Advanced extravehicular activity systems requirements definition study. Phase 2: Extravehicular activity at a lunar base

The focus is on Extravehicular Activity (EVA) systems requirements definition for an advanced space mission: remote-from-main base EVA on the Moon. The lunar environment, biomedical considerations, appropriate hardware design criteria, hardware and interface requirements, and key technical issues for advanced lunar EVA were examined. Six remote EVA scenarios (three nominal operations and three contingency situations) were developed in considerable detail

Ironclad Revolution: The History, Discovery and Recovery of the USS Monitor

On the afternoon of March 8, 1862, the Confederate ironclad ram Virginia, built upon the burned-out hulk of the steam screw frigate Merrimack, crawled slowly into Hampton Roads to challenge the Union blockade of the Confederate coastline. Before nightfall, the Virginia had wreaked havoc upon the Union blockading fleet: the USS Cumberland lay at the bottom of the Roads, her flags still defiantly flying while the surrendered USS Congress blazed ominously in the harbor until exploding spectacularly in the early morning hours of March 9.;The USS Monitor---a vessel of a radical new design and completely untried in battle---arrived too late to make a difference on the 8th, but met the Virginia on the morning of the 9th in a contest that signaled the first time ironclad had met ironclad in combat. While their four-and-a-half-hour battle ended in a draw, it changed much of the future course of naval warfare. Within days of the engagement, navies around the world were declaring an end to wooden construction and moving forward with their own ironclad building programs--many of which predated both the Monitor and the Virginia. Furthermore, the Monitor\u27s rotating gun turret design freed vessels from the strictures of broadside tactics by allowing the guns, rather than the entire vessel, to be turned, and ushered in a new element of battleship design.;Neither the Virginia nor the Monitor lived out that year, however. The Virginia was destroyed in May of 1862 by her own crew to keep her from enemy hands, while the Monitor succumbed to a nor\u27easter on New Year\u27s Eve off the coast of Cape Hatteras.;Discovered in 1973, the Monitor was designated a National Marine Sanctuary in 1975 under the auspices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Since 1987, The Mariners\u27 Museum in Newport News, VA has served as the principal repository for artifacts recovered from the wrecksite and is currently conserving over 210 tons of the Union ironclad in the Batten Conservation Complex.;This dissertation serves as the text for the catalogue of the award-winning exhibition, Ironclad Revolution, which opened at The Mariners\u27 Museum in 2007. The author serves as curator of the USS Monitor Center. Drawing from artwork, archival material and the recovered artifacts themselves, this work seeks to tell the full story of the Monitor: her history, discovery, recovery, and conservation

Sleep Environment Recommendations for Future Spaceflight Vehicles

Current evidence demonstrates that astronauts experience sleep loss and circadian desynchronization during spaceflight. Ground-based evidence demonstrates that these conditions lead to reduced performance, increased risk of injuries and accidents, and short and long-term health consequences. Many of the factors contributing to these conditions relate to the habitability of the sleep environment. Noise, inadequate temperature and airflow, and inappropriate lighting and light pollution have each been associated with sleep loss and circadian misalignment during spaceflight operations and on Earth. As NASA prepares to send astronauts on long-duration, deep space missions, it is critical that the habitability of the sleep environment provide adequate mitigations for potential sleep disruptors. We conducted a comprehensive literature review summarizing optimal sleep hygiene parameters for lighting, temperature, airflow, humidity, comfort, intermittent and erratic sounds, and privacy and security in the sleep environment. We reviewed the design and use of sleep environments in a wide range of cohorts including among aquanauts, expeditioners, pilots, military personnel and ship operators. We also reviewed the specifications and sleep quality data arising from every NASA spaceflight mission, beginning with Gemini. Finally, we conducted structured interviews with individuals experienced sleeping in non-traditional spaces including oil rig workers, Navy personnel, astronauts, and expeditioners. We also interviewed the engineers responsible for the design of the sleeping quarters presently deployed on the International Space Station. We found that the optimal sleep environment is cool, dark, quiet, and is perceived as safe and private. There are wide individual differences in the preferred sleep environment; therefore modifiable sleeping compartments are necessary to ensure all crewmembers are able to select personalized configurations for optimal sleep. A sub-optimal sleep environment is tolerable for only a limited time, therefore individual sleeping quarters should be designed for long-duration missions. In a confined space, the sleep environment serves a dual purpose as a place to sleep, but also as a place for storing personal items and as a place for privacy during non-sleep times. This need for privacy during sleep and wake appears to be critically important to the psychological well-being of crewmembers on long-duration missions

