Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “SOUP”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2003

Prebiotic Soup: Revisiting the Miller Experiment

Isn't life wonderful? sang Alma Cogan and Les Howard in their almost forgotten 1953 hit. That same year, Stanley L. Miller raised the hopes of understanding the origin of life when on 15 May, Science published his paper on the synthesis of amino acids under conditions that simulated primitive Earth's atmosphere. Miller had applied an electric discharge to a mixture of CH4, NH3, H2O, and H2 - believed at the time to be the atmospheric composition of early Earth. Surprisingly, the products were not a random mixture of organic molecules. but rather a relatively small number of biochemically significant compounds such as amino acids, hydroxy acids, and urea. With the publication of these dramatic results, the modern era in the study of the origin of life began.

Bada, Jeffrey L.↗
NASA NTRS1988

On the relation between photospheric flow fields and the magnetic field distribution on the solar surface

Using the technique of local correlation tracking on a 28 minute time sequence of white-light images of solar granulation, the horizontal flow field on the solar surface is measured. The time series was obtained by the Solar Optical Universal Polarimeter (SOUP) on Spacelab 2 (Space Shuttle flight 51-F) and is free from atmospheric blurring and distortion. The SOUP flow fields have been compared with carefully aligned magnetograms taken over a nine hour period at the Big Bear Solar Observatory before, during, and after the SOUP images. The flow field and the magnetic field agree in considerable detail: vectors which define the flow of the white-light intensity pattern (granulation) point toward magnetic field regions, magnetic fields surround flow cells, and magnetic features move along the flow arrows. The projected locations of free particles ('corks') in the measured flow field congregate at the same locations where the magnetic field is observed.

Simon, George W.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Investigation of solar active regions at high resolution by balloon flights of the solar optical universal polarimeter, definition phase

The definition phase of a scientific study of active regions on the sun by balloon flight of a former Spacelab instrument, the Solar Optical Universal Polarimeter (SOUP) is described. SOUP is an optical telescope with image stabilization, tunable filter and various cameras. After the flight phase of the program was cancelled due to budgetary problems, scientific and engineering studies relevant to future balloon experiments of this type were completed. High resolution observations of the sun were obtained using SOUP components at the Swedish Solar Observatory in the Canary Islands. These were analyzed and published in studies of solar magnetic fields and active regions. In addition, testing of low-voltage piezoelectric transducers was performed, which showed they were appropriate for use in image stabilization on a balloon.

Tarbell, Theodore D.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The RNA World: Life Before DNA and Protein

All of the life that is known, all organisms that exist on Earth today or are known to have existed on Earth in the past, are of the same life form: a life form based on DNA and protein. It does not necessarily have to be that way. Why not have two competing life forms on this planet? Why not have biology as we know it and some other biology that occupies its own distinct niche? Yet that is not how evolution has played out. From microbes living on the surface of antarctic ice to tube worms lying near the deep-sea hydrothermal vents, all known organisms on this planet are of the same biology. Looking at the single known biology on Earth, it is clear that this biology could not have simply sprung forth from the primordial soup. The biological system that is the basis for all known. life is far too complicated to have arisen spontaneously. This brings us to the notion that something else something simpler, must have preceded life based on DNA and protein. One suggestion that has gained considerable acceptance over the past decade is that DNA and protein-based life was preceded by RNA-based life in a period referred to as the 'RNA world'. Even an RNA-based life form would have been fairly complicated - not as complicated as our own DNA- and protein-based life form - but far too complicated, according to prevailing scientific thinking, to have arisen spontaneously from the primordial soup. Thus, it has been argued that something else must have preceded RNA-based life, or even that there was a succession of life forms leading from the primordial soup to RNA-based life. The experimental evidence to support this conjecture is not strong because, after all, the origin of life was a historical event that left no direct physical record. However, based on indirect evidence in both the geological record and the phylogenetic record of evolutionary history on earth, it is possible to reconstruct a rough picture of what life was like before DNA and protein.

