The Innovative Partnerships Program aims to provide leveraged technology for NASA’s mission directorates, programs, and projects through investments and technology partnerships with industry, academia, government agencies, and national laboratories. The following stories highlight some of the exceptional results of these many partnerships.

Three NASA Technologies Inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame

On April 10, 2008, three NASA technologies were inducted into the Space Foundation’s Space Technology Hall of Fame. Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) received the honor for application of its imaging software to medical uses. Kennedy Space Center was honored for its role in the development of the ResQPOD, a noninvasive circulation-enhancing device, and was commended for the role it played in developing the microspheres now found in the Petroleum Remediation Product (PRP).

The ResQPOD Circulatory Enhancer increases blood flow to the heart and brain during CPR, which in turn increases the opportunity for survival and normal neurological outcome.

The Space Foundation, in cooperation with NASA, established the Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1988 to increase public awareness of the benefits resulting from space exploration programs and to encourage further innovation. Each year the Space Foundation recognizes unique and valuable products that originated with space technology.

Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Space Technology Hall of Fame has inducted 56 technologies to date, as well as honored the organizations and individuals who transformed space technology into commercial products that improve the quality of life for all humanity.

The first 2008 inductee, ArterioVision software is a diagnostic tool that is used in conjunction with a standard ultrasound to precisely measure the thickness of the two inner layers of the carotid artery. Arterial thickening can provide the earliest evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. Initially developed at JPL through its Innovative Partnerships Program, this technology is derived from the Video Imaging Communication and Retrieval software used to process pictures from spacecraft imagery. ArterioVision allows doctors to measure the carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) to determine the age and health of a patient’s arteries and better predict and prevent their risk for heart disease and stroke.

The ArterioVision CIMT procedure is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Medical Technologies International Inc., of Palm Desert, California, the company that patented the software, was inducted along with JPL and the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine–Atherosclerosis Research Unit.

ResQPOD is a noninvasive medical device that improves cardiac output and blood flow to the brain compared to conventional resuscitation techniques. Developed through a collaborative research effort between Kennedy, the U.S. Army, and private industry, this device is used to help astronauts reacquaint with the feeling of gravity by quickly and effectively increasing the circulation of blood flow to the brain.

ResQPOD is used by emergency medical services and hospitals across the country for patients suffering orthostatic intolerance (breathing problems) and cardiac arrest or other conditions attributed to low blood pressure. It works by increasing blood flow to the heart and brain, which is critical to improving survival rates with normal neurological function, until the heart can be restarted. The U.S. military also uses ResQPOD on the battlefield to reduce intracranial pressure resulting from head trauma injuries. Advanced Circulatory Systems, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Kennedy Biomedical Laboratory were inducted as the innovating organizations behind ResQPOD technology.

PRP is a technology that safely and permanently removes petroleum-based pollutants from water. The delivery system of this water treatment process grew out of NASA biological encapsulation research and experimentation in the orbital production of microspheres. PRP uses microcapsules, tiny balls of beeswax with hollow centers, which absorb and bind with petroleum or other hydrocarbon products. The microspheres then serve as nutrients to assist naturally occurring microbes in soil or water to biodegrade contaminates. Universal Remediation Inc., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the inductee organization for PRP, has developed a number of customized products using PRP technology to treat environmental contaminants from small boating spills to preventing ground water contamination at petroleum storage facilities.

NASA Nanotubes Help Advance Brain Tumor Research

Dr. Behnam Badie, director of the Department of Neurosurgery and the brain tumor program at City of Hope, performs a minimally invasive procedure to surgically remove a pituitary tumor. Nanotube technology may help in the development of new treatments that would require only minimally invasive procedures, no matter the location of the brain tumor. Image courtesy of City of Hope.

The potential of carbon nanotubes to diagnose and treat brain tumors is being explored through a partnership between JPL and City of Hope, a leading cancer research and treatment center in Duarte, California.

Nanotechnology may help revolutionize medicine in the future with its promise to play a role in selective cancer therapy. City of Hope researchers are working to boost the brain’s own immune response against tumors by delivering cancer-fighting agents via nanotubes. A nanotube is about 50,000 times narrower than a human hair, but its length can extend up to several centimeters.

According to Dr. Behnam Badie, City of Hope’s director of neurosurgery and of its brain tumor program, if nanotube technology can be effectively applied to brain tumors, it might also be used to treat stroke, trauma, neurodegenerative disorders, and other disease processes in the brain.

“I’m very optimistic of how this nanotechnology will work out,” he said. “We are hoping to begin testing in humans in about 5 years, and we have ideas about where to go next.”

The Nano and Micro Systems (NAMS) group at JPL, which has been researching nanotubes since about 2000, creates these tiny, cylindrical multiwalled carbon tubes for City of Hope.

City of Hope researchers, who began their quest in 2006, found good results: The nanotubes, which they used on mice, were nontoxic in brain cells, did not change cell reproduction and were capable of carrying DNA and siRNA, two types of molecules that encode genetic information.

JPL’s NAMS group grows the nanotubes on silicon strips a few square millimeters in area. The growth process forms them into hollow tubes as if by rolling sheets of graphite-like carbon.

Carbon nanotubes are extremely strong, flexible, heat-resistant, and have very sharp tips. Consequently, JPL uses nanotubes as field-emission cathodes—vehicles that help produce electrons—for various space applications such as X-ray and mass spectroscopy instruments, vacuum microelectronics, and high-frequency communications.

“Nanotubes are important for miniaturizing spectroscopic instruments for space applications, developing extreme environment electronics, as well as for remote sensing,” said Harish Manohara, the technical group supervisor for the NAMS group.

