This thesis investigates the design of a CubeLab Module frame to facilitate biological research aboard the International Space Station (ISS). With the National Laboratory designation of the ISS by the United States Congress the barriers for use of the facility have been lowered for commercial and academic entities, allowing greater volume and diversity in the research that can be done. Researchers in biology and other areas could benefit from development and adoption of a plug-and-play payload containment system for use in the microgravity/space environment of the ISS. This research includes design and analysis of such a system. It also includes production and testing of a prototype. The relevant NASA requirements are documented, and they were considered during the design phase. Results from finite element analyses to predict performance of a proposed design under expected service conditions are reported. Results from functional testing of the prototype are also provided. A discussion of future work needed before the structure outlined in this thesis can become commercially viable is also presented.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Europe and Eurasia))--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Abenheim, Donald. "June 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on July 13, 2009. Author(s) subject terms: NASA, European Space Agency, ESA, International Cooperation, Transatlantic Relations, Nationalism, INTELSAT, Ulysses, Galileo, SOFIA, ISS, International Space Station, Constellation, Aurora, Vision for Space Exploration, Moon, Mars. Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-95). Also available in print.

The International Space Station provides a high-quality of microgravity and extended exposure time which makes it a platform of choice for microgravity research. In order to increase accessibility of onboard experimentation, Space Applications Services will soon launch the ICE Cubes facility as part of its ICE Cubes Service. The facility is foreseen to host standardized plug-and-play payload cubes to reduce overall cost and procedure time required to install payloads on the station. To remotely support the facility it is decided to develop a utility cube named Cube-Zero that will be launched and installed with the facility on the station. This thesis work included the complete design, development and documentation of the cube. The thesis started by conducting a preliminary needs and market study from which two specific purposes were defined for the cube. In addition to its original function of support-utility, the cube is tasked to be a technical commercial demonstrator for the service. This led to the conceptual design of the cube as a multidisciplinary framework able to host two user-defined experiment modules. The preliminary concept was further refined in this paper and with support of prototypes, simulations and analyses led to a final functional design for the Cube-Zero. The work is concluded with the manufacturing of an engineering model of the cube. The model is fully operational, can support the test of the facility before launch and can demonstrate to users its versatility and ease of use in operating any kind of experiment module. Eventually, the information gathered in this thesis report will support future users into developing their own Cube-Zero payload module and guide Space Applications Services into manufacturing, testing and operating the Cube-Zero protoflight model. / ICE Cubes

Capillary flows continue to be important in numerous spacecraft systems where the effective magnitude of the gravity vector is approximately one millionth that of normal Earth gravity. Due to the free fall state of orbiting spacecraft, the effects of capillarity on the fluid systems onboard can dominate the fluid behavior over large length scales. In this research three investigations are pursued where the unique interplay between surface tension forces, wetting characteristics, and system geometry control the fluid behavior, whether in large systems aboard spacecraft, or micro-scale systems on Earth. First, efforts in support of two International Space Station (ISS) experiments are reported. A description of the development of a new NASA ground station at Portland State University is provided along with descriptions of astronaut training activities for the proper operation of four handheld experiments currently in orbit as part of the second iteration of the Capillary Flow Experiments (CFE-2). Concerning the latter, seven more vessels are expected to be launched to the ISS shortly. Analysis of the data alongside numerical simulations shows excellent agreement with theory, and a new intuitive method of viewing critical wetting angles and fluid bulk shift phenomena is offered. Secondly, during the CFE-2 space experiments, unplanned peripheral observations revealed that, on occasion, rapidly compressed air bubbles migrate along paths with vector components common to the residual acceleration onboard the ISS. Unexpectedly however, the migration velocities could be shown to be up to three orders of magnitude greater than the appropriate Stokes flow limit! Likely mechanisms are explored analytically and experimentally while citing prior theoretical works that may have anticipated such phenomena. Once properly understood, compressed bubble migration may be used as an elegant method for phase separation in spacecraft systems or microgravity-based materials manufacturing. Lastly, the stability of drops on surfaces is important in a variety of natural and industrial processes. So called 'wall-edge-vertex bound drops' (a.k.a. drops on blade tips or drops on leaf tips which they resemble) are explored using a numerical approach which applies the Surface Evolver algorithm through implementation of a new file layer and a multi-parameter sweep function. As part of a recently open sourced SE-FIT software, thousands of critical drop configurations are efficiently computed as functions of contact angle, blade edge vertex half-angle, and g-orientation. With the support of other graduate students, simple experiments are performed to benchmark the computations which are then correlated for ease of application. It is shown that sessile, pendant, and wall-edge bound drops are only limiting cases of the more generalized blade-bound drops, and that a ubiquitous 'dry leaf tip' is observed for a range of the critical geometric and wetting parameters.

