Thriving in Space Ensuring the Future of Biological and Physical Sciences Research: A Decadal Survey for 2023-2032 (2023) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 11-33
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From page 11... ...
Exploration of that universe over greater distances and durations and by more humans requires scientific understanding of the impact of that space on fundamental biological and physical systems, systems that until now were confined to Earth. It is the role of the NASA Division of Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS Division)
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From page 12... ...
Sustained human exploration beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) presents science objectives and challenges not yet approached through the era of the International Space Station (ISS)
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With the sunset of the U.S. space shuttle program, the ISS took over as the major science platform in LEO.
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By early 2023, NASA had effectively reached full utilization of the ISS given crew time limitations and transportation resources. The NASA Liaison given the responsibility to oversee and manage the entity managing the ISSNL resides in the International Space Station Program Office (ISSPO)
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Over the past decade, fundamental biological science has made great strides in understanding how microbes and plant systems grow and replicate differently in microgravity environments, and such knowledge can advance long-term life support systems for space exploration. Basic physical science research on understanding fluid behavior in low gravity has been extended to applications of three-dimensional (3D)
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From page 16... ...
Figure 1-3 illustrates the conceptually broad swath of scientific expertise within biological and physical sciences, collectively referred to as BPS, in space science research. From an Earth-focused research organization perspective such as a university or industry laboratory, each of these hexagons could represent a single department or division -- defined by shared terminology, experimental practices, and research infrastructure.
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From page 17... ...
(See further discussion of particular technologies developed for BPS experiments over the past decade in Chapter 3.) SPACE, SPACEFLIGHT, AND PLANETARY ENVIRONMENTS The ISS has been a premier destination for conducting BPS research for more than 20 years, perhaps most notably examining the effects of gravity on organisms, combustion, fluids, and materials.
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From page 18... ...
• Variable gravity: During spaceflight, objects and materials do not experience the effects of gravity, such as buoyancy or sedimentation. This "microgravity" environment is useful for studying a range of phenomena, including fluid shifts, body forces, cellular gravity perception, plant growth and mechanical response, fundamental combustion and fire safety, two-phase flow, solidification, processes during additive manufacturing, and soft matter structure and dynamics.
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Furthermore, low seismicity and availability of permanent cryogenic regions on the Moon provide a unique environment for gravitational wave detection and other experiments. opportunities and platforms for conducting BPS research.
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International Space Station: NASA/ISS. CubeSat: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
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. Deleterious health effects are impacted by several factors, including duration of spaceflight, radiation exposure, behavioral aspects, living in confined and highly controlled spaces, and temporal alterations in hormonal and circadian rhythms (Goel et al.
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In the next decade, human space research is expected to emphasize a systems biology, multi-omics approach to understand how the space environment impacts the interplay between complex biochemical networks that regulate human biological systems as a whole, and the interspecific interactions between humans and microorganisms. Plant Biology The space environment provides unique opportunities for fundamental plant sciences, as distinct from applied studies that may be concerned with cultivation of plants for life support in space.
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Biophysics in Space and Planetary Environments Biophysics is a rapidly developing area of space science research for the BPS community. It is an inherently interdisciplinary, bridging field that seeks to understand and describe biological phenomena through application of the theories and approaches of physics (Limbert 2017; Rapin et al.
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Fundamental research across a wide range of disciplines and settings contributes to the robust physical sciences program. The primary relevant disciplines within the physical sciences include materials sciences such as physical metallurgy, complex fluids and soft matter, fluid physics, combustion science, and fundamental physics.
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Soft matter has been described as "everything squishy," and is a term used to denote materials that flow readily under low applied forces, including gravitational forces on Earth; they are also termed complex fluids. Soft matter includes research areas such as polymer flow, colloids, gels, foams, liquid crystals, complex/ dusty plasmas, and granular media.
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From page 26... ...
Conversely, mitigating the effect of fine particles of granular media, or dust, to prevent it from adhering to photovoltaic solar cells and thermal radiators and diminishing their performance is necessary for missions that last weeks to months. Last, understanding the processes associated with 3D printing to manufacture delicate biocompatible structures or replacement parts from soft matter is also being investigated in both the microgravity and partial gravity environments (Nangle et al.
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. Centrifuges in drop towers and the ISS also have been used to generate a partial gravity environment, but compensation for spinning fluid motion generated by the centrifuge is required for these environments (Ferkul 2017)
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. Because fires are very sensitive to ambient oxygen mole fraction, reactants and materials, diluents, pressure, and gravitational forces, fire safety practices deemed safe in the microgravity environment of the ISS (with a cabin atmosphere identical to air on Earth)
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How the launch costs associated FIGURE 1-7 NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Nicole Mann poses with a pair of free-flying, cube-shaped Astrobee robotic helpers inside the Kibo laboratory module. The International Space Station lifetime has been extended to 2030, but NASA plans to replace it with a commercial option.
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From page 30... ...
This is not an exhaustive review of all the changes affecting the BPS research community, but it reflects the types of developments under way. NASA has participated in many international partnerships that have included the bartering of experiment resources such as crew time and facility usage, launch mass, and so on, and enabled sharing the data among principal investigators from many nations.
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ISS Microbial Analysis Microbes monitoring within the ISS Microbes ISS JAXA Biorepository Animal, microbial Mouse habitat unit, aquatic mouse animal experiment facility Physical Science Informatics Machine-readable textual or Space shuttle, ISS, free-flyers, Biophysics, combustion (PSI) numerical form documents, ground-based science, complex fluids, fluid digital images and videos; also physics, fundamental physics, contains analyzed or reduced and materials science data and any supporting data, including science requirements, experiment design and engineering data, analytical or numerical models, publications, reports, and patents, and description of commercial products developed; also beginning to archive flight samples from past experiments ESA Erasmus Experiment Database of European Space Space shuttle, ISS, free-flyers, Wide range of biological Archive (EEA)
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From page 32... ...
SOURCE: Courtesy of NASA, https:// www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/24392399919, CC BY-NC 2.0. BOX 1-3 Space Experiment Platform Options • The International Space Station and commercial low Earth orbit (LEO)
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From page 33... ...
These discoveries and developments -- made by a resilient BPS research community that still has much room to broaden its talent pipeline -- establish a baseline of knowledge and capabilities that motivate the framework for BPS research themes of the coming decade as outlined in Chapter 3. This baseline of scientific insights highlighted in Chapter 2 also serves as a reference for the key scientific questions of the coming decade described in Chapters 3–5, as well as the research campaign concepts outlined in Chapter 6 and overall strategy described in Chapter 7.
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