Scientists learn space smarts by Alan Boyle
by Alan Boyle
Quantum fluctuations in space, science, exploration and other cosmic fields... served up regularly by MSNBC.com science editor Alan Boyle since 2002.Alan Boyle covers the physical sciences, anthropology, technological innovation and space science and exploration for MSNBC.com. He is a winner of the AAAS Science Journalism Award, the NASW Science-in-Society Award and other honors; a contributor to "A Field Guide for Science Writers"; and a member of the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.Check out Boyle's biography or send a message to Cosmic Log via cosmiclog@msnbc.com.Scientists learn space smarts
Posted: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:30 AM
Researchers are going back to school this week to learn what they need to know to do science in a spaceship - including how to deal with jaw-clenching acceleration and how to avoid getting distracted by the out-of-this-world view.
The first trainees in the Suborbital Scientist-Astronaut Training Course gathered today at the NASTAR Center in Southampton, Pa., to begin two days of classes, exercises and centrifuge spins. Their aim is to get ready for research opportunities at the edge of outer space when they become available, one or two years from now.
"I think the next two years are going to be fascinating," said Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.
Stern and a colleague at the research institute, Dan Durda, are not only co-organizers of the training session - they're also among the trainees. Other scientists are coming in from Boston University, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Central Florida and the University Space Research Association.
"This is a group of highly motivated individuals who want to be ahead of the curve," Stern told me this week. Most of them already have experiments they want to fly in microgravity, and they're anxious to learn the ropes even though it's not yet clear exactly what kind of spaceship they'll be riding.
 NASTAR Center | |
| A patch for the Suborbital Scientist-Astronaut Training Program has been designed by MIT student Tatsuya Arai. |
Stern has called research a potential "killer app" for the suborbital spaceflight industry. For a tourist, the $200,000 fare for flying on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane may sound steep. But for a researcher, that's not a bad price for a few minutes of weightlessness. The cost of flying a comparable payload on a suborbital rocket could amount to a couple of million dollars, and there's no chance for scientists to ride along with their experiments.
So what should a scientist know before he or she takes the ride? During this week's session, trainees will get classroom training in spaceflight physiology, the ins and outs of the space business and how to manage your time when you have only four minutes or so to do your experiment.
They'll also spend time in a hypobaric chamber that simulates the low-oxygen conditions at an altitude of 18,000 feet. At that height, the air is thin enough to bring on the symptons of hypoxia, but not thin enough to cause serious injury.
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