Nanotubes are a fairly new innovation, so they are not yet routinely used in current NASA missions, he added. However, they may be used in gas analysis or mineralogical instruments for future missions to Mars, Venus, and the Jupiter system.

JPL’s collaboration with City of Hope began last year, after Manohara, Badie, and Dr. Babak Kateb, City of Hope’s former director of research and development in the brain tumor program, discussed using nanostructures to better diagnose and treat brain cancer. Badie said his team’s nanomedical research continues, and the next goal will be to functionalize and attach inhibitory RNA to the nanotubes and deliver it to specific areas of the brain.

The JPL and City of Hope teams published the results of the study earlier this year in the journal NeuroImage.

Badie says that JPL’s contribution to City of Hope’s nanomedicine research has been invaluable.

“The fact that we can get pristine and really clean nanotubes from Manohara’s department is unique,” he said. “The fact that we are both collaborating for biological purposes is also really unique.”

The collaboration between JPL and City of Hope is conducted under NASA’s Innovative Partnerships Program, designed to bring benefits of the space program to the public.

NASA Unveils Cosmic Images Book in Braille for Blind

At a ceremony held in January 2008, at the National Federation of the Blind, NASA unveiled a new book that brings majestic images taken by its Great Observatories to the fingertips of the blind. The Great Observatories include NASA’s Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer space telescopes.

“Touch the Invisible Sky” is a 60-page book with color images of nebulae, stars, galaxies, and some of the telescopes that captured the original pictures. Each image is embossed with lines, bumps, and other textures. These raised patterns translate colors, shapes, and other intricate details of the cosmic objects, allowing visually impaired people to experience them. Braille and large-print descriptions accompany each of the book’s 28 photographs, making the book’s design accessible to readers of all visual abilities.

This is a composite image of N49, the brightest supernova remnant in optical light in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Data from Spitzer, Hubble, and Chandra contributed to this image.

The celestial objects are presented as they appear through visible-light telescopes and different spectral regions invisible to the naked eye, from radio to infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray light. The book introduces the concept of light and the spectrum and explains how the different observatories complement each others’ findings. Readers take a cosmic journey beginning with images of the Sun, and travel out into the galaxy to visit relics of exploding and dying stars, as well as the Whirlpool galaxy and colliding Antennae galaxies.

“Touch the Invisible Sky” was written by astronomy educator and accessibility specialist Noreen Grice of You Can Do Astronomy LLC and the Museum of Science, Boston, with authors Simon Steel, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Doris Daou, an astronomer at NASA Headquarters.

“About 10 million visually impaired people live in the United States,” Grice said. “I hope this book will be a unique resource for people who are sighted or blind to better understand the part of the universe that is invisible to all of us.”

The book will be available to the public through a wide variety of sources, including the National Federation of the Blind, Library of Congress repositories, schools for the blind, libraries, museums, science centers, and Ozone Publishing.

“We wanted to show that the beauty and complexity of the universe goes far beyond what we can see with our eyes!” Daou said.

“The study of the universe is a detective story, a cosmic ‘CSI,’ where clues to the inner workings of the universe are revealed by the amazing technology of modern telescopes,” Steel said. “This book invites everyone to join in the quest to unlock the secrets of the cosmos.”

“One of the greatest challenges faced by blind students who are interested in scientific study is that certain kinds of information are not available to them in a nonvisual form,” said Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind. “Books like this one are an invaluable resource because they allow the blind access to information that is normally presented through visual observation and media. Given access to this information, blind students can study and compete in scientific fields as well as their sighted peers.”

The prototype for this book was funded by an education grant from the Chandra mission, and production was a collaborative effort by the NASA space science missions, which provided the images, and other Agency sources.

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NASA’s Advanced Technology Peers Deep Inside Hurricanes

Hurricanes require a special set of conditions, including ample heat and moisture, conditions that exist primarily over warm tropical oceans.

Determined to understand why some storms grow into hurricanes while others fizzle, NASA scientists recently looked deep into thunderstorms off the African coast using satellites and airplanes.

A team of international scientists, including NASA researchers, journeyed to the west coast of Africa. Their mission was to better understand why some clusters of thunderstorms that drift off the African coast, known as easterly waves, develop into furious hurricanes, while others simply fade away within hours.

A major component of the campaign, called the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA), was to study the Saharan Air Layer. The layer is a mass of very dry, dusty air that forms over the Sahara Desert and influences the development of tropical cyclones, the general name given to tropical depressions, storms, and hurricanes.

This mission was unique, because it incorporated NASA’s state-of-the-art technology in space and in the air. With sophisticated satellite data and aircraft, scientists are better able to examine the tug-of-war between forces favorable for hurricane development—warm sea surface temperatures and rotating clusters of strong thunderstorms—and forces that suppress hurricanes such as dust particles and changing wind speed and direction at high altitudes.

“Most late-season Atlantic basin hurricanes develop from African easterly waves, so improving our knowledge of these hurricane seedlings is critical,” said Ramesh Kakar, program manager for NAMMA at NASA Headquarters. “Several studies have shown that the Saharan Air Layer suppresses hurricane development, but the exact mechanisms are very unclear, and it remains a wild card in the list of ingredients necessary for hurricane formation.”

NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument on the Terra and Aqua satellites identified the location, size, and intensity of dust plumes throughout the mission. Using other satellites, scientists could then determine any possible connection between dust outbreaks and changes in tropical easterly waves. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, for instance, provided information on rainfall and thunderclouds, while the Quick Scatterometer satellite identified how low-level winds were rotating, both critical elements in hurricane formation.

