ISSLIVE! Bringing the Space Station to Every Generation

Just 200 miles above us, the International Space Station (ISS) is orbiting. Each day, the astronauts on board perform a variety of activities from exercise, science experiments, and maintenance. Yet, many on the ground don?t know about these daily activities. ISSLive! - an education project - is working to bridge this knowledge gap with traditional education channels such as schools, but also non-traditional channels with the non-technical everyday public. ISSLive! provides a website that seamlessly integrates planning and telemetry data, video feeds, 3D models, and iOS and android applications. Through the site, users are able to view astronauts? daily schedules, in plain English alongside the original data. As an example, when an astronaut is working with a science experiment, a user will be able to read about the activity and for more detailed activities follow provided links to view more information -- all integrated into the same site. Live telemetry data from a predefined set can also be provided alongside the activities. For users to learn more, 3D models of the external and internal parts of the ISS are available, allowing users to explore the station and even select sensors, such as temperature, and view a real-time chart of the data. Even ground operations are modelled with a 3D mission control center, providing users information on the various flight control disciplines and showing live data that they would be monitoring. Some unique activities are also highlighted, and have dedicated spaces to explore in more detail. Education is the focus of ISSLive!, even from the beginning when university students participated in the development process as part of their master?s projects. Focus groups at a Houston school showed interest in the project, and excitement towards including ISSLive! in their classroom. Through this inclusion, student?s knowledge can be assessed with projects, oral presentations, and other assignments. For the public citizens outside of the traditional education system, ISSLive! provides a single, interactive, and engaging experience to learn about the ISS and its role in space exploration, international collaboration, and science. While traditional students are using ISSLive! in the classroom, their parents, grandparents, and friends are using it at home. ISSLive! truly brings the daily operations of the ISS into the daily lives of the public from every generation

Kennedy Space Center Annual Report, FY 1997

The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has a nearly 40-year tradition of excellence in processing and launching space vehicles and their payloads. The Center's outstanding record of achievements in America's space program has earned it an honored place in history and an essential role in the present; KSC also intends to play a vital part in the future of space exploration

STS-81 Space Shuttle Mission Report

STS-81 was the fifth of nine planned missions to dock with the Russian Mir Space Station and the fourth crewmember transfer mission. The double Spacehab module was carried for the second time, and it housed experiments that were performed by the crew and logistics equipment that was transferred to the Mir

Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students

Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM), an education activity, allows middle school students to program a digital camera on board the International Space Station to photograph a variety of geographical targets for study in the classroom. Photos are made available on the web for viewing and study by participating schools around the world. Educators use the images for projects involving Earth Science, geography, physics, and social science

STS-76 Space Shuttle Mission Report

The STS-76 Space Shuttle Program Mission Report summarizes the Payload activities as well as the Orbiter, External Tank (ET), Solid Rocket Booster (SRB), Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM), and the Space Shuttle main engine (SSME) systems performance during the seventy-sixth flight of the Space Shuttle Program, the fifty-first flight since the return-to-flight, and the sixteenth flight of the Orbiter Atlantis (OV-104). In addition to the Orbiter, the flight vehicle consisted of an ET that was designated ET-77; three SSME's that were designated as serial numbers 2035, 2109, and 2019 in positions 1, 2, and 3, respectively; and two SRB's that were designated BI-079. The RSRM's, designated RSRM-46, were installed in each SRB and the individual RSRM's were designated as 360TO46A for the left SRB, and 360TO46B for the right SRB. The primary objectives of this flight were to rendezvous and dock with the Mir Space Station and transfer one U.S. Astronaut to the Mir. A single Spacehab module carried science equipment and hardware, Risk Mitigation Experiments (RME's), and Russian Logistics in support of the Phase 1 Program requirements. In addition, the European Space Agency (ESA) Biorack operations were performed. Appendix A lists the sources of data, both formal and informal, that were used to prepare this report. Appendix B provides the definition of acronyms and abbreviations used throughout the report. All times during the flight are given in Greenwich mean time (GMT) and mission elapsed time (MET)

Astronaut-Acquired Photography of Earth: Its History and Continued Applicability in Quantitative Analyses

Aerial and satellite photography has been used extensively in many different research efforts, for example, atmospheric studies, vegetation analysis, and change detection. Archives of historical aerial and satellite photography are a valuable resource to the science community. There is currently an archive of over 450,000 photographs of Earth taken by United States astronauts dating back to the early 1960\u27s. This archive covers the majority of the Earth\u27s surface and offers imagery taken by a variety of camera configurations including film and digital, various lenses, different look angles, and changing solar illuminance. There is extensive repeat coverage over many regions of the world\u27s landscape. These photographs have been increasingly analyzed in order to assess their potential as a remote sensing resource. The objectives of this paper are to give the reader an evolutionary history of astronaut-acquired imagery of Earth, and to discuss the many scientific analyses that have been successfully completed using this underutilized resource

Photographing the Earth G324: The Can Do GeoCam payload

The flight of the Charleston County School District Can Do Project GeoCam payload on STS-57 was the climax of a decade long endeavor to bring the promise and excitement of the space program directly into the classroom. The payload carried four cameras designed to take high resolution photographs of the Earth under the direction of children operating the first ever student control room. During the course of the flight, the students followed the Shuttle's orbital tract, satellite weather images and selected a target list that was sent up to the crew each night as part of the execute package. Targets from this list, as well as ones chosen by the crew visually, resulted in the successful collection of photographic runs at many interesting sites on three on three continents

Index to NASA News Releases 1995

This issue of the index to NASA News Releases contains a listing of news releases distributed by the Office of Public Affairs, NASA Headquarters, during 1995. The index is arranged in six sections: Subject index, Personal name index, News release number index, Accession number index, Speeches, and News releases

Educating Middle School Students Through the Implementation of Near Earth Aerial Tracking

This project describes the importance of Near Earth Aerial Tracking as an educative tool, and how its use may broaden students\u27 interest in their local environment. The goal of this project was to use Near Earth Aerial Tracking to encourage students and professionals to collect data regarding the vegetative health of plant life in their communities. In order to achieve this goal, we achieved three objectives; we analyzed already existing programs, optimized our equipment and program, and designed an integrated curriculum for students. Two kits were designed as a result of this project. These kits help encourage the reinforcement of mathematics, science, engineering and technology

Playing at Birth: Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren

"What follows, then, needs to be understood as involving an ethical critique of concrete political structures and as not simply concerned with the writing of the text before us because, as I will argue, the city along with every subjectival creation is a product of myth. Delany’s text interrogates such monumental myths through a representation of the city (and thereby, the subject) as wounded and open to certain ethical possibilities. In its fragmentation Delany’s text represents, internally and externally, subjectivity at its limit, which is to say, a “subjectivity” whose assimilative powers have been overwhelmed by the experience of the death of the other,exposing it to community. However, I read Dhalgren first as a way of thinking about how writing can mitigate against the monumentalism of the subject and the subject’s myths that obsess after non-relation, eliding that birth or (communal) relation that comes from the outside and others. Dhalgren becomes above all a “novel” which plays at birth, at never getting beyond birth, always coming and never arriving at presence, and, hence, always remaining with others.