Paper Session II-B - 3,2,1...Liftoff: Building a Way Station to Space

Cape Canaveral is a protrusion of land, sand, salt grass and thickly matted coastal vegetation jutting from the Florida peninsula into the Atlantic Ocean. First encountered by European explorers and identified on maps as early as 1502, the cape became a milepost and way station by which Western civilization came to the New World. Ponce de Leon, who explored the area around Cape Canaveral in 1513, and multitudes of aerospace engineers, scientists, technicians, administrators, businesses, and their associates throughout the old world and the new, through NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, share a common bond in the continuing exploration of the total human environment. By the close of the millennium Cape Canaveral’s John F. Kennedy Space Center had become the base from which the civilizations of Earth were going into space and out to other worlds. Kennedy Space Center’s first Director, Dr. Kurt H. Debus, perhaps reflecting on the common heritage of the New World explorers and the Other World explorers engaged in space and planetary exploration, observed that “Space is not something new. It’s part of the total environment, and we’ve been looking for the total environment ever since we looked out of caves at the stars.

Paper Session II-A - Navigating the Air: A History of Flight Before the Wright Brothers

When, on June 5 1783, Joseph and Etienne de Montgolfier launched for the first time in public their MACHINE AEROSTATIQUE, an immense enthusiasm took over the whole world. Never, except perhaps with the discovery of America, did any scientific event captured so much the passions of the masses: It seemed that finally MAN had conquered the atmosphere. HE was the master of the air just as much as he was already the master of the Earth and the Sea. Space belonged to him, and for most enthusiasts going to the moon was going to be just a game. Now a century or more has passed, and the hopes that the invention of Montgolfier had raised have not yet been realized in spite of the very large progresses that have been made. [Are] ... the roads of the atmosphere are closed to us forever? Must we no longer hope to follow one day the eagle in his flight because after 125 years man cannot yet travel at his will within space [the atmosphere]? ... all leads us to expect that the 20th century will bring us the complete solution to the problem. Will it be through Dirigible Balloons? Or through the pure heavier than air aircrafts? The future will teach us soon... J. LeCornu, Editor La Navigation Aerienne Paris, 190

Suddenly, tomorrow came... A history of the Johnson Space Center

This book chronicles the history of the Johnson Space Center into 17 chapters with a forward written by Donald K. Slayton. Photographs and illustrations are provided. This book becomes part of the NASA history series

Recurrent climate winter regimes in reconstructed and modelled 500hPa geopotential height fields over the North Atlantic/European sector 1659-1990

Recurrent climate winter regimes are examined from statistically reconstructed and modelled 500hPa geopotential height fields over the North Atlantic/European sector for the period 1659-1990. We investigate the probability density function of the state space spanned by the first two empirical orthogonal functions of combined winter data. Regimes are detected as patterns that correspond to areas of the state space with an unexpected high recurrence probability using a Monte Carlo approach. The reconstruction and the model reveal four recurrent climate regimes. They correspond to the two phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation and two opposite blocking patterns. Complemented by the investigation of the temporal evolution of the climate regimes this leads to the conclusion that the reconstructed and the modelled data for this geographic sector reproduce low-frequency atmospheric variability in the form of regime-like behaviour. The overall evidence for recurrent climate regimes is higher for the model than for the reconstruction. However, comparisons with independent data sources for the period 1659-1990 revealed a more realistic temporal evolution of the regimes for the reconstructed dat

Investigation of microstructure defects in EUROFER97 under He⁺/Fe³⁺ dual ion beam irradiation

Fusion like conditions for reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steels in the first wall are simulated with single Fe3+ and He+/Fe3+ dual ion beam irradiation of EUROFER97 at the Jannus laboratory, CEA Saclay, introducing a damage of 16 dpa and a helium content up to 260 appm. The samples are irradiated at temperatures of 330 °C, 400 °C and 500 °C. The quantitative determination of size distribution and density of dislocation loops is obtained using weak-beam dark-field imaging mode. Burgers vectors of a02〈111〉 are observed for the majority of dislocation loops at irradiation temperatures of 330 °C and 400 °C. At 500 °C no dislocation loops are found. The impact of single and dual ion beam irradiation on mechanical properties is determined by means of nanoindentation. An increase in nano-hardness of up to 35% due to irradiation was measured at samples irradiated at 400 °C. A kinetic rate model is applied for the description of nucleation and evolution of helium bubbles and compared with the experimental results. Evaluating the rate model with help of TEM-results for size and density of bubbles indicates the nucleation scheme as the main source for quantitative disagreement between the model and irradiation. Keywords: Radiation effects, Ion irradiation, Cluster dynamics, Fusion, Helium bubbles, RAFM steel

Recent Arctic amplification and extreme mid-latitude weather

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature via the DOI in this record.The Arctic region has warmed more than twice as fast as the global average — a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. The rapid Arctic warming has contributed to dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice and spring snow cover, at a pace greater than that simulated by climate models. These profound changes to the Arctic system have coincided with a period of ostensibly more frequent extreme weather events across the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, including severe winters. The possibility of a link between Arctic change and mid-latitude weather has spurred research activities that reveal three potential dynamical pathways linking Arctic amplification to mid-latitude weather: changes in storm tracks, the jet stream, and planetary waves and their associated energy propagation. Through changes in these key atmospheric features, it is possible, in principle, for sea ice and snow cover to jointly influence mid-latitude weather. However, because of incomplete knowledge of how high-latitude climate change influences these phenomena, combined with sparse and short data records, and imperfect models, large uncertainties regarding the magnitude of such an influence remain. We conclude that improved process understanding, sustained and additional Arctic observations, and better coordinated modelling studies will be needed to advance our understanding of the influences on mid-latitude weather and extreme events

Arctic Summer Sea Ice Melt and Related Atmospheric Conditions in Coupled Regional Climate Model Simulations and Observations

Observations from 1979 to 2014 show a positive trend in the summer sea ice melt rate with an acceleration particularly in June and August. This is associated with atmospheric circulation changes such as a tendency toward a dipole pattern in the mean sea level pressure (SLP) trend with an increase over the Arctic Ocean and a decrease over Siberia. Consistent with previous studies, we here show the statistical relationship between the summer sea ice melt rate and SLP and that more than one SLP pattern is associated with anomalously high melt rates. Most high melt rates occur during high pressure over the Arctic Ocean accompanied by low pressure over Siberia, but a strong Beaufort High and advection of warm air associated with a cyclone located over the Taymyr Peninsula can also trigger anomalous high ice melt. We evaluate 10-member ensemble simulations with the coupled atmosphere-ice-ocean Arctic regional climate model HIRHAM-NAOSIM. The simulations have systematically low acceleration of sea ice melt rate in August, related to shortcomings in representing the strengthening pressure gradient from the Barents/Kara Sea toward Northern Greenland in recent decades. In general, the model shows the same classification of SLP patterns related to anomalous melt rates as the observations. However, the evolution of sea ice melt-related cloud-radiation feedback over the summer reveals contrary effects from low-level clouds in the reanalysis and in the simulations