Messenger to Mercury

The Messenger probe has arrived in proximity of Mercury. And it's churning out plenty of new data about our small and distant neighbor. The false color image above is colored to discriminate among common minerals. The left most image is closer to what the human eye would see. So far there's not enough data to fully distinguish the color regions down to specific minerals. And Messenger is still far enough away that its instruments aren't able to build up enough exposure time. But not to worry. Once in orbit about Mercury, the full suite of instruments and imaging will be put to full use to further mine (no pun intended) the new wealth of information about Mercury.

Messenger has three years yet to enter Mercurian orbit. It is using gravity-assist from the sun to complete its trip...one of those sneaky secrets of rocket scientists to make the sun work for them instead of against them. That is why it flew close by Mercury but still has three years to catch orbit. And yet those flybys have revealed a great deal about Mercury. Such as, the planet's magnetic moment is very nearly centered and it is strongly aligned with Mercury's rotation axis; just two degrees of tilt. What? Bingo...the model's of Mercury's mag field generated by science are in close agreement with reality.

What does this mean to you and why should you care? It's like looking in on the elderly neighbor down the street. A neighborhood has a life made up of the combination of each person on the street. You can stay in the house and ignore everyone, but what do you miss by that? How much richer is your life by the interactions with people? What do you learn from them and how does it affect you afterwards? Or for me, I like to think of all the stories my grandmother used to tell me. She was an excellent story teller and every story was entertaining and, as I later realized, educational. Even the ones not told for that primary reason still had lessons of life, and lessons of my grandmother, who she was and how she affected the family.

Mercury is our neighbor. We can become enriched and wiser by watching and listening and checking in on it now and then. If you think that's silly or if you pass off the chance to learn, your life will be poorer. How can anyone not be interested?

NASA at Work in Inner Space

PRP: The Proven Solution for Cleaning Up Oil Spills

(Reproduced from the NASA Spinoff Magazine, 2006)

The Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker exporting millions of gallons of oil, ran aground just after midnight on March 24, 1989 in Alaska, creating what is, to this day, the worst environmental disaster in American history. The affected area of coastal Alaska continues to feel the toxic results of that disaster that killed more than 250,000 seabirds, thousands of marine mammals, and countless numbers of other coastal marine organisms in just its first months. Oil is notoriously difficult to clean from water, and it is still emerging from subsurface reservoirs. Salmon caught in that region are, even now, 16 years later, showing signs of long-term contamination from the devastating oil spill.

While disasters of this magnitude happen rarely, with large spills making up less than 5 percent of the oil spilled into water each year, tens of thousands of smaller oil spills are occurring all around the world. Oil enters the water supply from road runoff; refuse from routine engine maintenance; emptying of boat wastewater and other ship operations; air pollution that settles into bodies of water after rains; and through offshore oil production, which can cause ocean oil pollution from spills, leaks, and routine, operational discharges.

Water can, thankfully, be cleaned or remediated and made safe again for drinking, swimming, fishing, and boating, a task made significantly easier if the oil is caught before it has the chance to settle into the depths. A product using NASA technology is available to consumers and industry that enables them to safely and permanently clean petroleum-based pollutants from the water. It is almost alchemical in its perfection, as it is comprised of beeswax microcapsules that act as a food source that stimulates the indigenous microbes to consume the oil.

The product makes use of NASA microencapsulation technology. Work was done at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to demonstrate the feasibility of encapsulating live cells, while technology developed at the Marshall Space Flight Center for experiments in orbital production of microspheres provides the basic design of the delivery system.

Industry scientists worked with researchers at JPL and Marshall in the early 1990s to develop the microencapsulated wonder, PRP, or Petroleum Remediation Product, for the company Petrol Rem, Inc. In 2004, Universal Remediation, Inc. (UniRemInc), of Pittsburgh, purchased the assets of Petrol Rem, Inc., and has rapidly expanded the uses of the original microencapsulating technology. UniRemInc has broadened production and availability of PRP, making it accessible to more clients and in a variety of different forms.

The basic technology behind PRP is thousands of microcapsules—tiny balls of beeswax with hollow centers. Water cannot penetrate the microcapsule’s cell, but oil is absorbed right into the beeswax spheres as they float on the water’s surface. This way, the contaminants—chemical compounds that originally come from crude oil such as fuels, motor oils, or petroleum hydrocarbons—are caught before they settle.

PRP works well as a loose powder for cleaning up contaminants in lakes and other ecologically fragile areas. The powder can be spread over a contaminated body of water or soil, and it will absorb contaminants, contain them in isolation, and dispose of them safely. In water, it is important that PRP floats and keeps the oil on the surface, because, even if oil exposure is not immediately lethal, it can cause long-term harm if allowed to settle. Bottomdwelling fish exposed to compounds released after oil spills may develop liver disease, in addition to reproductive and growth problems. This use of PRP is especially effective for environmental cleanup in sensitive areas like coral reefs and mangroves.

This ecological wonder has also been packaged for specific uses by UniRemInc to create a variety of different commercial products, including the BioSok Bilge Maintenance System, the BioBoom, the WellBoom, and OilBuster.

