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System consists of filtration unit, reverse-osmosis module, tanks, pumps, plumbing, and various gauges, meters, and valves. After water is used in washing machine or shower, it is collected in holding tank. Water is pumped through series of five particulate filters. Pressure tank supplies processed water to commode water closet.
Thin metallic liners that provide leak-free service in cryogenic propulsion systems are overwrapped with a glass-fiber composite that provides strength and protection from handling damage. The resultant tube is lightweight, strong, and has a low thermal flux. The inside commodity flow line and the outside vacuum jacket were fabricated using this method. Several types of vacuum jackets were fabricated and tested at operating temperatures from 294 to 21 K (+70 to minus 423 F) and operating pressure up to 69 N/cm2 (100 psi). The primary objective of the program was to develop vacuum jacket concepts, using previously developed concepts for the inner line. All major program objectives were met resulting in a design concept that is adaptable to a wide range of aerospace vehicle requirements. Major items of development included convolution of thin metallic sections up to 46 cm (18 in.) in diameter, design and fabrication of an extremely lightweight tension membrane concept for the vacuum jacket, and analytical tools that predict the failure mode and levels.
The design and fabrication of a prototype automatic transport system to move wastes to an incinerator onboard a spacecraft are described. The commode and debris collector, subsystems to treat noncondensible gases, oxygen supply to incinerator and afterburner, and removal and ash collection from the incinerator are considered, as well as a zero gravity condenser. In-depth performance testing of a totally integrated incineration system and autoclaving as a waste treatment method are included.
A structural economic model is presented for estimating the demand functions for natural gas and crude oil in industry and in steam electric power generation. Extensions of the model to other commodities are indicated.
The author has identified the following significant results. Computer image processing was shown to be both valuable and necessary in the extraction of the proper subset of the 200 million bits of information in an ERTS image to be applied to a specific problem. Spectral reflectivity information obtained from the four MSS bands can be correlated with in situ spectral reflectance measurements after path radiance effects have been removed and a proper normalization has been made. A detailed map of the major fault systems in a 90,000 sq km area in northern Arizona was compiled from high altitude photographs and pre-existing published and unpublished map data. With the use of ERTS images, three major fault systems, the Sinyala, Bright Angel, and Mesa Butte, were identified and their full extent measured. A byproduct of the regional studies was the identification of possible sources of shallow ground water, a scarce commodity in these regions.
The freight commodity transport and the intercity passenger travel markets in the U.S. for 1967 and 1972 are analyzed, along with 1985 estimates, in order to establish the size, speed and cost enabling use of the airship in these markets. Items examined include frozen meat, confectionary, drugs, electrical equipment, mechanical parts, clothing and plastic products. A 50 ton/500 passenger payload capacity, a cruise speed of 100 kt and a VTOL capability or at minimum short take-off and vertical landing capability are needed to make an LTA vehicle viable in the transport market if it had a direct operating cost of $500 to $800 per hour for freight carrying and $1100 to $2700 an hour in passenger service with utilizations between 2000 hours and 4000 hours a year.
An assessment is provided of the future of air cargo by analyzing air cargo statistics and trends, by noting air cargo system problems and inefficiencies, by analyzing characteristics of air-eligible commodities, and by showing the promise of new technology for future cargo aircraft with significant improvements in costs and efficiency. NASA's proposed program is reviewed which would sponsor the research needed to provide for development of advanced designs by 1985.
The remote sensing studies of (a) cultivated peanut areas in Southeastern Virginia; (b) studies at the Virginia Truck and Ornamentals Research Station near Painter, Virginia, the Eastern Virginia Research Station near Warsaw, Virginia, the Tidewater Research and Continuing Education Center near Suffolk, Virginia, and the Southern Piedmont Research and Continuing Education Center Blackstone, Virginia; and (c) land use classification studies at Virginia Beach, Virginia are presented. The practical feasibility of using false color infrared imagery to detect and determine the areal extent of peanut disease infestation of Cylindrocladium black rot and Sclerotinia blight is demonstrated. These diseases pose a severe hazard to this major agricultural food commodity. The value of remote sensing technology in terrain analyses and land use classification of diverse land areas is also investigated. Continued refinement of spectral signatures of major agronomic crops and documentation of pertinent environmental variables have provided a data base for the generation of an agricultural-environmental prediction model.
The current operation of the air cargo system is reviewed. An assessment of the future of air cargo is provided by: (1) analyzing statistics and trends, (2) by noting system problems and inefficiencies, (3) by analyzing characteristics of 'air eligible' commodities, and (4) by showing the promise of new technology for future cargo aircraft with significant improvements in costs and efficiency. The following topics are discussed: (1) air cargo demand forecasts; (2) economics of air cargo transport; (3) the integrated air cargo system; (4) evolution of airfreighter design; and (5) the span distributed load concept.
The value of improvements in worldwide information on wheat crops provided by LANDSAT was measured in the context of world wheat markets. These benefits were based on exiting LANDSAT technical goals and assumed that information would be made available to the United States and other countries at the same time. The benefits to the United States of such public LANDSAT information on wheat crops were found to be 174 million dollars a year on the average. The benefits from improved wheat crop information compare favorably with the annual system's cost of about $62 million. A detailed empirical sample demonstration of the effect of improved information was developed. The history of wheat commodity prices for 1971-72 was reconstructed and the price changes from improved vs. historical information were compared.