NASA scientists also used a satellite product designed specifically to assess the strength of the Saharan Air Layer that uses imagery from Meteosat, a European satellite. Well-developed regions of the Saharan Air Layer were easily identified by measuring tiny dust particles and atmospheric water vapor content. Multiple images taken over time tracked dust movement and evolution across the Atlantic.

After analyzing satellite data, researchers flew aircraft into specific, targeted areas to probe storm clouds over a very short time and small area to learn how microscopic dust particles, called aerosols, interact with cloud droplets contained in thunderstorms. Aerosols potentially influence rainfall and the overall structure and future strength of a developing tropical cyclone. The extreme dry air, warm temperatures, and wind shear within these elevated dust layers may also weaken fledgling tropical cyclones.

Scientists flew a total of 13 aircraft missions inside 7 storm systems. NASA’s DC-8 research aircraft contained numerous instruments to take measurements deep inside clouds, the environment of thunderstorms, and the Saharan Air Layer. Researchers also took advantage of several aircraft probes and especially dropsondes, a sensor attached to a parachute that is dropped into storm clouds. It typically collects data on wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, and pressure that are relayed to a computer in the airplane.

Aircraft sensors and laser devices called lidars measured water vapor content and cloud, dust, and precipitation particle sizes, shapes, and types. Revolutionary radar on the aircraft was also used to gather better details on the intensity of rainfall and where exactly it was falling.

One special sensor aboard the DC-8, called the High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer, provided a 3-D distribution of temperature and water vapor in the atmosphere. The sensor is ideal for hurricane studies, since it can look through thick clouds and probe into the interior of the storms. It has also led to the development of a new microwave sounder for geostationary satellites, GeoSTAR, which will make it possible to monitor the interior of hurricanes continuously without having to wait for a satellite to pass overhead.

Throughout the field mission, a Web-based real-time mission monitor, developed by Marshall, allowed scientists to track the progress of the experiment from anywhere on the globe using a standard Internet connection.

“Through the use of sophisticated technology, NAMMA provided an excellent opportunity to advance our understanding of tropical cyclones, as we gathered data on the critical elements at both the very small and large scales, from microscopic dust to air currents spanning hundreds of miles,” said Jeff Halverson, one of four NAMMA mission scientists. “Much of the data gathered is still being analyzed, but the preliminary findings are very promising.”

NASA scientists will also compare NAMMA findings to data from previous missions that took place in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The results should help determine the role of factors universal to hurricane formation and those uniquely dependent on location.

Breakthrough Map of Antarctica Lays Groundwork for New Discoveries

A team of researchers from NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Science Foundation, and the British Antarctic Survey unveiled a newly completed map of Antarctica that is expected to revolutionize research of the continent’s frozen landscape.

The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica is a result of NASA’s state-of-the-art satellite technologies and an example of the prominent role NASA continues to play as a world leader in the development and flight of Earth-observing satellites.

The map is a realistic, nearly cloudless satellite view of the continent at a resolution 10 times greater than ever before with images captured by the NASA-built Landsat 7. With the unprecedented ability to see features half the size of a basketball court, the mosaic offers the most geographically accurate, true-color, high-resolution views of Antarctica to date.

As can be seen in this sample Landsat image of the area around McMurdo Station, the new mosaic reveals (in unprecedented detail) the ice shelves, mountains, and glaciers that make Antarctica a fascinating and important place to study.

“This mosaic of images opens up a window to the Antarctic that we just haven’t had before,” said Robert Bindschadler, chief scientist of the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center. “It will open new windows of opportunity for scientific research as well as enable the public to become much more familiar with Antarctica and how scientists use imagery in their research. This innovation is like watching high-definition TV in living color versus watching the picture on a grainy black-and-white television. These scenes don’t just give us a snapshot, they provide a time-lapse historical record of how Antarctica has changed and will enable us to continue to watch changes unfold.”

Researchers can use the detailed map to better plan scientific expeditions. The mosaic’s higher resolution gives researchers a clearer view over most of the continent to help interpret changes in land elevation in hard-to-access areas. Scientists also think the true-color mosaic will help geologists better map various rock formations and types.

To construct the new Antarctic map, researchers pieced together more than a thousand images from 3 years of Landsat observations. The resulting mosaic gives researchers and the public a new way to explore Antarctica through a free, public-access Web portal. Eight different versions of the full mosaic are available to download.

In 1972, the first satellite images of the Antarctic became available with the launch of NASA’s Earth Resources Technology Satellite (later renamed Landsat). The series of Landsat satellites have provided the longest, continuous global record of land surface and its historical changes in existence. Prior to these satellite views, researchers had to rely on airplanes and survey ships to map Antarctica’s ice-covered terrain.

Images from the Landsat program, now managed by the USGS, led to more precise and efficient research results as the resolution of digital images improved over the years with upgraded instruments on each new Earth-observing satellite.

“We have significantly improved our ability to extract useful information from satellites as embodied in this Antarctic mosaic project,” said Ray Byrnes, liaison for satellite missions at the USGS, in Reston, Virginia. “As technology progressed, so have the satellites and their image resolution capability. The first three in the Landsat series were limited in comparison to Landsats 4, 5, and 7.”

Bindschadler, who conceived the project, initiated NASA’s collection of images of Antarctica for the mosaic project in 1999. He and NASA colleagues selected the images that make up the mosaic and developed new techniques to interpret the image data tailored to the project.

The mosaic is made up of about 1,100 images from Landsat 7, nearly all of which were captured between 1999 and 2001. The collage contains almost no gaps in the landscape, other than a doughnut hole-shaped area at the South Pole, and shows virtually no seams.

