Experiment

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate: 1) whether microgravity induces changes in osteoblastic cells similar to those caused by bone resorption-stimulating agents like parathyroid hormone (PTH), and 2) whether those phenotypic changes are associated with alterations in cell shape and/or adhesive interactions with the extracellular matrix.

Approach:

A permanent cell line derived from a rat osteosarcoma and stably exhibiting an osteoblast-like phenotype (ROS 17/2.8) was cultured on microcarrier beads and inoculated into 24 STL cartridges. At times ranging from 6 hrs to 10 days post-launch, samples of conditioned medium were collected from pairs of cartridges from the 12 flight and 12 ground control groups, and the cartridges were perfused with fixative. Upon recovery after landing, the medium was assayed for lactate (an indicator of metabolic activity and cell viability), alkaline phosphatase (an osteoblast marker enzyme), cyclic AMP (produced by osteoblastic cells in response to PTH) and prostaglandin E2 (a locally produced mediator of bone turnover). The cells were examined by phase contrast and fluorescence microscopy to assess shape changes, cytoskeletal organization and interactions with their substrata.

Results:

Measurements of lactate, alkaline phosphatase, cAMP and PGE2 indicated the presence of viable cells expressing an osteoblastic phenotype; however, no differences were found in any of these parameters between the flight and ground samples. Microscopic examination of the beads indicated that a loss of cells occurred early after inoculation into cartridges in flight and ground samples alike, followed apparently by slow recovery and growth. No gross differences were found in cell shape between flight and ground samples.

APPROACH:
During the NEEMO 6 mission, crewmembers and hab technicians wore silver ion T-shirts and/or sweatshirts, and slept on sheets treated with the silver ion technology while inside the habitat. At specified times throughout the mission, the crew used the International Space Station (ISS) Surface Sampler Kit (SSK) to sample specific living areas within the Aquarius habitat for microorganisms that are detectable with the SSK. The SSK is an ISS hardware component within the Environmental Health System of the Crew Health Care System.

RESULTS:
NEEMO 6 Crewmember feedback was overwhelmingly positive and recommended using textiles that contain silver ion.

APPROACH:
This investigation uses state-of-the-art imaging technologies to quantify morphology, biochemistry, metabolism, and kinematics for lumbar discs of crewmembers before and after prolonged space flight. These data will be correlated with low back pain that spontaneously arises in space in order to establish pain and disc damage mechanisms that will serve as basis for future countermeasure development. Successful completion of the investigation will include a comprehensive database of microgravity-induced intervertebral disc and vertebral changes (type and magnitude), as well as a prioritization of these changes regarding their deleterious effects and risks for crewmember injury based on clinical findings.

Crewmembers will be imaged twice preflight (over a one-month time frame) to establish baseline data and to characterize measurement repeatability. After long-term microgravity exposure, 180 days on the International Space Station (ISS), crewmembers will be studied while maintaining supine posture as soon as possible after return to Earth in order to quantify the acute effects of prolonged space flight. Also, pre- and postflight, they will don a compression device so that MRI images are obtained before and after 50% axial body weight load. This compression device loads the spine and simulates 50% body weight load (not including loads from muscles) on the lumbar spine in upright posture. Subsequently, crewmembers will be tested after three and six months of readaptation to 1-G in order to distinguish immediate and longer-term recoveries. These measures represent a comprehensive set of tests that evaluate exposure severity, potential injury mechanisms, and pain generator localization.

RESULTS:
This experiment is in progress. Results will be available at a later date.

In the field of human space flight, real-time performance metrics and the quantification of performance during operationally-relevant tasks and scenarios have the potential to make existing operations safer and more efficient, and improve the design of future vehicles. The identification of critical performance decrements, either in measures of task performance, workload, or situational awareness, may be used to alter the human-automation task allocation or suggest changes to crew resource management.

APPROACH:
An existing configurable and portable simulation platform was integrated into HERA for use during the HERA 45 day missions. The platform simulated two operationally-relevant scenarios—a piloted lunar landing task, and a Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER) inspection of an ISS solar array. During Campaign 4 and 5, the simulation platform was used to characterize piloting metrics including flight performance, workload, and situation awareness during a simulated piloted lunar landing and ISS EVA SAFER solar array inspection tasks. The results from these two campaigns were correlated with mission timeline events and the NASA Behavioral Health and Performance (BHP) Standard Measures. 