ECON's distribution benefits model has been applied to worldwide distribution of corn, rye, oats, barley, soybeans, and sugar, and to domestic distribution of potatoes. The results indicate that a LANDSAT system with thematic mapper might produce benefits to the United States of about $119 million per year, due to more efficient distribution of these commodities. The benefits to the rest of the world have also been calculated, with a breakdown between trade benefits and those associated with internal use patterns. By far the greatest part of the estimated benefits are assigned to corn, with smaller benefits assigned to soybeans and the small grains (rye, oats, and barley).
A completed preliminary survey of silica sources indicates that sufficient quantities of high-purity quartz are available in the U.S. and Canada to meet goals. Supply can easily meet demand for this little-sought commodity. Charcoal, as a reductant for silica, can be purified to a sufficient level by high-temperature fluorocarbon treatment and vacuum processing. High-temperature treatment causes partial graphitization which can lead to difficulty in smelting. Smelting of Arkansas quartz and purified charcoal produced kilogram quantities of silicon having impurity levels generally much lower than in MG-Si. Half of the goal was met of increasing the boron resistivity from 0.03 ohm-cm in metallurgical silicon to 0.3 ohm-cm in solar silicon. A cost analysis of the solidification process indicate $3.50-7.25/kg Si for the Czochralski-type process and $1.50-4.25/kg Si for the Bridgman-type technique.
Relative toxicity data for a large number of natural and synthetic polymeric materials are presented which were obtained by 11 pyrolysis and three flaming-combustion test methods. The materials tested include flexible and rigid polyurethane foams, different kinds of fabrics and woods, and a variety of commodity polymers such as polyethylene. Animal exposure chambers of different volumes containing mice, rats, or rabbits were used in the tests, which were performed over the temperature range from ambient to 800 C with and without air flow or recirculation. The test results are found to be sensitive to such variables as exposure mode, temperature, air flow and dilution, material concentration, and animal species, but relative toxicity rankings appear to be similar for many methods and materials. It is concluded that times to incapacitance and to death provide a more suitable basis for relative toxicity rankings than percent mortality alone, that temperature is the most important variable in the tests reported, and that variables such as chamber volume and animal species may not significantly affect the rankings.
Current and advanced air cargo systems are evaluated using industrial and consumer statistics. Market and commodity characteristics that influence the use of the air mode are discussed along with a comparison of air and surface mode on typical routes. Results of on-site surveys of cargo processing facilities at airports are presented, and institutional controls and influences on air cargo operations are considered.
Aims, history and schedule of the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE) conducted by NASA, USDA and NOAA from 1974-1977 are described. The LACIE experiment designed to research, develop, apply and evaluate a technology to monitor wheat production in important regions throughout the world (U.S., Canada, USSR, Brasil) utilized quantitative multispectral data collected by Landsat in concert with current weather data and historical information. The experiment successfully exploited computer data and mathematical models to extract timely corp information. A follow-on activities for the early 1980's is planned focusing especially on the early warning of changes affecting production and quality of renewable resources and commodity production forecast.
Many concepts are being investigated to convert sunlight to workable energy forms with emphasis on electricity and thermal energy. The electrical alternatives include direct conversion of photons to electricity via photovoltaic solar cells and solar/thermal production of electricity via heat-energy cycles. Solar cells, when commercialized, are expected to have efficiencies of about 12 to 14 percent. The cells would be active about eight hours per day. However, solar-operated water-splitting process research, initiated through JPL, shows promise for direct production of hydrogen from sunlight with efficiencies of up to 35 to 40 percent. The hydrogen, a valuable commodity in itself, can also serve as a storable energy form, easily and efficiently converted to electricity by fuel cells and other advanced-technology devices on a 24-hour basis or on demand with an overall efficiency of 25 to 30 percent. Thus, hydrogen serves as the fundamental translator of energy from its solar form to electrical form more effectively, and possibly more efficiently, than direct conversion. Hydrogen also can produce other chemical energy forms using solar energy.
Opportunities for commercialization of systems capable of producing hydrogen from solar energy were studied. The hydrogen product costs that might be achieved by the four selected candidate systems was compared with the pricing structure and practices of the commodity gas market. Subsequently, product cost and market price match was noted to exist in the small user sector of the hydrogen marketplace. Barriers to and historical time lags in, commercialization of new technologies are reviewed. Recommendations for development and demonstration programs designed to accelerate the commercialization of the candidate systems are presented.
New crop calendars are produced for U.S. regions where several years of periodic growth stage observations are available on a CRD basis. Preexisting crop calendars from the LACIE are also collected as are U.S. crop calendars currently being created for the Foreign Commodities Production Forecast project. For the U.S.S.R. and Canada, no new crop calendars are created because no new data are available. Instead, LACIE crop calendars are compared against simulated normal daily temperatures and against the Robertson wheat and Williams barley phenology models run on the simulated normal temperatures. Severe inconsistencies are noted and discussed. For the U.S.S.R., spring and fall planting dates can probably be estimated accurately from satellite or meteorological data. For the starter model problem, the Feyerherm spring wheat model is recommended for spring planted small grains, and the results of an analysis are presented. For fall planted small grains, use of normal planting dates supplemented by spectral observation of an early stage is recommended. The importance of nonmeteorological factors as they pertain to meteorological factors in determining fall planting is discussed. Crop calendar data available at the Johnson Space Center for the U.S., U.S.S.R., Canada, and other countries are inventoried.