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ISS News

Science News CASIS Would Rather You Not See

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 6, 2014
Filed under , ,

CASIS Releases Request for Information to Identify Equipment for Materials Science Research on the ISS, CASIS
Cutting-Edge Techniques Used for the Structural Investigation of Single Crystals, Science
“X-ray crystallography has become the leading technique for studying the structure of matter at the atomic and molecular level. Today it underpins all sciences and is widely applied in industry. It is essential in the development of new materials. The technique is very powerful, and the range of materials that can be studied expands as new technologies evolve and are applied in innovative ways to structure solution. It is now possible to record vast amounts of diffraction data in seconds electronically, whereas it took days and months by photographic methods 30 to 40 years ago. Single crystals can be created in various ways; they can be produced from compounds that are liquids or gases at room temperature, and complete molecular structures can be presented within minutes. This short review presents recent developments that are appropriate to the single-crystal x-ray studies of chemical and materials sciences.”
Developments in X-ray Crystallographic Structure Determination of Biological Macromolecules, Science
Keith’s note: Neither of these articles in this special issue of Science mention microgravity. Yet CASIS perpetuates utilization myths and acts as if advances in crystallography can only be made if you use uber-perfect crystals that have been grown in space. Space is no longer necessesary since vanishingly small amounts of material are now all that is required for Earth-based crystallography procedures (see links below) and answers appear swiftly – not months/years later. Shouldn’t CASIS be focusing on things that can really utilize the unqiue capabilities of the ISS – not space-based technology that has already been eclipsed by advances back on Earth?

There was a time when large, perfect crystals – harder to grow on Earth, but somewhat easier to grow in microgravity conditions in space – did confer some advantages in crystallography. But NASA dragged its feet for a decade or more in the actual utilization of the ISS and capitalizing on this field while progress on Earth continued unabated and soon solved prior problems. NASA was left in the dust and it was NASA’s fault that this happened.
That’s the infuriating thing about the ISS: its vast, untapped potential coupled with borderline inept utilization of this potential by NASA. And when NASA and Congress wanted to see more progress they re-created NASA’s dysfunction in the form of CASIS. Now there are two official ways to stumble through the partial, slow motion utilization of the ISS.
And when SLS budgetary forces inevitably lead to the early termination of the ISS (forget that 2024 extension) everyone will cry foul and cite the potential of the ISS. But by then it will be too late to do anything.
Space Station Science Has Been Left in the Dust – Again, earlier post
Using the ISS: Once Again NASA Has Been Left in the Dust, earlier post
Realizing the Research Potential of the ISS Once and for All, earlier post
While NASA Flies In Circles Technology Advances Back on Earth, earlier post
One More Reason Not To Use the ISS?, earlier post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

13 responses to “Science News CASIS Would Rather You Not See”

  1. Littrow says:
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    Keith, it is unfortunate that everything you say in your notes is accurate. To have invested $100 billion and 30 years (this year is the anniversary) and have given so little thought to utilization, especially, in particular, having stopped so much of the research that had been ongoing until just about the time ISS began operating in orbit. It really is unconscionable how the ISS needlessly wasted taxpayer dollars. I wonder why the NASA/ISS/JSC managers have this ‘need’ to constantly try and reinvent the proverbial wheel?

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      What other gigantic effort by the US happened without any planning for what we would do with it after we had it? Hmmmm? One that cost 10x $100B?

  2. dogstar29 says:
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    What you say is basically accurate, and crystallography has been oversold. But there really are some cases where even with the APS (advanced photon source) earth-based structural studies are not quite adequate for enzyme and receptor studies and a larger crystal will really help. Some of these structures are pretty critical for disease research.

    Earth observation and UV astronomy are two areas where the ISS could really be productive if some more funding were available.

    • Dennis Ray Wingo says:
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      There are a lot of areas where ISS could be more productive, acting as a jumping off point for exploration tops the list.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        Yes, that has been proposed since the 1950’s. The term “Space Transportation System” included the Shuttle, ISS and Space Tug (never built) for travel beyond LEO. But as the various NASA programs got increasingly politicized they became seen as opposing ideas rather than synergistic ones. The original mission of the “Space Operations Center” was assembly, servicing and checkout of BLEO missions and earth and space observation. Microgravity and life science were added later, and there are still major differences of opinion regarding their value. Then Constellation dropped the entire concept of building on a LEO infrastructure.

      • RedBaron says:
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        As I see it, the ISS has provided over the years unvaluable experience and lessons learned in terms of what it takes to assemble, maintain, upgrade and repair a very complex space structure operated by humans, and working in an international environment. All the necessary elements for the next steps in space exploration (with the manned Mars vehicle).