One of the most popular uses for PRP is the BioSok Bilge Maintenance System. It allows boaters to clean up small spills. Boats take on water, either from rain, washing, or waves splashing over the sides. This water often mixes with cleaning fluids, and oil and gas from a boat’s motor. The water collects in a bilge, the area inside a boat’s bottom designed to collect and hold the errant water. A bilge needs to be pumped overboard regularly to prevent the boat from taking on too much water. This bilge water, though, is often contaminated.

The BioSok is a small, 3- by 10-inch “sock” with PRP encased in polypropylene that floats in the bilge, absorbing and bioremediating any hydrocarbons, thus, decontaminating the water. Each BioSok can immediately absorb twice its weight and can degrade more than 20 times its weight in oil over time. One BioSok will generally last for an entire boating season. It requires no maintenance or monitoring, and it safely eliminates the pollutants and fumes associated with spilled oil and gasoline.

The U.S. Coast Guard is always on the prowl for any boaters who expel oil-contaminated water from their bilges. Fines are often thousands of dollars, which makes sense, knowing that every year bilge cleaning and other ship operations release millions of gallons of oil into navigable waters from thousands of discharges of just a few gallons each. The BioSok is such an effective antidote to polluted bilge water, that even the Coast Guard has used it on its boats.

UniRemInc also manufactures the BioBoom, essentially a longer BioSok that can be used to enclose larger oil spills. It is especially effective for emergency containment of spilled oil in large areas, like in marinas, ponds, lakes, or open waters; but can also be effective in tanks, storm runoff systems, electrical utility vaults, and anywhere that requires the containment, absorption, and biodegredation of leaking petroleum hydrocarbons. The BioBoom acts as a perimeter around spills and prevents them from spreading. The snake-like tube is 3 inches in diameter and can be produced at any length up to 10 feet.

The WellBoom facilitates groundwater monitoring by absorbing floating petroleum more effectively and less expensively than traditional bailing methods. UniRemInc makes the standard WellBoom by filling a weighted polypropylene sock, 36 inches long and up to 3 inches in diameter, with PRP. The product is then lowered into the groundwater monitoring wells where it absorbs and accelerates the biodegradation of any floating petroleum hydrocarbon contaminants. WellBoom is typically used at petroleum storage facilities, gasoline stations, and other locations where there is a potential for groundwater contamination.

OilBuster is yet another product using PRP that UniRemInc has developed. It is the beeswax PRP mixed with several grades of ground corncob and is for use on land or hard surfaces where no natural microbial population is present. It is ideal for cleaning oil spills that have not yet reached the water and that hopefully never will.

PRP has proven effective in facilities conducting railroad repair, where ballasts, ties, and the ground can be saturated with diesel fuel and oil. It is a safe, costeffective way for these types of contaminated facilities to get quick results that restore the environment and help them avoid the steep U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fines. UniRemInc is continuing to find uses for this amazing bioremediation technology and to supply consumers and industry with safe, natural, and effective ways to keep oil out of our water.

BioSok Bilge Maintenance System™, BioBoom™, WellBoom™, and OilBuster™ are trademarks of Universal Remediation, Inc.

Ballet of Rocketry

Heavy Lifting

Most crane operators don’t use words like “ballet” and “pirouette” when describing their work. But, most crane operators don’t perform the delicate task of maneuvering a space shuttle several hundred feet in the air, sometimes with only inches to spare.

Before each mission, the space shuttle designated for that flight is rolled from its processing hangar to the center transfer aisle of the massive Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once there, the process begins to first raise the shuttle to a vertical position, take it up and over a 170-foot high transom, and then carefully lower it into one of two high bays where the external fuel tank and twin solid rocket booster are waiting on one of the mobile launcher platforms.

“It’s a ballet, it really is,” says Del Dewees, a lead mechanical technician and veteran crane operator or ground controller for more than 95 shuttle lifts, “but it’s fun once you’ve done it a couple dozen times.”

The process, which calls for a team of about 16 technicians and normally takes between 20 and 24 hours, requires skill and precision. At the center of the operation are two pairs of crane operators and a ground controller. Once the shuttle is maneuvered into the vertical position using a 175-ton crane, it's disconnected and attached to a 325-ton crane. The operator, located in a tiny cab 467 feet above the floor, begins the lift as the ground controller guides him from below.

While all the focus would seem to be on the crane operators, Dewees says the harder and equally important job is that of the ground controller, who acts as the eyes of the operators.

“Ground control is a lot harder than operating the crane. That’s the hard part, but the fun part too. You’re their eyes.” he says. “Crane operating is one thing, but they’re doing what they’re told to do. But ground control, that’s the guy who really has to coordinate both cranes and they have to do exactly what he tells them, and then he has to fine tune it. You have to pick it up horizontally and you have to rotate it with both cranes. When it comes out great, it looks like there’s nothing to it.”

