Battery-operated Independent Radiation Detector Data Report from Exploration Flight Test 1

Citation: Bahadori AA, Semones EJ, Gaza R, Kroupa M, Rios RR, Stoffle NN, Campbell-Ricketts T, Pinsky LS, and Turecek D 2015 Battery-operated Independent Radiation Detector Data Report from Exploration Flight Test 1 NASA/TP-2015-218575 NASA Johnson Space Center: Houston, TX http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/397.refer.htmlThis report summarizes the data acquired by the Battery-operated Independent Radiation Detector (BIRD) during Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1). The BIRD, consisting of two redundant subsystems isolated electronically from the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), was developed to fly on the Orion EFT-1 to acquire radiation data throughout the mission. The BIRD subsystems successfully triggered using on-board accelerometers in response to launch accelerations, acquired and archived data through landing, and completed the shut down routine when battery voltage decreased to a specified value. The data acquired are important for understanding the radiation environment within the Orion MPCV during transit through the trapped radiation belts

Verification of Dosimetry Measurements with Timepix Pixel Detectors for Space Applications

The current capabilities of modern pixel-detector technology has provided the possibility to design a new generation of radiation monitors. Timepix detectors are semiconductor pixel detectors based on a hybrid configuration. As such, the read-out chip can be used with different types and thicknesses of sensors. For space radiation dosimetry applications, Timepix devices with 300 and 500 microns thick silicon sensors have been used by a collaboration between NASA and University of Houston to explore their performance. For that purpose, an extensive evaluation of the response of Timepix for such applications has been performed. Timepix-based devices were tested in many different environments both at ground-based accelerator facilities such as HIMAC (Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba, Japan), and at NSRL (NASA Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY), as well as in space on board of the International Space Station (ISS). These tests have included a wide range of the particle types and energies, from protons through iron nuclei. The results have been compared both with other devices and theoretical values. This effort has demonstrated that Timepix-based detectors are exceptionally capable at providing accurate dosimetry measurements in this application as verified by the confirming correspondence with the other accepted techniques

Indigenous Knowledge and Long-term Ecological Change: Detection, Interpretation, and Responses to Changing Ecological Conditions in Pacific Island Communities

When local resource users detect, understand, and respond to environmental change they can more effectively manage environmental resources. This article assesses these abilities among artisanal fishers in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. In a comparison of two villages, it documents local resource users’ abilities to monitor long-term ecological change occurring to seagrass meadows near their communities, their understandings of the drivers of change, and their conceptualizations of seagrass ecology. Local observations of ecological change are compared with historical aerial photography and IKONOS satellite images that show 56 years of actual changes in seagrass meadows from 1947 to 2003. Results suggest that villagers detect long-term changes in the spatial cover of rapidly expanding seagrass meadows. However, for seagrass meadows that showed no long-term expansion or contraction in spatial cover over one-third of respondents incorrectly assumed changes had occurred. Examples from a community-based management initiative designed around indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure governance show how local observations of ecological change shape marine resource use and practices which, in turn, can increase the management adaptability of indigenous or hybrid governance systems

Talking with a Volcano: Native American Perspectives on the Eruption of Sunset Crater, Arizona

A new volcano erupted in the eleventh century AD in the San Francisco volcanic field, which has as many as 80 old volcanoes and 600 eruption cones all centered around Flagstaff, Arizona. This volcanic landscape has been a cultural center for Native American spiritual activities for up to 23,000 years. During that time, they have come to perceive volcanoes as earth navels and thus places where the earth is reborn. For this reason, the emergence of an active volcano, called Sunset Crater, drew pilgrims and resulted in the construction of ceremonial and support communities surrounding a place called Wupatki. This paper is partially based on a 2004 study funded by the U.S. National Park Service, which produced 80 ethnographic interviews with representatives of six Native American ethnic groups composed of 12 tribes and pueblos. The analysis is informed by a total of 23 ethnographic studies of volcanoes conducted with Native Americans by the authors. In all studies, Native American participants conveyed that they have cultural connections with volcanoes that derive from their Creation-based knowledge of the Earth as being alive and volcanoes being its rebirth. Traditional cultural information is critical to park management and compliance with various laws, regulations, executive orders, and policies so that park managers can better address tribal requests for continued access, use, and interpretation of park natural resources. Native Americans involved in our NPS ethnographic studies agreed that it is not necessary for the NPS to accept as true what Native Americans believe, but it is essential to tell in park interpretative settings both stories side by side with equal accuracy. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Landscape Is Alive: Nuwuvi Pilgrimage and Power Places in Nevada

Cultural landscapes are defined at Creation, according to the beliefs of the Nuwuvi (Paiute) and Newe (Shoshone peoples). After Creation, the Native people came to understand the purpose of living landscapes and special places within them. During this time, some places that were designated as essential parts of landscapes at Creation had been inscribed by Native people with peckings and paintings and honored with offerings. Special spiritual places within the landscape were networked like the pearls on a string to produce the foundation of pilgrimage trails. This is an analysis of one such valley landscape in southern Nevada, USA and a pilgrimage trail extending between the Pahranagat Valley and the Corn Creek oasis at the foot of the Paiute Origin place called Nuvagantu (Spring Mountains). Tribal representatives from 18 consulting tribes participated in a special environmental impact assessment to explain this landscape, its components, and potential impacts that could derive from it being removed from a wildlife refuge to become a part of a military land and air use area. © 2022 by the authors.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Choosing Our Futures

published or submitted for publicatio

Sustainable heritage tourism: Native american preservation recommendations at arches, canyonlands, and hovenweep national parks

The sustainable use of Native American heritage places is viewed in this analysis as serving to preserve their traditional purposes and sustaining the cultural landscapes that give them heritage meaning. The research concerns the potential impacts of heritage tourism to selected Native American places at Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Hovenweep National Monument. The impacts of tourists on a heritage place must be understood as having both potential effects on the place itself and on an integrated cultural landscape. Impacts to one place potentially change other places. Their functions in a Native American landscape, and the integrity of the landscape itself. The analysis is based on 696 interviews with representatives from nine tribes and pueblos, who, in addition to defining the cultural meaning of places, officially made 349 heritage management recommendations. The U.S. National Park Service interprets Natives American resources and then brings millions of tourists to these through museums, brochures, outdoor displays, and ranger-guided tours. Native American ethnographic study participants argued that tourist education and regulation can increase the sustainability of Native American places in a park and can help protect related places beyond the park. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Human dimensions of marine reserve policy-applications in Bimini

This paper discusses the importance of including sociocultural and economic variables in the design of a particular marine resource management strategy. Marine reserves, a type of marine protected area (MPA) that commonly excludes all extractive activities, have become an increasingly popular tool for resource management. We focus on the case the small islands of Bimini, Bahamas, located next to the Gulf Stream on the northwestern edge of the Grand Bahama Bank and about 88 kilometers from the coast of southern Florida, U.S. A portion of the marine waters surrounding North Bimini is one of five sites proposed, in January 2000, to be a marine reserve by the Bahamian government. The case of Bimini illustrates the inextricable linkages between human activities and the marine environment, and the need to consider human behavior as a key factor in the design of protected areas. The following themes are reviewed: marine reserve policy with focus on sociocultural and economic variables; historical, socioeconomic and cultural factors of the Bimini Islands; Bahamian interest in a Bimini marine protected area; standard socioeconomic parameters useful to marine reserve policy; and finally, our research interests