“The mosaic represents an important U.S.-U.K. collaboration and is a major contribution to the International Polar Year,” said Andrew Fleming of British Antarctic Survey, in Cambridge, England. “Over 60,000 scientists are involved in the global International Polar Year initiative to understand our world. I have no doubt that polar researchers will find this mosaic, one of the first outcomes of that initiative, invaluable for planning science campaigns.”

NASA has 14 Earth-observing satellites in orbit with activities that have direct benefit to humankind. After NASA develops and tests new technologies, the Agency transfers activities to other Federal agencies for vital meteorology and climate satellite services. The satellites have helped revolutionize the information that emergency officials have to respond to natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires.

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NASA Climate Change ‘Peacemakers’ Aided Nobel Effort

It’s not every day that a NASA scientist can wake up and think, “Hey, I did something for world peace.” But on Monday, December 10, 2007, many NASA Earth scientists did exactly that.

In Oslo, Norway, the King of Sweden presented the shared 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and to representatives of a United Nations panel that has spent two decades assessing Earth’s changing climate and predicting where it is headed. Hundreds of NASA scientists, including some from JPL, contributed to the United Nations effort, working with thousands of their colleagues from more than 150 countries.

Announcing the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said the scientific reports issued since 1990 by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have “created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.” The peacemaking value of this scientific finding, according to the committee, is that human-induced changes in climate may cause “large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the Earth’s resources” and an “increased danger of violent conflicts and wars.”

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize honored the work of climate scientists around the world, including many at NASA.

The Fourth IPCC Assessment, released this year in four reports, presented the strongest findings thus far that human activities are altering Earth’s climate and that the impacts of climate change are occurring already.

When the First IPCC Assessment was reported in 1990, NASA was building on a history of Earth remote sensing, developing and preparing to deploy the Earth Observing Satellite system to determine the extent, causes, and regional consequences of global climate change. In the recent Fourth Assessment, scientists were informed by more than 8 years of systematic, global observations of the Earth system. Satellite measurements have revealed fundamental changes in Earth’s climate, including temperatures and rainfall, ice extent and properties, and sea levels, as well as physical, chemical, and ecological impacts of climate change. NASA satellite measurements contributed immeasurably to enable the IPCC’s strongest conclusions thus far.

“NASA is best known for its cutting-edge satellite instruments and global measurements of Earth from space, but we contribute a lot more than that to climate change science,” said Michael Gunson, acting chief scientist in JPL’s Earth Science and Technology Directorate. “NASA’s role extends far beyond space-based measurements into the research to build our understanding of climate change, enabling the critical work of the IPCC.”

NASA instruments, data, analysis, and modeling all contributed to the bedrock of the IPCC report: the hundreds of papers published each year in scientific journals, many authored by NASA scientists and many others using NASA observations. The authors of the report draw on this ever-growing body of new knowledge to form their conclusions about climate change.

“The most remarkable thing about the process of assembling an IPCC report is that you can actually get thousands of independent-minded and critical scientists to work together without killing each other,” said Bruce Wielicki, senior scientist for Earth science at Langley Research Center.

Wielicki contributed a portion of a chapter in the latest science assessment on how Earth’s “energy budget,” the ebb and flow of radiant energy from the Sun and our planet, has changed as measured by satellites. He began the project in October 2004 and, working with a team of 10 scientists, completed a compact summary of the latest research on the topic 20 months later. Like each section of the IPCC reports, Wielicki’s section went through repeated rounds of critiques by other scientists.

NASA’s Cynthia Rosenzweig, a plant and soil scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York, coordinated a key chapter in the new report on the impact of climate change—an effort that took 4 years. “There were many, many late nights as we worked under strict deadlines to draft the chapter and revise it based on thousands of comments from reviewers, each of which had to be documented and responded to,” Rosenzweig recalls.

“But the toughest part of the entire effort was the last step: reviewing our final draft with government officials,” Rosenzweig says. Before each IPCC report is published, the lead authors sit down with diplomats, lawyers, and environmental officials from around the world to review their findings, page by page. “These week-long meetings are very challenging as you respond to all sorts of concerns and questions. But this process is the real beauty of the IPCC. The final documents that emerge represent a consensus view of the world’s scientific community and government delegates.”

The Nobel-winning IPCC reports are unparalleled as the most authoritative source of climate science, says Wielicki. “When I give public lectures on climate, I tell my audience that there are three laws of solid information on climate change: IPCC, IPCC, and IPCC.”

The IPCC effort has also boosted public awareness of this critical area of science. “By collecting together the current scientific thinking on climate change, the IPCC showed the world the value of the type of science we are doing at NASA,” said JPL’s Gunson. “And that has really engaged the public, many of whom were surprised that NASA does climate research. It has really motivated a new interest in the work we do here day in and day out.”

NASA Aircraft Aids Southern California Firefighting Effort

In response to a request from the California Office of Emergency Services and the National Interagency Fire Center, NASA flew an aircraft equipped with sophisticated infrared imaging equipment to assist firefighters battling several Southern California wildfires.

Ikhana carries the Autonomous Modular Scanner payload developed by NASA’s Ames Research Center, equipment that incorporates a sophisticated imaging sensor and real-time data communications equipment. The sensor is capable of peering through thick smoke and haze to record hot spots and the progression of wildfires over a lengthy period.

The Ikhana unmanned aircraft system, a Predator B, modified for civil science and research missions, was launched from its base at Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. It then flew over the major blazes burning in the Lake Arrowhead and Running Springs areas and then down into San Diego County to image wildfires raging in that area. The aircraft was controlled remotely by pilots in a ground control station at Dryden.

