes extract elements from
the rock.
The findings will be compared to
ground based results.
We hope to gain insights into
how microbes interact with rocks
and micro gravity, and how we
might use them in our
exploration of deep space.
>> Robotic technology originally
designed for the international
space station has found a new
application in healthcare as
part of a telerobottic
technology to provide mri-guided
best buy oncies to women in
remote areas.
The Canadian space agency
contributed to the production of
this feature about the
innovations coming for
innovation from Hamilton,
Ontario.
>> Space exploration means
exposure to harsh environments.
The other issue that now they're
spending time to do the
maintenance work and they're not
doing the science, which is
really what their purpose is.
So with the maintenance
challenges that we're going to
have with the international
space station, what we found is
can it be in position to provide
a solution to that problem?
And Dexter was going to be that
solution.
Dexter is a two-armed robotic
manipulator system capable of
performing fine-motor tasks to
replace what the astronaut would
have to do on the exterior of
the space station.
I is basically a handyman.
He allows us to do space
maintenance.
We're able to control it from
the ground.
So the ground crew could "K"
operate these robotic systems
and free the astronauts up from
that task as well.
Now that they're operating on a
regular basis, we have a crew
spending more time doing
science.
This was the idea of building an
international space station, to
be able to do science in lower
earth orbit.
>> Only 40% of women are getting
annual mri as part of their
screening.
Part of the reason providing mri
screening was because of lack of
access to the radiologists.
>> Some women have to drive very
long distances, like seven or
eight hours in the car,
sometimes during snowstorms in
the winter, so they may risk
their lives to get the mris.
>> When we started to do the
research, we started to get
involved with mda.
A company that has been involved
with manufacturing of all of the
robotic systems, which is
currently used on the space
station.
>> We developed a system called
igr which stands for
image-guided robot.
>> Igar is an operated robot
that that perform breast
biopsies.
>> It is provided to patients
who may be thousands of
kilometerses away.
The patients can go under breast
biopsy at their local hotel
without having to travel to
another hospital for the
expertise.
>> The results have been
encouraging.
We've demonstrated that it is
safe, extremely accurate, as
accurate as a human.
>> This will allow us to
hopefully increase the number of
people undergoing screening
close to 100% ratio.
So igar is built on many of the
know how which was developed for
the space program as well as the
software which is also used to
control the robotics of the
space station.
>> We can see some of these
technologies that we've worked
with for a long time becoming
available.
We have a lot of insight of how
to apply them.
Not just in medicine, but in a
number of other fields, which is
what we're doing.
Without the space station, would
any of that have happened?
No, not really.
Not in that way, any way.
>> Whether you're in space or
here on earth, we always have
trillions of micro organisms
that live on or inside our
bodies.
They outnumber our cells 5-1,
but many of them are essential
to human health.
Because of that, there is one
study on the international space
station looking into how space
flight can change those micro
organisms, and what that could
mean for our bodies internal
systems.
>> Up there in orbit during long
duration space flights, the
astronautS can experience
structural changes to their
hearts, but exactly what
changes, and how they occur are
not yet clearly understood.
That's why researchers are
investigating cardiovascular
stem cells so they can better
understand the roles those cells
play in the make up of our heart
as well as in tissue
regeneration.
>> We know that they are an
early population of cells.
We're able to create different
types of cardiac tissue whether
it be the heart muscle cells, or
the lining of blood vessels.
The cells we work with have the
capacity of bombing
cardiovascular derivatives, and
they function in a way in the
environment and there is a lot
we can learn in the treatment.
Studying the cardiovascular
tissue, and looking at
disparities in their response,
neonatal versus adult patients.
We're able to compare the micro
gravity using the same clone and
be able to compare these two
results to see if we can use the
micro gravity, or any type of
micro gravity treatment to
promote cardiovascular care.
We've been learning quite a bit
even from the simulation, and we
think with this space flight
will be able to extend these
observations, and hopefully
promote cardiac repair.
And even advance these insights
in anticipating and treating in
space.
>> For many experiments where
the astronautS and cosmonauts
are test subjects there are
samples that need to be produced
and stored in space before they
are returned to earth for study.
Where do they store these test
results?
Well, in one of a dozen large
freezers, in the speedy time
segment, Jack fischer signs the
light on the lab tear freezer
for iss.
>> Hello and welcome to another
speedy time.
Today we're going to talk about
one of the most useful tools we
have on the space station, the
minus 80 lab freezer iss.
Or as I like to call it, the
freezer of awesomeness.
We want to get all of these
samples we take on the ground.
In order to do that, we need a
freezer.