Dewees assists in certifying the roughly 40 operators trained in the serious work of maneuvering the space hardware high overhead. In addition to the crane operations, the team is responsible for the maintenance and operation of more than 800 pieces of equipment in the cavernous building, including the giant doors, which they must ride to the top for service. Given the scale of the building and the jobs involved, it’s obviously not a place for the faint-hearted.

Certainly a calm and steady hand is required as the crane operator guides the dangling shuttle toward the high bay.

“We take it out in the middle of the bay so we can pirouette it, then bring it back on the mark," says Dewees. “We have to get it perfectly lined up before we lower it down.”

Once inside the high bay, there is little margin for error. “Between the platforms, which are retracted, and the tank, you have interference from the wings, and you have just inches of clearance,” he explains.

With a description like that, many people might think his job sounds stressful, but not Dewees. He grew up near the space center and remembers driving in the truck with his father as they heard the sound of pilings being driven during construction of the Vehicle Assembly Building. He watched as the Mercury astronauts lifted off from Cape Canaveral to pioneer American spaceflight. Even after working around space hardware for almost 30 years, he says simply, “it’s one of those jobs that never gets old.”

Cheryl L. Mansfield
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center

Exquisite

The image was taken by the Cassini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Domenico_Cassini) probe (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/). The satellite is on the side of Saturn opposite the sun. This eclipse back lights the limb and rings of Saturn such that the particulars of the rings is apparent in ethereal detail. The faint outermost ring is hauntingly frail and most visible in such a line up of elements. Needless to say, such images help NASA scientists learn more about the rings, exciting on display to Cassini's close-up inspection.

This image is of a vortex at Saturn's south pole. Shadows reveal the topography of the south polar vortex. At high resolution, a new, inner ring of isolated, bright clouds is seen. These clouds are localized regions of convective upwelling, an important clue to understanding how heat energy is transported in Saturn's atmosphere.

The news from Saturn is exciting and fascinating, igniting much new understanding of the planet and of certain of its moons. For more news, great photos and videos visit the Cassini mission page at nasa.gov. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/

What has NASA done for you lately?

How about this?

NDAnalyzer -- Cancer Detection Device

A medical-related spinoff, the DNAnalyzer, resulted from a NASA/American Cancer Society partnership, the Space Station In-Flight Cytometry Project. To help decipher the medical mystery of why and how microgravity affects the immune system, NASA sought development of a machine that could separate and examine cells rapidly.

The existing device was too large -- the size of a pool table -- to place in an orbiting space station, so the partnership was formed to develop a far more compact flow cytometer. The resulting hardware could support biomedical experiments aboard the space station while advancing medical knowledge in cancer detection and treatment on Earth.

A Miami, Fla., business, RATCOM, Inc., pioneered the new triangular flow cell technology that improves resolution in flow cytometer technology. The cancer-fighting benefits of flow cytometry include the ability to evaluate cancer cells very early and to determine several important features, such as the sensitivity of the cancer cells to different chemotherapy drugs, the ability of the cells to grow, and their capacity for spreading.

The DNAnalyzer allows better understanding of the nature of a patient's tumor, thereby enabling better treatment. Dr. Awtar Krishan at the University of Miami, who was instrumental in defining requirements for the instrument, is carrying out studies on the application of the technology in cancer diagnosis and therapy.

Other potential uses of the new technology involve early detection of leukemia, chemo-sensitivity studies prior to chemotherapy, antibody analysis, and detection of pathogenic organisms.

That's only one benefit that your tax dollars have paid for through research that NASA has conducted...better, faster detection and understanding of potential cancer, leading to faster treatment, which can make all the difference sometimes in survivability.

NASA's budget is 0.6% of the entire national budget. Not even 1%. That's about 15 cents per day per taxpayer. Think of your favorite vice...coffee, chocolate, cigarettes. You spend more on that every day than you spend on NASA. NASA does a great deal more than most people realize. That's one of the purposes of this blog. I will continue to bring updates on such technology spinoffs from NASA research and technology.

Or if you don't want to wait and want to learn more, visit NASA's Spinoff magazine site and peruse the myriad technological products and benefits which NASA brings to our daily life.

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2008/toc_2008.html

Hello Earth

Hello Earth, I bid you good day.
You’re looking lovely this morn.
As I see you from my ship far away,
My mind, heart and soul are reborn.
Though physically I have forsaken you,
My heart is always at thy command.
For one day soon I shall bid fair moon adieu
And return once more to your protective hand.

Wow...

Just wow. Speechless. I received my copy yesterday of "NASA/Art: 50 Years of Exploration". An amazing book overflowing with enough creative energy to propel us back to the moon. I don't have the words to fully describe the book or all that it represents. I've already run out of adjectives from studying the unbelievable art between those covers. One must experience it for oneself to find the full appreciation of the talent, both artistic and scientific represented, which the NASA art program has dared to try to contain. The only thing more I can say is to buy it for yourself and take a slow and relaxed trip through the pages, being certain to note the media and size of these gems. I'm astounded thinking of the hours that must have gone into covering a 120" x 50" canvas, with great detail mind you, and the minutiae and depth of feeling which could be captured by sometimes gross media. These masters make this very rank amateur feel quite meek...