Let us now praise famous men: A history the American World War II personal narrative, 1942-1945

This dissertation charts the publishing history, marketing, packaging, authorship, and reviewing of WWII personal narratives, explores connections between wartime narratives and issues of censorship, rationing, and the use of books as propaganda, and closely examines the main themes of twenty-five of the nearly two hundred written between 1942 and 1945. The books being assayed offered an insider\u27s view of combat from every theater of war and every branch of the service as well as the Merchant Marines.;An offshoot of the documentary impulse of the Thirties, the personal narrative became an American publishing phenomenon during the next decade\u27s war. In general, the fundamental character of the American white male hero was portrayed in the trials and triumphs of the citizen-soldier of democracy. Narratives celebrated the transformation of the Thirties common man into the giant in the earth figure, cast simultaneously in an ordinary and epical mold.;In each decade, monumental challenges galvanized witnesses to provide insightful information about events which affected millions. to serve a different set of war-related needs, however, the WWII books recruited new writers, acquired new commercial sponsors, and drew upon Hemingway\u27s concrete renditions of war. In order to sustain morale on the home front and in the armed forces, civilians obtained these war narratives (GI\u27s received a different set of Armed Services Editions). For the publishers of personal narratives, patriotism and profits went hand in hand.;The war narratives performed crucial ideological work. They engaged issues that touched deep anxieties in the public. Amidst a vast military effort that mobilized millions for a far-flung international conflict, these books personalized the soldier thereby keeping alive the American ideal of the heroic individual, full of can-do spirit, committed to democracy, ready to sacrifice his life for a return to an American way of an American way of life. Romanticizing the individual, they reinforced deep-seated national myths

A Doctrine Reader: The Navies of United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Spain

In March 1993. the United States Navy and Marine Corps established the Naval Doctrine Command as the primary authority for the development of naval concepts and integrated naval doctrine. It has several specific roles-serving as the coordinating authority for the development and evaluation of Navy service-unique doctrine. providing a coordinated Navy-Marine Corps voice in joint and combined doctrine development. and ensuring that naval and joint doctrine are addressed in training and education curricula and in operations. exercises. and war games.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/usnwc-newport-papers/1008/thumbnail.jp

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 312)

This bibliography lists 300 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in June, 1988

Proceedings of the 1993 Conference on Intelligent Computer-Aided Training and Virtual Environment Technology

The volume 2 proceedings from the 1993 Conference on Intelligent Computer-Aided Training and Virtual Environment Technology are presented. Topics discussed include intelligent computer assisted training (ICAT) systems architectures, ICAT educational and medical applications, virtual environment (VE) training and assessment, human factors engineering and VE, ICAT theory and natural language processing, ICAT military applications, VE engineering applications, ICAT knowledge acquisition processes and applications, and ICAT aerospace applications

Command in air war : centralized vs. decentralized control of combat airpower

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology, Management, and Policy Program, 2005.Includes bibliographical references.This study answers the question, "What has been the impact of the Information Age on the Air Force's doctrinal tenet of "centralized control and decentralized execution?" It traces the evolution of command and control of airpower through operations Desert Storm, Allied Force, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom and compares its practice with classic theories established by Huntington, Cohen, Van Creveld, and Air Force doctrine. In the absence of a peer superpower in the 1990s, U.S. decision-makers often resorted to the use of detailed constraints to gain direct influence on military operations. The more detailed the constraints from the strategic level, the closer the theater military commander held authority for planning air strikes, and the less proactive the air component was in coordinating with other components. The Air Force developed the Air Operations Center (AOC) to put together battlespace information; it is not yet possible to do this at lower levels, so the AOC has become dominant in controlling air operations. Initially resistant to get involved in ongoing missions, commanders found the AOC was needed to accomplish some "time-sensitive targeting" missions; however, they have also learn to delegate to speed up the processes.(cont.) But the insertion of the AOC into ongoing operations also led to distribution of tasks-where before the aircrew had performed the whole "kill chain" sequence, now the aircrew often performed only the end game tasks. This distribution could increase the potential for system accidents because people tend to drift from procedures during slack times and thus to be disintegrated when the system becomes tightly coupled. Technology has not changed the fundamental principles of command and control. The information, telecommunications, sensor and weapons technology have altered the way these humans perform their jobs, and even the jobs they perform. But commanders still need to cultivate a learning organization. Uncertainty and the coupling of diverse organizations still require that they balance empowerment with accountability by developing depth in the command relationships among their subordinates. Commanders can best gain this depth through deliberate delegation, a bruising debate, and assessment of results rather than management of specific details.by Michael W. Kometer.Ph.D