The Ikhana carried the Autonomous Modular Scanner, a thermal-infrared imaging system developed at Ames Research Center in Northern California. The system is capable of peering through heavy smoke and darkness to see hot spots, flames, and temperature differences, processing the imagery onboard, and then transmitting that information in near real time so it can aid fire incident commanders in allocating their firefighting resources.

The images were transmitted through a communications satellite to Ames where the imagery was placed on an Ames Web site, combined with Google Earth maps, and then transmitted to the interagency fire center in Boise, Idaho, where it was then made available to incident commanders in the field.

The system was validated recently during a series of wildfire imaging demonstration missions conducted by NASA and the U.S. Forest Service in August and September 2007.

Each flight was coordinated with the FAA to allow the remotely piloted aircraft to fly within the national airspace while maintaining separation from other aircraft.

NASA Tsunami Research Makes Waves in Science Community

A wave of new NASA research on tsunamis has yielded an innovative method to improve existing tsunami warning systems, and a potentially groundbreaking new theory on the source of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Thermal-infrared imaging sensors on Ikhana recorded this image of the Harris Fire in San Diego County on October 24, 2007, with hot spots along the ridgeline in left center clearly visible.

In one study, published last fall in Geophysical Research Letters, researcher Y. Tony Song, of JPL, demonstrated that real-time data from NASA’s network of Global Positioning System (GPS) stations can detect ground motions preceding tsunamis and reliably estimate a tsunami’s destructive potential within minutes, well before it reaches coastal areas. The method could lead to development of more reliable global tsunami warning systems, saving lives and reducing false alarms.

Conventional tsunami warning systems rely on estimates of an earthquake’s magnitude to determine whether a large tsunami will be generated. Earthquake magnitude is not always a reliable indicator of tsunami potential, however. The 2004 Indian Ocean quake generated a huge tsunami, while the 2005 Nias (Indonesia) quake did not, even though both had almost the same magnitude from initial estimates. Between 2005 and 2007, five false tsunami alarms were issued worldwide. Such alarms have negative societal and economic effects.

Song’s method estimates the energy an undersea earthquake transfers to the ocean to generate a tsunami by using data from coastal GPS stations near the epicenter. With these data, ocean floor displacements caused by the earthquake can be inferred. Tsunamis typically originate at undersea boundaries of tectonic plates near the edges of continents.

“Tsunamis can travel as fast as jet planes, so rapid assessment following quakes is vital to mitigate their hazard,” said Ichiro Fukumori, a JPL oceanographer not involved in the study. “Song and his colleagues have demonstrated that GPS technology can help improve both the speed and accuracy of such analyses.”

Song’s method works as follows: an earthquake’s epicenter is located using seismometer data. GPS displacement data from stations near the epicenter are then gathered to derive seafloor motions. Based upon these data, local topography data, and new theoretical developments, a new “tsunami scale” measurement from 1 to 10 is generated, much like the Richter scale used for earthquakes. Song proposes using the scale to make a distinction between earthquakes capable of generating destructive tsunamis from those unlikely to do so.

To demonstrate his methodology on real earthquake-tsunamis, Song examined three historical tsunamis with well-documented ground motion measurements and tsunami observations: Alaska in 1964; the Indian Ocean in 2004; and Nias Island, Indonesia in 2005. His method successfully replicated all three. The data compared favorably with conventional seismic solutions that usually take hours or days to calculate.

Using GPS data (purple arrows) to measure ground displacements, scientists replicated the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, whose crests and troughs are shown here in reds and blues, respectively. The research showed GPS data can be used to reliably estimate a tsunami’s destructive potential within minutes.

Song said many coastal GPS stations are already in operation, measuring ground motions near earthquake faults in real time once every few seconds. “A coastal GPS network established and combined with the existing International GPS Service global sites could provide a more reliable global tsunami warning system than those available today,” he said.

The theory behind the GPS study was published in the December 20, 2007 issue of Ocean Modelling. Song and his team from JPL; the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and Ohio State University, in Columbus, theorized most of the height and energy generated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami resulted from horizontal, not vertical, faulting motions. The study uses a 3-D earthquake-tsunami model based on seismograph and GPS data to explain how the fault’s horizontal motions might be the major cause of the tsunami’s genesis.

Scientists have long believed tsunamis form from vertical deformation of seafloor during undersea earthquakes. However, seismograph and GPS data show such deformation from the 2004 Sumatra earthquake was too small to generate the powerful tsunami that ensued. Song’s team found horizontal forces were responsible for two-thirds of the tsunami’s height, as observed by three satellites (NASA’s Jason, the U.S. Navy’s Geosat Follow-on, and the European Space Agency’s Environmental Satellite), and generated five times more energy than the earthquake’s vertical displacements. The horizontal forces also best explain the way the tsunami spread out across the Indian Ocean. The same mechanism was also found to explain the data observed from the 2005 Nias earthquake and tsunami.

Coauthor C.K. Shum, of Ohio State University, said the study suggests horizontal faulting motions play a much more important role in tsunami generation than previously believed. “If this is found to be true for other tsunamis, we may have to revise some early views on how tsunamis are formed and where mega tsunamis are likely to happen in the future,” he said.

Centennial Challenge Winner Delivers First Commercial Space Suit Gloves

NASA’s Centennial Challenges program of prize contests stimulate innovation and competition in solar system exploration and ongoing NASA mission areas. By making awards based on actual achievements, instead of proposals, Centennial Challenges seeks novel solutions to NASA’s mission challenges from non-traditional sources of innovation in academia, industry, and the public.

One of seven such challenges, the Astronaut Glove Challenge is designed to promote the development of glove joint technology, resulting in a highly dexterous and flexible glove that can be used by astronauts over long periods of time for space or planetary surface excursions.