To get these freezers down below
185, this is the big daddy.
We have to wear these special
gloves.
Do you remember the Christmas
story where he stuck his tongue?
That's the same idea.
We put these in these super
coolers and then all of the
science can be studied, and
hopefully we find the cool
results out of our experiment.
I have an sample.
>> That, my friend is the
awesome super freezer that we
have on the space station.
Hope you learned something, have
a great day.
>> Scientists are using the
international space station to
learn more about the physical
sciences, too.
Researchers behind a number of
experiments on the science of
comebustion hope to learn ways
to create less pollution.
>> The power of studying
combustion on the iss presented
by science at NASA.
If you want to reduce the amount
of pollution humans produce,
where might you look?
Here, yep, here?
Sure.
Here?
Wait, what?
That's exactly where scientists
and researchers are looking,
255 miles above earth on the
international space station.
Here astronautS are working on a
series of experiments to learn
more about combustion.
Why combustion, the experiments,
they say consider this, 85% of
the energy we use comes from
combustion.
The burning of some sort of
fuel.
85% of the electricity that we
use at home and work come from
power plants that use
combustion.
If we can learn more about the
process, we might be able to
find newer and less polluting
ways to burn fuel.
Three series of combustion
experiments on the cir are
looking at combustion in very
different ways.
The flame extinguish experiment
or flex, the last of the droplet
combustion experiments were
conducted in September 2017.
These entrepreneurial possesses
will exam how various gasses
burn without gravity affecting
the flames.
The solid fuel ignition and
extinction will explore the
properties of burning solid
matter.
Why study in micro gravity?
In the iss you have conditions
that can't be found on earth.
The candle flickers, why?
Because the air cause it is to
rise.
This occurs at high speeds and
resulting in turbulence and
instability.
That makes it hard to study the
properties of the flame.
But on the iss there is no
flicker, which allows us to make
more precise and consistent
measurements.
If we have precise measurements,
we get closer to burning more
efficiently.
And more efficiency produce cost
savings in producing power and
reducing the production of soot
and other pollutants.
It brings practical applications
on earth.
A new type of fire extinguisher
is only one example, and I think
we're in for a new surprises as
a result of these micro gravity
experiments.
Because they knew where to look
for answers in reducing global
pollution.
For more from the international
spay station go to
www.NASA.gov /station.
If you would like to learn more
about other science topics, go
to science dot NASA.gov .
>> Engineers who are developing
the future spaceships are able
to work out their issues with
human needs in orbit.
Issues like providing clean
water.
In this video series, they
discuss the water recovery
system used to recycle crew
waste water for consumption.
>> Hi welcome to the
international space station.
On our water recovery system is
vital to our mission and
survival.
You want to know why and how we
recycle our water?
Let's go.
We use water recovery filtration
because it is expensive to
provide on missions.
Think about the weight of a
single bucket of water.
With you imagine the weight of
water for moss' supply on for
several people on the enter
space station?
That's a lot of water, and
bringing it with us is not very
efficient.
On station we recycle space
water to get fresh drinking
water.
This includes our urine,
moisture, exhale, and sweat.
Along with the water we use to
bathe and shave.
It works like this.
When we use the both, urine is
collected, and the touches spin,
urine is heated to evaporate
water from the waste, and thin
condensed in the outer chambers
to form.
Next the water is pumped to a
tank where it is joined with the
water recovered from cabin air
created by crew sweat and
respiration.
Contaminates are removed with
heat, and then iodine is added.
It is monitored for bacteria,
pollutants and proper ph.
The ph scale ranges from 0 to
14, and it is a tool used by
scientists to measure for acid
to base.
The process provides clean
drinking water that we get to
enjoy every day.
The recycled water on the space
station is sterile.
There is no odor or bad taste.
Water is critical, and it will
be for future trips to the moon
or mars.
Check out the activity connected
to this video so you can learn
more about water infiltration.
Thank you for learning with me,
and we'll see you next time.
>> If you would like to get
another look at ape of the
stories we've featured today,
check us out on YouTube and
Facebook.
There are the addresses.
And while there look around
because there is other cool
stuff that you'll find about
NASA and America's human space
flight program.
If you're out there on the
internet anyway, check out
"Houston," we have a podcast.
We post new episodes every
Friday, and today Gary Jordan
gets a tutorial on the life
support systems of the
international space station from
Morris Shaw, the program's lead
for exploration life support
sciences.
So go to NASA.gov /podcast.
You'll find today's episode and
previous episodes and other
things that are pretty cool,
too.
All of them are also available
to you on apple podcast, google
pod cast and sound cloud.
This is mission control Houston.