    • Rich_Palermo says:
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      It’s a lousy platform for both – wrong inclination, wrong altitude, and not a stable platform. Free fliers have been doing more for a fraction of the cost. There could have been much more of them as well as robotic exploration of the solar system except that what funding was available was redirected to build the ISS.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        This is a longstanding controversy which has not been fully explored in public debate. One free flyer payload mission would be a small fraction of the cost of the ISS. But the sensor package is a small fraction of the total cost of a FF mission, and the ISS can carry hundreds of sensors, utilizing ISS mounting, power, and data. For earth observation, the orbit covers almost the entire inhabited earth and even the poles are visible. Because the sensor mass is relatively low even for a medium-aperture telescope, the sensors can be carried up on already scheduled logistics flights with little or no cost impact. The high inclination has little bearing on payload mass because the mass that must be launched is much lower than with a free flyer. Vibration isolation is less expensive than free flyer stabilization, and the inevitable end of life due to depletion of expendables can easily be avoided. Hubble notwithstanding, servicing of free flyers is not practical unless they co-orbit with ISS. Contamination from the external ISS environment is simply not the problem it was on Mir. Had Galileo been serviced on ISS a crewmen could have given the stuck antenna a shove and the mission would have returned one hundred times as much data for the same cost. Finally, the ISS was funded for geopolitical purposes. There is no evidence the money would have been diverted to unmanned science payloads if ISS were cancelled.

        • Rich_Palermo says:
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          “Finally, the ISS was funded for geopolitical purposes.”

          Exactly. Trying to call it a science platform is a case of wishful thinking after the fact. I disagree with the rest. In cases like this, the mothership is front-and-center and all the putative science payloads are window dressing. For optical sensors, literally. It is not a simple matter of dangling something off of an extrusion and taking what you can get. Science missions aren’t adjuncts. They have to be built for the job. When the mothership is moving, flexing, raising itself to keep from burning up, when there are EVAs for whatever reason, the observation missions will suffer. Contamination is still a huge deal. Your sensor gets cold half of the orbit and if it flies through crud from the mothership, that will condense on the nearest cold surface – most likely an optic. An astronaut with a squeegee isn’t a fix for that. A well-designed mission is.

          I don’t understand your reference to Galileo. The ISS is a couple of hundred miles up. Galileo’s antenna got stuck en route to Jupiter, rather farther away.
          http://www.lpi.usra.edu/pub

          • dogstar29 says:
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            Had Galileo been serviced on ISS and placed enroute by a space tug or similar upper stage then the antenna would have been deployed and checked out prior to departure from the ISS. Anyway, that was the plan under the Space Operations Center concept in the 1970’s before we got hung up on microgravity and life science experiments. The SOC included pressurized and unpressurized hangar modules for this purpose. As to optics, a telescope can easily include a cover for the optics that can be closed during EVAs. When Hubble was launched and turned out to have a problem, we were out a large fraction of a billion dollars for a flight dedicated only to servicing it. As to FF cost, have you priced an Atlas V lately? And that’s not including the spacecraft bus.

          • Rich_Palermo says:
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            How? Per the link above:
            “On April 11, 1991, after Galileo had traveled far enough from the heat of the Sun, the spacecraft
            executed stored computer commands to unfurl the large high-gain antenna. But telemetry received
            minutes later at JPL showed that something went wrong. The motors had stalled and the antenna had only
            partially opened.”

            The mission was designed for a shuttle launch, as were so many of that era, to justify the shuttle. Two years after it launched, it had the antenna problem.

            What use would the ISS, had it been up, have been? Galileo returns to super Low Earth Orbit, gets a noodge from an astronaut, and then gets tugged back with enough energy to resume a complex gravity-assisted trajectory back to Jupiter?

            Or, do you mean it should have been unfurled and relaunched _from_ the ISS? In which case:
            “For the
            Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity-Assist (VEEGA) trajectory mission, however, the heat-sensitive high-gain
            antenna had to be left closed and stowed behind a large Sun shade to protect it during the spacecraft’s
            passage through the inner solar system. “

            Free fliers: Even the USAF is realizing that gigantic satellites are no longer the answer. The move is to small systems that don’t need gigantic boosters and that can ride along where appropriate.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            The Galileo mission plan changed multiple times, from three-stage IUS to Centaur to two payloads on separate two-stage IUSs to Centaur agian, to a single two-stage IUS. The antenna (adapted from the TDRSS) was not designed for the Venus flyby because when it was selected there was no plan for it to ever be closer to the sun than Earth. The exact cause of the deployment jam is not fully known. Even had it been launched on the originally planned direct trajectory the antenna might still have jammed. Had Galileo been launched from the ISS using the IUS the VEEGA would have been needed and the antenna could still have jammed.

            However if Galileo had been launched from ISS using the Space Tug there would have been no need for a Venus flyby or for launching in a shroud with the antenna folded. The antenna could have been deployed prior to departure, eliminating the failure mode.

  3. Jedediah Leachman says:
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    Since the ISS was launched 15 years ago, no spacecraft has made rendezvous carrying more fuel than was necessary to maneuver, deorbit, and reboost the station.