Flagsuit LLC, a new startup founded by NASA Astronaut Glove Challenge winner Peter Homer, shipped its first commercially produced space suit gloves to Los Angeles-based Orbital Outfitters in February 2008 under a joint development agreement.

Peter Homer of Southwest Harbor, Maine, won $200,000 from NASA for his entry in the Astronaut Glove Challenge. He has since founded a company, Flagsuit LLC, to manufacture the gloves for future space missions.

The gloves are designed to be used with the Industrial Suborbital Space Suit-Crew (IS3C), which was unveiled by Orbital Outfitters in October 2007. The gloves will be used for integrated suit testing and evaluation, and feature a patent-pending joint design that makes the fingers more flexible under pressure, increasing dexterity while reducing hand fatigue. The gloves are manufactured using a new process that eliminates time-consuming adjustments to adapt the fit to the wearer’s hands, producing a ready-to-wear garment that literally “fits like a glove.” Flagsuit is currently implementing a preliminary production capability with support from the Maine Technology Institute.The commercial space suit gloves are direct descendants of the design that won the 2007 NASA challenge. “We haven’t lost sight of how we got started,” said Flagsuit founder Peter Homer. “The goal of the NASA Centennial Challenges is to spur development of needed technologies by using prize competitions to encourage private investment. Through our work on the commercial side of the market, Flagsuit is advancing innovations, such as ‘Made to Fit,’ up the technology readiness curve at no cost to NASA. Combined with our flexible joint technology, this will bring tremendous value to NASA as well as to our commercial partners.” Flagsuit and Orbital Outfitters will continue to work together to refine the design of gloves and other space suit elements.

NASA and India Sign Agreement for Future Cooperation

At a ceremony at Kennedy’s visitor complex, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and Indian Space Research Organization Chairman G. Madhavan Nair signed a framework agreement establishing the terms for future cooperation between the two agencies in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.

“I am honored to sign this agreement with the Indian Space Research Organization,” Griffin said. “This agreement will allow us to cooperate effectively on a wide range of programs of mutual interest. India has extensive space-related experience, capabilities and infrastructure, and will continue to be a welcome partner in NASA’s future space exploration activities.”

According to the framework of the agreement, the two agencies will identify areas of mutual interest and seek to develop cooperative programs or projects in Earth and space science, exploration, human space flight, and other activities. The agreement replaces a previous agreement signed in December 1997, which fostered bilateral cooperation in the areas of Earth and atmospheric sciences.

In addition to a long history of cooperation in Earth science, NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization also are cooperating on India’s first mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-1, which will be launched later this year. NASA is providing 2 of the 11 instruments on the spacecraft: the Moon mineralogy mapper instrument and the miniature synthetic aperture radar instrument.

NASA Data Link Pollution to Rainy Summer Days in the Southeast

Rainfall data from a NASA satellite show that summertime storms in the Southeastern United States shed more rainfall midweek than on weekends. Scientists say air pollution from humans is likely driving that trend.

Torrential rainfall from a 2003 storm in the Southeast resulted in massive accumulations of rain (red). Similar data from NASA’s TRMM satellite has revealed that more rain falls midweek.

The link between rainfall and the day of the week is evident in data from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, known as TRMM. Midweek storms tend to be stronger, drop more rain, and span a larger area across the Southeast compared to calmer and drier weekends. The findings are from a study led by Thomas Bell, an atmospheric scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center. Bell said the trend could be attributed to atmospheric pollution from humans, which also peaks midweek.

“It’s eerie to think that we’re affecting the weather,” said Bell, lead author of the study published in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research. “It appears that we’re making storms more violent.”

Rainfall measurements collected from ground-based gauges can vary from one gauge site to the next because of fickle weather patterns. So, to identify any kind of significant weekly rainfall trend, Bell and colleagues looked at the big picture from Earth’s orbit. The team collected data from instruments on the TRMM satellite, which they used to estimate daily summertime rainfall averages from 1998 to 2005 across the entire Southeast.

The team found that, on average, it rained more between Tuesday and Thursday than from Saturday through Monday. Newly analyzed satellite data show that summer 2007 echoed the midweek trend with peak rainfall occurring late on Thursdays. In addition, midweek increases in rainfall were more significant in the afternoon, when the conditions for summertime storms are in place. Based on satellite data, afternoon rainfall peaked on Tuesdays, with 1.8 times more rainfall than on Saturdays, which experienced the least amount of afternoon rain.

The team used ground-based data, along with vertical wind speed and cloud height measurements, to help confirm the weekly trend in rainfall observed from space.

To find out if pollution from humans indeed could be responsible for the midweek boost in rainfall, the team analyzed particulate matter, the concentrations of airborne particles associated with pollution, across the U.S. from 1998 to 2005. The data, obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, showed that pollution tended to peak midweek, mirroring the trend observed in the rainfall data.

“If two things happen at the same time, it doesn’t mean one caused the other,” Bell said. “But it’s well known that particulate matter has the potential to affect how clouds behave, and this kind of evidence makes the argument stronger for a link between pollution and heavier rainfall.”

Scientists long have questioned the effect of workweek pollution, such as emissions from traffic, businesses, and factories, on weekly weather patterns. Researchers know clouds are “seeded” by particulate matter. Water and ice in clouds grab hold around the particles, forming additional water droplets. Some researchers think increased pollution thwarts rainfall by dispersing the same amount of water over more seeds, preventing them from growing large enough to fall as rain. Still, other studies suggest some factors can override this dispersion effect.

In the Southeast, summertime conditions for large, frequent storms are already in place, a factor that overrides the rain-thwarting dispersion effect. When conditions are poised to form big storms, updrafts carry the smaller, pollution-seeded raindrops high into the atmosphere where they condense and freeze.

