Opening the Door to New Materials for Exploration (Forwarded)
- From: Andrew Yee <ayee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 00:22:21 -0400 (EDT)
Patrick Lorentz, Bob Allen
NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va. October 4, 2005
Opening the Door to New Materials for Exploration
Scientists just got their space-bound luggage back after a four-year wait.
On October 3, containers filled with experimental materials that might one
day be used to build the vehicles that carry humans to Mars were opened
for the first time since their return to Earth. These materials endured
four years of continuous exposure in space before Space Shuttle Discovery
brought them back in August.
The opening of the containers was a "tell-all" moment for the Materials
International Space Station Experiment, or MISSE.
"I'm excited to see if, after four years in space, do these experiments
and specimens have the same mechanical properties as they did before?"
wondered MISSE Principal Investigator and Chief Scientist Bill Kinard.
Researchers and reporters joined Kinard at NASA's Langley Research Center
to witness the first opening of the containers. The big question, as
Kinard put it, was "Did (the materials) survive space?"
Yes, they did.
The materials endured very well as a group, though some samples were
missing and there was light damage to the case shells.
After such a long stay in space, some damage was expected according to
Kinard. Without a detailed examination, he couldn't be sure if the damage
was due to man-made debris or meteorites. Either way, it was minimal.
The MISSE experiments will now be returned to the scientists who proposed
them for thorough analyses and testing.
About MISSE
The MISSE is surprisingly simple considering its importance.
The experiment collects dozens of small samples of materials into a
container that looks like a metal suitcase. This 'suitcase' -- officially
known as a Passive Experiment Container -- travels into space with a space
shuttle crew. Once they arrive at the international space station, the
shuttle crew opens the container and clamps it to the outside of the
station to expose the samples to the space environment.
Then you leave it there ... for a long time.
After all, we expect a mission to Mars will take over one year using
current technologies. If you're going to subject astronauts to that kind
of mission, you must know that the materials in their spacecraft and
equipment will stand up to the test.
Space is a tough place. Materials that are used in space must survive
extreme temperatures, meteorites, corrosive atomic oxygen, radiation and
the absence of an atmosphere and gravity. Simulations here on Earth can
mimic only a couple of these factors at a time. Ultimately, nothing is as
effective as testing materials that you hope to use in space in ... well,
space.
Astronauts attached the experiment to the international space station in
2001 during the STS-105 mission. The experiment was intended to stay in
space for one year, but the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia and the STS-107
crew postponed MISSE's return indefinitely.
By the time that the STS-114 astronauts brought it back, the experiment
had flown for four times longer than planned. Astronaut Steve Robinson
retrieved the MISSE containers during a spacewalk on July 30.
To continue the experiment, astronaut Soichi Noguchi attached a new MISSE
container to the space station. NASA plans to retrieve it in about one
year.
[NOTE: Images supporting this release are available at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/misse_opening.html ]
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