Joyce, Gerald F.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Towards absolutely stable ergodicity breaking in two and three dimensions

We propose physically reasonable systems capable of avoiding ergodicity at infinite time in the thermodynamic limit, even with generic perturbations and when coupled to a heat bath. In two dimensions, the rainbow loop soup has (stretched) exponentially numerous absolutely stable nonergodic states with diverging energy but vanishing energy density. In three dimensions the rainbow membrane soup has (stretched) exponentially numerous nonergodic states with diverging energy barriers, leading to infinite-time robust ergodicity breaking that even survives coupling to a nonzero temperature heat bath. We describe our results in the language of exact emergent symmetries and demonstrate how the systems avoid common instabilities. Furthermore, our construction naturally connects to quantum dimer models, topologically ordered systems, the group word construction, and Hamiltonians whose low-energy eigenstates exhibit anomalous entanglement entropy.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
NASA NTRS1997

Aviation Simulators for the Desktop: Panel and Demonstrations

Panel Members are: Christine M. Mitchell (Georgia Tech), Michael T. Palmer (NASA Langley), Greg Pisani (NASA Ames), and Amy R. Pritchett (MIT). The Panel members are affiliated with aviation human factors groups from NASA Ames, NASA Langley, MITCHELL Department of Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering, and Georgia Technics Center for Human-Machine Systems Research. Panelists will describe the simulator(s) used in their respective institutions including a description of the FMS aircraft models, software, hardware, and displays. Panelists will summarize previous, on-going, and planned empirical studies conducted with the simulators. Greg Pisanich will describe two NASA Ames simulation systems: the Stone Soup Simulator (SSS), and the Airspace Operations Human Factors Simulation Laboratory. The the Stone Soup Simulator is a desktop-based, research flight simulator that includes mode control, flight management, and datalink functionality. It has been developed as a non-proprietary simulator that can be easily distributed to academic and industry researchers who are collaborating on NASA research projects. It will be used and extended by research groups represented by at least two panelists (Mitchell and Palmer). The Airspace Operations Simulator supports the study of air traffic control in conjunction with the flight deck. This simulator will be used provide an environment in which many AATT and free flight concepts can be demonstrated and evaluated. Mike Palmer will describe two NASA Langley efforts: The Langley Simulator and MD-11 extensions to the NASA Amesbury simulator. The first simulator is publicly available and combines a B-737 model with a high fidelity flight management system. The second simulator enhances the S3 simulator with MD-11 electronic flight displays together with modifications to the flight and FMS models to emulate MD-11 dynamics and operations. Chris Mitchell will describe GT-EFIRT (Georgia Tech-Electronic Flight Instrument Research Tool) and B-757 enhancements to the NASA Ames S3. GT-EFIRT is a medium fidelity simulator used to conduct preliminary studies of the CATS (crew activity tracking system). Like the Langley efforts with S3, the Georgia Tech enhancements will allow it to emulate the dynamics and operations of a widely used glass cockpit. Amy Pritchett will describe the MIT simulator(s) that have been used in a range of research investigating cockpit displays, warning devices, and flight deck-ATC interaction.

Pisanich, Greg↗
NASA NTRS1994

How long did it take for life to begin and evolve to cyanobacteria?

There is convincing paleontological evidence showing that stromatolite-building phototactic prokaryotes were already in existence 3.5 x 10(9) years ago. Late accretion impacts may have killed off life on our planet as late as 3.8 x 10(9) years ago. This leaves only 300 million years to go from the prebiotic soup to the RNA world and to cyanobacteria. However, 300 million years should be more than sufficient time. All known prebiotic reactions take place in geologically rapid time scales, and very slow prebiotic reactions are not feasible because the intermediate compounds would have been destroyed due to the passage of the entire ocean through deep-sea vents every 10(7) years or in even less time. Therefore, it is likely that self-replicating systems capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution emerged in a period shorter than the destruction rates of its components (<5 million years). The time for evolution from the first DNA/protein organisms to cyanobacteria is usually thought to be very long. However, the similarities of many enzymatic reactions, together with the analysis of the available sequence data, suggest that a significant number of the components involved in basic biological processes are the result of ancient gene duplication events. Assuming that the rate of gene duplication of ancient prokaryotes was comparable to today's present values, the development of a filamentous cyanobacterial-like genome would require approximately 7 x 10(6) years--or perhaps much less. Thus, in spite of the many uncertainties involved in the estimates of time for life to arise and evolve to cyanobacteria, we see no compelling reason to assume that this process, from the beginning of the primitive soup to cyanobacteria, took more than 10 million years.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS2016