“It’s the freezing process that gives the storm an extra kick, causing it to grow larger and climb higher into the atmosphere,” Bell said. He and his colleagues found that the radar on the TRMM satellite showed that storms climb to high altitudes more often during the middle of the week than on weekends. These invigorated midweek storms, fueled by workweek pollution, could drop measurably more rainfall.

The trend doesn’t mean it will always rain on weekday afternoons during summertime in the Southeast. Rather, “it’s a tendency,” according to Bell. But with the help of satellites, new insights into pollution’s effect on weather one day could help improve the accuracy of rainfall forecasts, which Bell said, “probably under-predict rain during the week and over-predict rain on weekends.”

SOFIA Completes Closed-Door Test Flights

NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, has passed a significant mission milestone. The observatory has completed the first phase of experimental flight tests in a joint program by NASA and Deutsche Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center (DLR)). SOFIA’s science and mission operations are managed jointly by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and the Deutsches SOFIA Institut (DSI). Tests confirmed the structural integrity and performance of the modified 747SP SOFIA aircraft that carries a huge infrared telescope.

The telescope measures nearly 10 feet in width and weighs almost 19 tons. It peers through a 16-foot-high door cut into SOFIA’s 747 fuselage. During this test series, the aircraft flew five times with this external door closed. These flights tested the limits of the aircraft’s capabilities in many areas, including aerodynamics, structural integrity, stability and control, and handling qualities.

“SOFIA is already a technological marvel, and will soon be a powerful tool for studying the birth and evolution of planets, stars, and galaxies,” said Alan Stern, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “The completion of its closed door testing phase is a major milestone on the way to SOFIA’s inaugural science flights next year.”

The SOFIA program also checked the functionality of the aircraft’s cutting edge, German-built telescope. Engineers tested the ability of the instrument’s control system to maintain its precise position when tracking a celestial object, even while the aircraft moves and maneuvers through the sky.

“The project finished a very important milestone on the path to the first astronomy work with the telescope, which is expected in early 2009,” said Robert Meyer, SOFIA program manager at Dryden.

The aircraft will now undergo installation and integration of the remaining elements of the observatory before open-door test flights, scheduled to begin in late 2008. After completing the initial open-door test flight, limited science observation flights will begin in 2009. The science community will survey the universe with five specialized instruments on SOFIA as the observatory begins normal science observation flights in 2011. The observatory reaches full operational capabilities in 2014.

The SOFIA aircraft is based at Dryden’s newly established Aircraft Operations Facility, in Palmdale, California, where it will remain for additional development, flight testing, and science flight operations. Dryden manages the SOFIA program and Ames manages the science project.

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NASA Selects 302 Small Business Research and Technology Projects

NASA’s SOFIA infrared observatory and an F/A-18 safety chase during the first series of test flights to verify the flight performance of the modified Boeing 747SP.

NASA has awarded contracts to 302 small business proposals that address critical research and technology needs for Agency programs and projects. The awards are part of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR), and the Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR).

The SBIR program selected 276 proposals for negotiation of Phase I contracts, and the STTR program chose 26 proposals for negotiation of Phase I contract awards. The selected SBIR projects have a total value of approximately $27.6 million. The selected STTR projects have a total value of approximately $2.6 million. The SBIR contracts will be awarded to 205 small, high-technology firms in 31 states. The STTR contracts will be awarded to 24 small, high-technology firms in 14 states. As part of the STTR program, the firms will partner with 22 universities and research institutions in 15 states.

SBIR and STTR are part of the Innovative Partnerships Program at NASA Headquarters, which works with U.S. industry to infuse pioneering technologies into NASA missions and transition them into commercially available products and services.

The SBIR program supports NASA’s mission directorates by competitively selecting ventures that address specific technology gaps in mission programs and strives to complement other Agency research investments. Results from the program have benefited several NASA efforts, including air traffic control systems, Earth-observing spacecraft, the International Space Station, and the development of spacecraft for exploring the solar system.

Research topic areas among this group of selected proposals include:

• A simulated test bed for identifying dynamic air corridors to increase aircraft throughput
• Compact, 3-D scanning light detection and ranging for robotic navigation on the lunar surface, known as lidar
• Regenerative fuel cells for use on the lunar surface
• Ultra-high efficiency solar cells designed to operate on spacecraft in extreme environment missions
• High-efficiency transmitters for space communications that provide a significant improvement in its power output capability without an impact on the payload size and power

The SBIR program is a highly competitive, three-phase award system. It provides qualified small businesses—including women-owned and disadvantaged firms—with opportunities to propose unique ideas that meet specific research and development needs of the Federal government.

These contract awards are for Phase I, which is a feasibility study with as much as $100,000 in funding to evaluate the scientific and technical merit of an idea. The SBIR awards may last as long as 6 months. The STTR awards may last as long as 1 year. Phase II expands on the results on the development of Phase I; awards are for as much as $600,000 during as long as 2 years. Phase III is for the commercialization of the results of Phase II and requires the use of private sector or non-SBIR Federal funding.

Contractors submitted 1,500 Phase I SBIR proposals and 166 Phase I STTR proposals for competitive selection. The criteria used to choose the winning proposals included technical merit and feasibility; experience, qualifications, and facilities; effectiveness of the work plan; and commercial potential and feasibility.

Ames manages the program for the Innovative Partnerships Program office. NASA’s 10 field centers manage the individual projects.

Inflatable Habitat Goes to McMurdo in Preparation for Moon, Mars

A joint project among NASA, the National Space Foundation, and ILC Dover continues at the McMurdo Complex in Antarctica. Team members drill into the tundra to install a weather station adjacent to the inflatable habitat in the upper left portion of the image.