RESULTS:
The final year of the project (Year 4) was comprised of tasks related to data analysis from Campaign 4 and Campaign 5. Extensive testing on the robustness continued to be conducted to ensure simulation stability and the data was properly and reliably logged. A set of data analysis routines was developed to support in the verification of the automatic speech recognition (ASR) algorithm. 

The Draper and UC Davis developed a configurable and portable simulation platform which was integrated with the HERA facility for the Campaign 4 and Campaign 5, 45- day, simulated long-duration space exploration missions (LDEMS). Lunar lander simulation flight performance data was collected every two days for the duration of each mission, for each of the four crewmembers, over the entirety of Campaign 4 Missions 1,3,4, 5; 20 days in Missions 2 (mission terminated early due to Hurricane Harvey), and the entirety of Campaign 5 Missions 1, 2, 3 and 4. 

Lunar lander metrics were assessed as a function of mission time in HERA, the presence of a Landing Point Redesignation (LPR), the landing site map orientation, and crew sleep duration derived from actigraphy data collected during Campaign 4. Analysis of trials that include the presence of a LPR, show an impact on most performance metrics consistent with past results. 

Assessment of performance and workload over time indicate crew improvement over mission time. The observed flight performance in Campaign 4 was assessed with crew sleep duration. Results indicated greater variation in Average Pitch RMSE for all subjects on days following reduced sleep (5 hours or less) than on days following unrestricted sleep, indicating performance was more consistent after unrestricted sleep. 

Relevance to Space: Determinants of poor sleep quality during spaceflights are not clear. This study aims to explore the hypothesis, derived from recent findings on Earth that during space flights sleep quality might be reduced by the occurrence of autonomic subcortical arousals. In turn it has been suggested that an abnormal activation of the autonomic nervous system might be influenced by changes in the cardiac mechanics induced by microgravity. From the methodological point of view, autonomic activity can be estimated by the analysis of the heart rate (from ECG) but cardiac mechanics cannot be assessed onboard during sleep with current technology (the echocardiographic assessment awakens the subject). The smart garment proposed as payload in this experiment aims at monitoring, for the first time, not only the traditional vital signs (ECG and respiration) but also the so-far missing piece of information concerning cardiac mechanics. Sensors and wires are embedded into the garment so the monitoring does not interfere with sleep comfort and drastically reduces the instrumentation time.

Relevance to Earth: About 25% of western population is affected by sleep disturbances that at the moment are studied by complex devices requiring a specialized operator and long time for the instrument setup. The terrestrial version of the payload may be beneficial to simplify the sleep monitoring in patients and would allow, for the first time a simultaneous assessment of autonomic and mechanical biological parameters.

APPROACH:
Pre-flight: 1) Assessment of indexes of cardiac mechanics and performance by cardioechodoppler assessment followed by a short monitoring in awake condition by the MagIC-Space system while supine (10 min), sitting (10 min) and standing (10 min); 2) Two recordings during sleep by MagIC-Space, to be performed in two subsequent nights. Inflight, six recordings during sleep by MagIC-Space will be performed. Post-flight: Same protocol as pre-flight.

RESULTS:
This is an international experiment. NASA does not currently have an agreement with international space partners to archive their data in the LSDA.

Crew members live and work in a closed-system environment that is monitored to ensure health and safety. The design and development of the International Space System (ISS) has incorporated lessons learned from microbial monitoring of previous spaceflight missions. The microbial control actions on the ISS include engineering designs, such as high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtering of the air, microbial monitoring of the air, surfaces, and water, and remediation procedures when necessary. The current spacecraft environmental microbial limits were evaluated based on the continual monitoring of the microbes in the spaceflight environment.

New systems, such as the Veggie plant growth system, are being introduced to enable mission success. Collecting measures on new systems is important to the development of spaceflight-grown produce requirements. Periodic sampling of the microbes will provide the data needed to assess the impact of the plant growth system on crewmembers’ safety. Since the Veggie system is open to the cabin environment, it is critical to understand what microbes are present in the plant growth system.