Food Fortification Stability Study

NASA has established the goal of traveling beyond low-Earth orbit and extending manned exploration to Mars. The length of proposed Mars missions and the lack of resupply missions increases the importance of nutritional content in the food system, which will need a five year shelf life. The purpose of this research is to assess the stability of vitamin supplementation in traditionally processed spaceflight foods. It is expected that commercially available fortification nutrients will remain stable through a long duration exploration mission at sufficient levels if compatible formulation, processing, and storage temperatures are achieved. Five vitamins (vitamin E, vitamin K, pantothenic acid, folic acid, and thiamin) were blended into a vitamin premix (DSM, Freeport, TX) such that the vitamin concentration per serving equaled 25% of the recommended daily intake after two years of ambient storage. Four freeze-dried foods (Scrambled Eggs, Italian Vegetables, Potatoes Au Gratin, Noodles and Chicken) and four thermostabilized foods (Curry Sauce with Vegetables, Chicken Noodle Soup, Grilled Pork Chop, Rice with Butter) were produced, with and without the vitamin premix, to assess the impact of the added fortification on color and taste and to determine the stability of supplemental vitamins in spaceflight foods. The addition of fortification to spaceflight foods did not greatly alter the organoleptic properties of most products. In most cases, overall acceptability scores remained above 6.0 (minimum acceptable score) following six months and one year of low-temperature storage. Likewise, the color of fortified products appears to be preserved over one year of storage. The only exception was Grilled pork Chop and Chicken Noodle Soup whose individual components appear to degrade rapidly over one year of storage. Finally, most vitamins appear to be stable during long-term storage. The only exception was thiamin, which degraded rapidly during the first year of storage at 35˚C. It was previously believed that the imprecise method of fortification would prove problematic for nutrient quantification; however this was only an issue in stored samples of Grilled Pork Chop, Italian Vegetables and Curry Sauce with Vegetables. Year two data may further reveal the extent to which this is a problem, as well as identify overall quality changes over time.

Sirmons, T.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Food Fortification Stability Study

NASA has established the goal of traveling beyond low-Earth orbit and extending manned exploration to Mars. The length of proposed Mars missions and the lack of resupply missions increases the importance of nutritional content in the food system, which will need a five-year shelf life. The purpose of this research is to assess the stability of vitamin supplementation in traditionally processed spaceflight foods. It is expected that commercially available fortification nutrients will remain stable through a long duration exploration mission at sufficient levels if compatible formulation, processing, and storage temperatures are achieved. Five vitamins (vitamin E, vitamin K, pantothenic acid, folic acid, and thiamin) were blended into a vitamin premix (DSM, Freeport, TX) such that the vitamin concentration per serving equaled 25% of the recommended daily intake after two years of ambient storage. Four freeze-dried foods (Scrambled Eggs, Italian Vegetables, Potatoes Au Gratin, Noodles and Chicken) and four thermo-stabilized foods (Curry Sauce with Vegetables, Chicken Noodle Soup, Grilled Pork Chop, Rice with Butter) were produced, with and without the vitamin premix, to assess the impact of the added fortification on color and taste and to determine the stability of supplemental vitamins in spaceflight foods. The addition of fortification to spaceflight foods did not greatly alter the organoleptic properties of most products. In most cases, overall acceptability scores remained above 6.0 (minimum acceptable score) following six months and one year of low-temperature storage. Likewise, the color of fortified products appears to be preserved over one year of storage. The only exceptions were Grilled pork Chop and Chicken Noodle Soup whose individual components appeareddegrade rapidly over one year of storage. Finally, most vitamins appeared to be stable during long-term storage. The only exception was thiamin, which degraded rapidly during the first year of storage at 35˚C. It was previously believed that the imprecise method of fortification would prove problematic for nutrient quantification; however, this was only an issue in stored samples of Grilled Pork Chop, Italian Vegetables and Curry Sauce with Vegetables. Year two data may further reveal the extent to which this is a problem, as well as identify overall quality changes over time.

Sirmons, T.↗
NASA NTRS2019

A Knowledge-Based Optimization Method for Aerodynamic Design

A new aerodynamic design method, CODISC, has been developed that combines a legacy knowledge-based design method, CDISC, with a simple optimization module known as SOUP. The primary goal of this new design system is to improve the performance gains obtained using CDISC without adding significant computational time. An additional objective of this approach is to reduce the need for a priori knowledge of good initial input variable values, as well as for subsequent manual revisions of those values as the design progresses. Several test cases illustrate the development of the process to date and some of the options available at transonic and supersonic speeds for turbulent flow designs. The test cases generally start from good baseline configurations and, in all cases, were able to improve the performance. Several new guidelines for good initial values for the design variables, as well as new design rules within CDISC itself, were developed from these cases.

