NASA Deliberately Ignores Its Own ISS Research Publications
NASA’s Physical Science Informatics Database Now Open to the Public, NASA
“At NASA, we are excited to announce the roll-out of the Physical Science Informatics (PSI) data repository for physical science experiments performed on the International Space Station (ISS). The PSI system is now accessible and open to the public. This will be a resource for researchers to data mine the PSI system and expand upon the valuable research performed on the ISS using it as a research tool to further science, while also fulfilling the President’s Open Data Policy.”
Public Release of NASA GeneLab Data System 1.0, NASA
“Based on the philosophy of open science, the GeneLab Platform will maximize the scientific return on investment and maximize the use of the International Space Station given the limited number of biological research opportunities in space. Open science will expand the number of researchers in the community, bringing new ideas and innovation to space biology research, while enabling discovery and advances for both NASA Exploration and Earth-based benefit.”
Keith’s note: Great news. As a one-time biologist at NASA I find this approach to posting data online to be one of the most important things NASA can do to show the value – and availability – of research done on the ISS. NASA has been generating research papers for more than half a century. One very useful resource is NASA Spaceline (latest issue) a regular (now weekly) NASA-funded summary of research sponsored by and relevant to NASA life science research. Given all of the hype and hoopla over the Kelly twins and the #YearInSpace research that is underway, you’d think that NASA would be promoting what it has done – and is doing – on ISS.
Guess again.
– No Mention of Spaceline at CASIS
– No Mention of Spaceline at NASA Space Station Homepage
– No Mention of Spaceline at International Space Station National Laboratory
-If you search NASA.gov you can’t find any mention of Spaceline either.
Clearly, NASA deliberately does not post Spaceline online for the rest of the world to see. If you know who to contact you (RErtwine – at – nasaprs.com) can get it by email but NASA makes no effort to alert people to this service. While NASA mostly ignores Spaceline we have an archive of all issues of Spaceline stretching all the way back to 1999 online on our webserver. NASA apparently doesn’t have any interest in making this voluminous reference to science accomplished on ISS and in related fields available – if for no other reason than to refute those who would say that nothing of value is conducted on the ISS.
Oddly as NASA and CASIS ignore things like Spaceline, they do like to jump up and down and tell you about all of the amazing research they want to do on the ISS to solve all of humanity’s problems. In recent budget briefings to Congress NASA mentions how they want to ramp up ISS utilization in the coming years. Of course this is a good idea since the potential of this amazing facility has yet to be tapped. Alas, given the way that NASA and CASIS handle the dissemination of research results such as Spaceline this will simply mean that more important and interesting research will continue to be ignored. Indeed, if NASA continues along this path, far fewer people will ever see the actual research papers generated from the Kelly twins research – and the research publications using data in GeneLab will similarly be ignored.
Thanks for the Space line reference. I did not see too many ISS references but maybe I didn’t look that hard.
How about sources for physical science, earth sciences, materials sciences and technology development being done on ISS. Apparently they do not publicize any of these too widely? Is there work going on in all these fields? When I look up ISS Science I seem to get an overwhelming number of hits about the new coffee dispenser and cups on ISS. That is science? Really? I would think that with last week’s devastation in Nepal; apparently Everest fell and is not as tall any longer. Do they take photos of devestatioon like this? Where are they?
Also, are their user handbooks or accommodations handbooks that tell about physical, electrical, data or fluid interfaces, availability of crew, mission or launch and recovery support? I have thjose for Shuttle, Ariane, Atlas, Delta, Soyuz and for ESA and Japanese use of ISS. But the reference guides for US experimenters on ISS seem to be at too high a level to be useful for an experimenter.
It seems odd that there appear to be so few references available for a “national laboratory”. And why do I have to go hunting for these? Maybe I am just googling in all the wrong places?
ISS is, I think, one of the most expensive space programs/facilities in history. Seems to me that if NASA is looking for users, they might want to publicize how to get on. And if I am an entrepreneurial user, is NASA going to tell the world about my research? I might prefer as few to know as possible. Who is running this show?
The real problem is getting funded. Once you have the money, actually getting on is not that hard; just call CASIS http://www.iss-casis.org/
In all the earlier human space flight programs NASA funded the research, often as a part of the program budget. Apollo’ ALSEP, built and funded as part of Apollo, Skylab’s Earth Resources package and Solar Telescope, both part of the program, Spacelabs-most were NASA sponsored, Spacehabs mainly NASA Code C. It appears that for ISS, NASA decided to go a different route and use all of their considerable program funds just for the engineering and operations, and leave users to find their own funding. Maybe that was a mistake?
In reviewing the Physical Science Informatics web page, I have to wonder, is this all of the experimentation that had been done on ISS over the last 15 years of operation? There are about 3 dozen experiments, though most are repeats of the same idea with minor variations. All of these appear to be NASA-sponsored/paid for. Is that all there is? It averages to something like one experiment a year. Not impressive. Have they done better in the other sciences? Is there any way to find out?
I have to wonder, that web page makes it seem that the way NASA is trying to get new experiments and experimenters on board is by sharing this information. I’d think that if there are physical scientists who are actively working in the field, they would be keeping up with the literature. I would think prospective new experimenters would want to know how they can fly their own experiments.