This investigation will focus on characterizing the microbial community of the Veggie plant growth system to assess the risk of adverse health effects due to host-microorganism interactions. The objective of this experiment is to characterize the microbial community of the Veggie plant growth system in order to identify a baseline of microorganisms. This experiment has the following specific aims:

1. Develop microbial requirements for spaceflight grown produce.
2. Provide inputs to future plant growth system design.

APPROACH:

Inflight and in conjunction with Environmental Health System (EHS) Microbial Testing:

• Within 5 days before surface operations, each operator will review the reference material (10 minutes)
• Surface Sample Collection: Within 30 days of return vehicle undock, 12 surface sampling sessions, four samples per session (2 media slides per sample, fungi and bacteria) will be collected on the Veggie Facility (80 minutes total, 20 minutes per sample). Slides will be in ambient storage inside Incubation Bag with EHS samples until analysis session. A total of 48 samples (96 media slides) will be collected.
• Surface Sample Analysis: Five days after the Veggie Monitoring Surface Collection session, four surface samples (2 media slides per sample) will be analyzed (50 minutes total, 10 minutes per sample and 10 minutes for stowing samples). Samples to be returned within 30 days of collection.
• Water Collection: As needed if nominal EHS ambient water collections are not collected within 30 days of surface sample return. Samples to be collected within 30 days of undocking of the same return vehicle as Veggie Monitoring surface samples. A total of 12 water samples will be collected.

Total Crew Time: 2.33 hours

RESULTS:

This experiment is in progress. Results will be available at a later date.

PLANNED SCHEDULE:

In-flight and in conjunction with EHS microbial testing

• Crewmembers review reference material

• Within 5 days before surface operations (5 minutes)

• Surface Sample Collection

• Within 30 days of return vehicle dock (80 minutes total, 10 minutes per sample)

• Surface Sample Analysis

• Five days after surface sample collection (25 minutes total, 5 minutes per sample and 5 minutes to stow surface sample)

• Water Collection

• Only required if EHS ambient water collection is not collected within 30 days of surface sample return.
• Within 30 days of undocking of Veggie Monitoring surface sample return vehicle

APPROACH:
Investigators completed studies of the electrode and method for a series of laboratory-prepared standard solutions. They also redesigned a small flow cell that could be used in microgravity environments for water quality assessment. They devised and tested a multiple step analysis protocol that involved sampling the water from the galley, mixing with a prepackaged supporting electrolyte (in a sealed syringe), adding the solution to the cell, making the anodic stripping voltammetric measurements of the metal ion content and analyzing the data. The focus was on Ag(I).

RESULTS:
Investigators demonstrated that a Au-coated, boron-doped, diamond thin-film electrode provides a sensitive, reproducible, and stable response for total inorganic arsenic (As(III) and As(V)) using differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DPASV). As is pre-concentrated with Au on the diamond surface during the deposition step and detected oxidatively during the stripping step. Au deposition was uniform over the electrode surface with a nominal particle size of 23 +/- 5 nm and a particle density of 109 cm-2.

Well-designed interfaces, tasks, procedures, and training are critical defense layers in preventing error, and in promoting mission success. They are also critical for the early recognition of errors once made, and for minimizing the consequences of errors. Thorough understanding of human cognition, learning, and skill acquisition are foundational ingredients in the proper design process. As such, research in learning not only contributes to the design of training programs, but also to the design of the systems and the procedures to be trained. Because validating training implementations and particularly those aimed at the long-term retention of skills takes time, this research must commence as soon as possible so as to have finalized products in time to meet the needs of the Constellation Program. What’s more, intermediate products from this research effort benefit current missions and allow iterative improvement cycles with continuous feedback from key stakeholders. With sufficient time for iterative cycles of development, improvements in current training programs could lead to significant improvements in future systems design. This opportunity to contribute to system design is the result of the fact that training programs must often compensate for design deficiencies.

Ground-based pre-flight training and in-space just-in-time training and task rehearsal will continue to be an important driver for exploration missions. On-board training systems will enhance the autonomy and effectiveness of exploration crews. Long-duration missions preclude the possibility of easily substituting new crewmembers from the ground who have been specially trained on specific emerging problems, new tasks and scientific or mission operations. It is important to continue to depend even more on the deep knowledge astronauts acquire of the idiosyncrasies of the flight systems they live with and the tasks they have to perform. However, given the nature of the missions, onboard training opportunities for individuals and teams will be necessary, such as in reconfigurable training and mission rehearsal systems. These systems will enable the crews to keep their skill levels up to par and to develop new skills or practice new procedures to resolve new challenges as they arise.

Increasing communication delays between crews and ground support mean that astronauts need to be prepared to handle the unexpected on their own. As crews become more autonomous, their potential span of control and required expertise grow much greater than is needed today. It is not possible to train for every eventuality ahead of time on the ground or maintain such skills across long intervals of disuse. New training approaches must be skill-based rather than task-based, emphasizing the acquisition of general skills such as avionics trouble-shooting, or even broader skills such as creative problem solving. Furthermore, a team of experts is not necessarily an expert team. Thus, team training will be particularly important, and especially so for multicultural and international crews on long-duration missions. Research in many other highrisk domains (e.g., aviation, the military, nuclear power and medicine) shows that effective teamwork can provide resilience in the face of challenging problems. The same is true for the people of Launch and Mission Control, particularly as mission complexity increases and resources available for training decrease.