Yes / Background: Understanding and countering the well-established negative health consequences of spaceflight remains a primary challenge preventing safe deep space exploration. Targeted/personalized therapeutics are at the forefront of space medicine strategies, and cross-species molecular signatures now define the 'typical' spaceflight response. However, a lack of direct genotype-phenotype associations currently limits the robustness and, therefore, the therapeutic utility of putative mechanisms underpinning pathological changes in flight. Methods: We employed the worm Caenorhabditis elegans as a validated model of space biology, combined with 'NemaFlex-S' microfluidic devices for assessing animal strength production as one of the most reproducible physiological responses to spaceflight. Wild-type and dys-1 (BZ33) strains (a Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) model for comparing predisposed muscle weak animals) were cultured on the International Space Station in chemically defined media before loading second-generation gravid adults into NemaFlex-S devices to assess individual animal strength. These same cultures were then frozen on orbit before returning to Earth for next-generation sequencing transcriptomic analysis. Results: Neuromuscular strength was lower in flight versus ground controls (16.6% decline, p

Régis par une rhétorique opposant « science » et « politique », les programmes de stations spatiales civiles sont présentés comme projets diplomatiques censés adoucir des tensions géopolitiques, justifiés par les possibilités d’expérimentation en condition de micropesanteur qu’ils octroient à la communauté scientifique et industrielle internationale. Précédée par des collaborations officieuses entre laboratoires européens et soviétiques, l’Europe de l’Ouest entre dans l’exploration spatiale habitée en 1982. Depuis, l’entraînement et le transport des astronautes de l’Agence spatiale européenne (ESA) se partagent entre les États-Unis (NASA) et la Russie (Roscosmos), dont les programmes nationaux pourvoient leur gouvernement en autonomie de lancement et de transport spatial. Au fil des décennies, alors que les agences spatiales détenant un programme habité (à l’exception de la Chine) se rejoignent dans un projet commun à partir de la fin des années 1990 (l’International Space Station), et alors que la Russie devient détentrice d’un monopole d’accès à l’espace à partir de 2011, les mécanismes symboliques et politiques structurant le programme spatial habité européen évoluent en conséquence. L’entraînement des astronautes en Russie, relatif à ce monopole des lancements habités, entraine la reproduction de traditions et rituels qui, hérités du spatial soviétique, en viennent à constituer l’armature symbolique et axiologique d’un corps d’astronautes en charge de représenter « l’unité dans la diversité » propre à l’Europe. Nourrissant des relations plus ou moins institutionnalisées avec d’anciennes républiques socialistes du fait de son autonomie (de plus en plus relative) vis-à-vis de l’Union Européenne, l’ESA devient progressivement une plateforme via laquelle le procès de restructuration des États d’Europe de l’Est entamé à la fin des années 1980 peut être analysé à l’aune des réseaux industriels, des interdépendances techniques et des échanges scientifiques qui y transitent. Afin de saisir ces relations d’interdépendances, une approche par la théorie des champs semble pertinente à deux points de vue. Tout d’abord, s’intéresser à la genèse et à l’organisation du programme spatial habité européen suppose de considérer ce dernier comme le résultat d’une trajectoire institutionnelle empruntant à différents champs : autorité cognitive de la science moderne, rôle de la production industrielle dans la construction étatique, et rapport à la territorialisation dans l’exercice d’un pouvoir politique national contribuent à la morphologie actuelle des affaires spatiales en Europe. Ensuite, une analyse bourdieusienne permet de circonscrire les vols habités comme un espace social structuré, où se convertissent, se maintiennent et se confrontent des capitaux portés par des acteurs de champs de production autonomes. L’économie des relations entre science, industrie et État, esquissée au gré de ce pari théorique, permet d’envisager certaines des conditions sociales par lesquelles les manières de « faire État » en Europe occidentale et le développement de la bureaucratie ont pu être nourris par des développements scientifiques et techniques profondément ancrés dans le temps comme dans l’espace. Mettant particulièrement en lumière la formation des habitus des astronautes de l’ESA, l’esquisse d’une théorie d’un « champ de médiation » est appréhendée, de manière à saisir les conditions de ces relations structurelles entre champs scientifique, industriel et bureaucratique dans le cas d’un secteur spatial en mutation. / Ruled by a rhetoric which opposes “science” and “politics”, civil space stations programmes are often introduced as diplomatic projects supposed to soften geopolitical tensions, then justified by the possibilities of experimentation under microgravity that those stations grant to the international scientific and industrial community. Preceded by informal collaborations between European and Soviet laboratories, Western Europe starts its entry into human spaceflights in 1982. Since then, the training and transport of astronauts from the European Space Agency (ESA) have been shared between United States (NASA) and Russia (Roscosmos), whose national programmes provide autonomous launch and space transport capacities. Over the decades, while space agencies holding a human space programme (except China) join in a common project from late 1990 (the International Space Station), and as Russia becomes the holder of a monopoly regarding access to space from 2011, symbolic and political mechanisms structuring the European human space programme evolve accordingly. The training of astronauts in Russia, relating to this monopoly of crews’ transportation, entails the reproduction of traditions and rituals which, inherited from the Soviet space era, contributes to the symbolic and axiological building of an astronaut corps in charge of representing Europe’s “unity in diversity”. Nourishing more or less institutionalized relations with former Socialist republics because of its (increasingly relative) autonomy towards the European Union, ESA gradually becomes a platform through which the structuration of Eastern European States, started in the late 1980s, can be analyzed through industrial networks, technical interdependencies and scientific exchanges that pass through. In order to grasp these interdependencies, the fruitfulness of an approach by the field theory can be resumed in two arguments. First, taking an interest in the genesis and organization of the European inhabited space programme implies that the latter should be regarded as the result of an institutional trajectory borrowing from different fields: cognitive authority of the occidental modern science, role of industrial production in State construction, and territorialization in the exercise of a national political power contribute to the current morphology of space affairs in Europe. Secondly, a Bourdieusien analysis allows circumscribing human space flights as a structured social space, where are converted, maintained and confronted capitals which are carried by actors of autonomous fields of production. This, without a priori postulating the loss of autonomy of one of these fields. The economy of relations between science, industry and the State, sketched at the whim of this theoretical wager, then allows to envisage some of the social conditions by which scientific and technical developments, deeply rooted in time and space, could contribute to shaping the ways of “making State” and to the development of bureaucracy in western Europe. With particular emphasis on the training of ESA astronauts, the outline of a “mediation field” theory is apprehended, so as to understand conditions of these structural relations between scientific, industrial and bureaucratic fields in the case of a changing space sector. Based on multisite and multilevel ethnography (United Nations, ESA technical centres, control centres), interviews with scientists, space agency officials, operators and crew members of the agencies contributing to the ISS (N = 182), as well as archival work (EU, ESA and Soviet Academy of Sciences), this study shows how “Space Europe” (as the EU and ESA refer to it) “takes shape” and reproduces the symbolic conditions of its internal cohesion (i.e. values and identity binding its member-States) through the daily organization (procedural, mental and carnal) of its crewed space program.

This diploma thesis analyzes the actual travelling possibilities into space for space tourists. Following a general clarification of key concepts in the area of cosmonautics, aeronautical technology and physics as well as definition of space tourism and space tourist, this thesis deals with travelling to the International Space Station by means of the Russian spaceship Sojuz TMA. A review for the significant initiative Ansari X Prize follows, which became the moving power for emergence of private companies in the field of manned cosmonautics. After that, a cross-sectional analysis of the most successful space project in the Ansari X Prize Competition by Virgin Galactic, being the leader on the nascent market of commercial suborbital flights, is performed. Virgin Galactic offers its clients so called suborbital jumps on the threshold of space for the fragment of high price in comparison with a several-day stay on the ISS. The thesis is concluded by author's questionnaire involving two groups of experts: technical experts as well as marketing and product development professionals in the field of tourism.