In September 2007, NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and ILC Dover, of Frederica, Delaware, unveiled the Antarctic-bound inflatable habitat. Explorers residing at the NSF-managed McMurdo Station in the Antarctic will live in the inflatable structure through February 2009 and will report their experience. Sensors will also collect and report data. Testing the habitat in such an inhospitable setting will help scientists design similar habitats for use on the Moon or Mars.

“Testing the inflatable habitat in one of the harshest, most remote sites on Earth gives us the opportunity to see what it would be like to use for lunar exploration,” said Paul Lockhart, director of Constellation Systems for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.

By 2020, NASA hopes to return astronauts to the Moon, where they will set up a lunar outpost for long-duration stays; an inflatable habitat will provide protected living space while also being easily transportable to and across the lunar surface.

Resembling an inflatable Quonset hut, the habitat is insulated and heated, has power, and offers 384 square feet of living space.

“Our habitation concepts have to be lightweight as well as durable,” Lockhart said. “This prototype inflatable habitat . . . only takes four crew members a few hours to set up, permitting exploration beyond the initial landing area.” Resembling a large inflatable tent, the structure is insulated and heated, has power, and is pressurized. It offers 384 square feet of living space.

Also interested in new habitat design is the NSF, which currently uses a bulky, complex, 50-year-old design known as a Jamesway hut, a version of the Quonset hut with an insulated fabric cover. In addition to studying the new data collected from the inflatable habitat’s sensors, the NSF plans to study improvements in packing, transportation, power consumption, and damage tolerance.

Ames GREEN Team and Google Connect on Environmental Research

The Global Research into Energy and the Environment at NASA (GREEN) symposium held at Ames Research Center on October 19, 2007, was the first in a NASA and Google Inc.-sponsored series which aims to create connections between NASA, academia, and the clean technology community.

The GREEN Team and Google next hosted a Director’s Colloquium on December 5, 2007. Dr. Marty Hoofer, professor emeritus of physics and former chair of the Department of Applied Science at New York University, discussed breakthroughs in cost-effective space solar power—the beaming of high-intensity solar power from space at laser or microwave frequencies for electric power at the surface. The next day, experts from Ames, Glenn Research Center, and the University of California, Santa Cruz reviewed NASA’s role in energy research and discussed how NASA might contribute to renewable energy research.

The third GREEN Team seminar was held on Tuesday, January 15, 2008, and included an overview of transportation policy and discussions of new approaches from industry and NASA, including not only new adaptations to bio-fuels such as sugar cane and methane, but also ideas for a rapid transportation network. Unimodal LLC’s Chris Perkins presented his ideas on the Skytran, a small “car” that transports people and is powered by magnets.

Renowned environmental designer William McDonough spoke at Ames on February 5, 2008, about his “cradle to cradle” philosophy in the fourth GREEN Team seminar. Drawing inspiration from the effectiveness of natural systems, McDonough has been a pioneer in the sustainability movement since 1981; he helped design Google’s new green campus at Ames in 2007, suggesting ways Google and Ames could have a more actively environmental space. In addition to using wind and solar power, McDonough suggested design ideas, such as constructing parking lots from permeable layers of stone and dirt to allow for better rainwater absorption, and shifting from merely “eco-efficient” actions like recycling to even more “eco-effective” strategies. Google consumes a great deal of electricity due to thousands of computer servers running simultaneously; because of this, many corporations considering “going green” are closely watching Google and NASA’s collaboration.

The GREEN Team hosted another Director’s Colloquium on March 11, 2008. Jim Woolsey, chair of the advisory boards of the Clean Fuels Foundation and the New Uses Council, connected security issues and climate change with possible solutions to American dependence on oil.

April’s symposium addressed new ecosystem services, which include the management of environmental data from Earth-observing satellites and the use of supercomputers to model current climates. Ames Director S. Pete Worden stressed how the Google and NASA collaboration is addressing questions about stewardship of the environment.

NASA and the National Institutes of Health Partner for Health Research in Space

In September 2007, NASA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a partnership for health research in space. Joined by U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison, of Texas, and Barbara Mikulski, of Maryland, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni signed the Memorandum of Understanding, the first of its kind between NASA and another government agency, which outlines how the U.S. segment of the International Space Station (ISS) will be used as a national research laboratory. The report also describes possible partnerships with other agencies and companies.

“I am extremely pleased that this collaborative effort is moving forward,” said Zerhouni. “The station provides a unique environment where researchers can explore fundamental questions about human health issues—including how the body heals itself, fights infection, or develops diseases such as cancer or osteoporosis.”

The agreement helps American scientists perform research aboard the ISS to answer questions about human health and diseases; NASA and the NIH expect it will help advance scientific discovery.

“The congressional designation as a national laboratory underscores the significance the American people place on the scientific potential of the space station,” Griffin explained. “Not only will the station help in our efforts to explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond, its resources also can be applied for a much broader purpose—improving human health.”

The facility at the station provides a virtually gravity-free environment where the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie human diseases can be explored. For example:

• The station provides a stable platform on which scientists can study the molecular basis for the effect of weightlessness on bone deterioration, which could benefit people who suffer from bone or muscle-wasting diseases.
• Studies of the brain and how it compensates for the absence of sensory input and spatial orientation may hold promise for people who suffer from balance disorders.
• Changes in human immunity during prolonged space travel could offer new hope to people with immune system issues.
• Remote health monitoring of astronauts may generate more technologies useful for Earth applications.

As part of the agreement, NIH and NASA will encourage space-related health research by exchanging information, providing expertise in areas of common interest, and sharing each other’s research and development efforts.

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