The current length of crew and flight controllers training has been identified as a major issue in various crew reports and debriefs, and it is predicted that future training will have to be more efficient. Leveraging from the investigation of existing training and the analysis of current training principles and approaches conducted during 2007 and 2008, a forward plan is proposed for 2009-2011. Specifically, the proposal focuses on exploring some of the basics of learning and of skill acquisition and retention, as well as their practical implementation in two distinct target operations that provide a broad basis for principles and methodologies relevant for all aspects of NASA’s Exploration mission: mission control, and medical operations. Because validating training implementations and particularly those aimed at the long-term retention of skills takes time, this research must maintain it's timeline so as to have finalized products in time to meet Constellation needs. What’s more, intermediate products from this research effort benefit current missions and allow for iterative improvement cycles with continuous feedback from key stakeholders.

APPROACH:
The approach taken in the proposal and the particular products pursued are the result of close collaboration with MOD training organizations. Significant progress has been made in the past 2 years. MOD is very interested in the proposed work which they find very responsive to their current and future needs. The same is true for SD (Space Medicine Division) and its medical operations.

For 2009, products from this study will include prototype MOD team training protocols and tools, as well as recommendations for the design of medical checklists incorporating training and decision support functions.

RESULTS:
in 2010, an electronic Flight Surgeon Performance Support Tool prototype assessment was conducted to determine the feasibility of an electronic implementation of a paper prototype to enable Flight Surgeons to carry the tool on their laptop computers which they bring with them to the Mission Control Center (MCC) when they have console duties. The current tool was defined for the scenario “Flight Surgeon Response to Fire/Smoke Emergency on ISS.” The plan is to eventually have similar tools for a wide range of situations and include multiple levels of information such that the tool could be used for initial, refresher and just-in-time training as well as for on-task performance support. This research was based on the work done in 2008 and 2009 to develop a prototype Flight Surgeon performance support tool in the form of a paper one-pager to be used in emergency situations on board the ISS. The tool was designed to provide a single reference point for the Flight Surgeon on console, and included immediate actions, the relevant Flight Rules, and information needed to be provided or requested. The paper prototype used Fire Onboard the ISS as a sample emergency, and was developed in collaboration with our Medical Operations Stakeholder.

APPROACH:
Starchless mutant strains of Arabidopsis thaliana are used in this experiment. 24 experiment containers (EC) are flown in the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS). Each EC contains five seedling cassettes. Approximately 1680 seedlings are grown in space during the experiment. Video recording of the plant growth is performed during flight. An initial dark and illumination period of 72 hours is performed then followed by the stimulation illumination phase which includes altered gravity and light (red or blue) environment. At the conclusion of the experiment during flight, seedling cassettes are removed from the ECs and placed into cryo-storage at -80 degrees C. Upon returning from flight, videotapes are analyzed for germination, growth and curvature of experimental samples. At the PI's laboratory, recovered frozen samples are also analyzed for gene expression effected by various light and gravity treatments.

RESULTS:
However, one problem encountered during TROPI-1 was low seed germination due to long storage periods (6-8 months) in flight hardware. Thus, the originally proposed fractional gravity studies were not performed. TROPI-2 provides an opportunity to regain the results from these important fractional gravity experiments.

APPROACH:
This experiment involved comparisons of preflight, flight, and postflight perceptions and mental imagery, with special reference to space flight related decreases in the vertical component of perception. Seven crewmembers performed the test while ground-based controls were used for comparison. The test involved having subjects view a computer screen through a cylinder that blocks all other visual information. The subjects were presented with background images with different orientations relative to their bodies. On top of these images were a superimposed letter that could be either a “p” or a “d” depending on its orientation. Subjects indicated which letter they saw and the investigators measured the transition points where the letters change from a “p” to a “d” and back again. The researchers used this to determine the relative importance of visual and body cues to the subjects' perception of up.

RESULTS:
A trend for a reduction in visual influence was observed inflight with lower-than-baseline levels maintained throughout six months in orbit. Visual influence was still lower than baseline levels several months after returning to Earth. The investigators conclude that sensory weightings are altered by long-term exposure to microgravity and do not recover within six months of return to normal gravity.