Despite the critical importance of project completion timeliness, management practices in place today remain inadequate for addressing the persistent problem of project completion tardiness. Uncertainty has been identified as a contributing factor in late projects. This uncertainty resides in activity duration estimates, unplanned upsetting events, and the potential unavailability of critical resources. This research developed a comprehensive simulation based methodology for conducting quantitative project completion-time risk assessments. The methodology enables project stakeholders to visualize uncertainty or risk, i.e. the likelihood of their project completing late and the magnitude of the lateness, by providing them with a completion time distribution function of their projects. Discrete event simulation is used to determine a project's completion distribution function. The project simulation is populated with both deterministic and stochastic elements. Deterministic inputs include planned activities and resource requirements. Stochastic inputs include activity duration growth distributions, probabilities for unplanned upsetting events, and other dynamic constraints upon project activities. Stochastic inputs are based upon past data from similar projects. The time for an entity to complete the simulation network, subject to both the deterministic and stochastic factors, represents the time to complete the project. Multiple replications of the simulation are run to create the completion distribution function. The methodology was demonstrated to be effective for the on-going project to assemble the International Space Station. Approximately $500 million per month is being spent on this project, which is scheduled to complete by 2010. Project stakeholders participated in determining and managing completion distribution functions. The first result was improved project completion risk awareness. Secondly, mitigation options were analyzed to improve project completion performance and reduce total project cost.

Yes / Widespread generation and analysis of omics data have revolutionized molecular medicine on Earth, yet its power to yield new mechanistic insights and improve occupational health during spaceflight is still to be fully realized in humans. Nevertheless, rapid technological advancements and ever-regular spaceflight programs mean that longitudinal, standardized, and cost-effective collection of human space omics data are firmly within reach. Here, we consider the practicality and scientific return of different sampling methods and omic types in the context of human spaceflight. We also appraise ethical and legal considerations pertinent to omics data derived from European astronauts and spaceflight participants (SFPs). Ultimately, we propose that a routine omics collection program in spaceflight and analog environments presents a golden opportunity. Unlocking this bright future of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven analyses and personalized medicine approaches will require further investigation into best practices, including policy design and standardization of omics data, metadata, and sampling methods. / H.C., R.H., J.B., D.B., S.G., T.E., and N.J.S. are members of the ESA Space Omics Topical Team, funded by the ESA grant/contract 4000131202/20/NL/PG/pt “Space Omics: Towards an integrated ESA/NASA –omics database for spaceflight and ground facilities experiments” awarded to R.H., which was the main funding source for this work. H.C. is also supported by the Horizon Center for Doctoral Training at the University of Nottingham (UKRI grant no. EP/S023305/1). S.G. is supported by the Swedish Research Council VR grant 2020-04864. L.A.R. and M.M. represent the Omics Subgroup of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI funding group “Living in Space” and are supported by JP15K21745, JP20H03234, and 20F20382. L.A.R. is also supported by the JSPS postdoctoral fellowship P20382. We thank Dr. Sarah Castro-Wallace, the NASA GeneLab Animal AWG, ISSOP, ESA Space Omics Topical Team, ESA Personalized Medicine Topical Team, and Global Alliance for Genomic Health (GA4GH) for useful discussions.

Approved for public release; distribution in unlimited. / The International Space Station (ISS) must be able to withstand the hypervelocity impacts of micrometeoroids and orbital debris that strike its many surfaces. In order to design and implement shielding which will prevent hull penetration or other operational losses, NASA must first model the orbital debris and micrometeoroid environment. Based upon this environment, special multi-stage shields called Whipple and Enhanced Stuffed Whipple Shields are developed and implemented to protect ISS surfaces. Ballistic limit curves that establish shield failure criteria are determined via ground testing. These curves are functions of material strength, shield spacing, projectile size, shape and density, as well as a number of other variables. The combination of debris model and ballistic limit equations allows NASA to model risk to ISS using a hydro-code called BUMPER. This thesis modifies and refines existing ballistic limit equations for U.S. Laboratory Module shields to account for the effects of projectile (debris/ micro-meteoroid) densities. Using these refined ballistic limit equations this thesis also examines alternative shielding materials and configurations to optimize shield design for minimum mass and maximum stopping potential, proposing alternate shield designs for future NASA ground testing. A final goal of this thesis is to provide the Department of Defense a background in satellite shield theory and design in order to improve protection against micrometeoroid and orbital debris impacts on future spacebased national systems. / Lieutenant, United States Navy