SOUP↗
NASA NTRS1973

Flight feeding systems design and evaluation. Supplement 1: Production guides

The requirements for processing, packaging, testing, and shipment of foods selected for use in the Apollo food system are presented. Specific foodstuffs chosen from the following categories are discussed: (1) soups; (2) juices; (3) breads; (4) meat and poultry products; (5) fruits and nuts; (6) desserts; and (7) beverages. Food procurement for the mobile quarantine facility and for Apollo preflight and postflight activities is also discussed.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1974

Prebiotic chemistry and nucleic acid replication

Recent work is reviewed on some reactions that could have occurred on the primitive earth and that could have played a part in the evolution of a self-replicating system. The transition from the primitive atmosphere to the simplest replicating molecules is considered in four stages: (1) the formation of a 'prebiotic soup' of organic precursors, including the purine and pyrimidine bases and the pentose sugars; (2) the condensation of these precursors and inorganic phosphate to form monomeric nucleotides and activated nucleotide derivatives; (3) the polymerization of nucleotide derivatives to oligonucleotides; and (4) the complementary replication of oligonucleotides in a template-directed process that depends on Watson-Crick base pairing.

Orgel, L. E.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Parametric study of thermal storage containing rocks or fluid filled cans for solar heating and cooling, phase 2

The test data and an analysis of the heat transfer characteristics of a solar thermal energy storage bed utilizing water filled cans and standard bricks as energy storage medium are presented. This experimental investigation was initiated to find a usable heat intensive solar thermal storage device other than rock storage and water tank. Four different sizes of soup cans were stacked in a chamber in three different arrangements-vertical, horizontal, and random. Air is used as transfer medium for charging and discharge modes at three different mass flow rates and inlet air temperature respectively. These results are analyzed and compared, which show that a vertical stacking and medium size cans with Length/Diameter (L/D) ratio close to one have better average characteristics of heat transfer and pressure drop.

Saha, H.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Geometric models, antenna gains, and protection ratios as developed for BC SAT-R2 conference software

Mathematical models used in the software package developed for use at the 1983 Regional Administrative Radio Conference on broadcasting satellites. The models described are those used in the Spectrum Orbit Utilization Program (SOUP) analysis. The geometric relationships necessary to model broadcasting satellite systems are discussed. Antenna models represent copolarized and cross polarized performance as functions of the off axis angle. The protection ratio is modelled as a co-channel value and a template representing systems with frequency offsets.

Miller, E. F.↗
NASA NTRS1986

First results from Spacelab 2

Preliminary results of physical experiments carried out during the Spacelab 2 Shuttle mission are summarized. Attention is given to experiments in the fields of plasma dynamics; solar physics; high-energy astrophysics; and astronomy. Plasma experiments included an ejectable plasma diagnosics package and measurements of the passive charging of the Shuttle vehicle in the surrounding space plasma. The solar physics instrument package consisted of a solar spectral irradiance monitor; a solar optical universal polarimeter (SOUP); and a solar helium abundance high-resolution telescope and spectrograph (HRTS). Astronomical observations were performed using a scanning infrared telescope (IRT) which consisted of a highly baffled herschelian telescope and 10 detectors covering wavelengths from 2 to 120 microns. Cosmic-ray nuclei were detected and analyzed using gas Cerenkov counters and a transition radiation detector. Addition experiments included a thin film fluid dynamics payload and analysis of blood samples taken from the mission specialists. Complete data records from the experiments have now been distributed for an analysis period which will take at least a year. A table listing the Spacelab 2 experiments and their principal investigators is provided.

Urban, E. W.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Spectrum/Orbit-Utilization Program

Interferences among geostationary satellites determine allocations. Spectrum/Orbit Utilization Program (SOUP) is analytical computer program for determining mutual interferences among geostationary-satellite communication systems operating in given scenario. Major computed outputs are carrier-to-interference ratios at receivers at specified stations on Earth. Information enables determination of acceptability of planned communication systems. Written in FORTRAN.

Miller, Edward F.↗
NASA NTRS1987

The quark-hadron phase transition and primordial nucleosynthesis

After presenting the current view of the processes taking place during the cosmological transition from 'quark soup' to normal hadron matter, attention is given to what happens to cosmological nucleosynthesis in the presence of small-scale baryon inhomogeneities. The QCD phase transition is among the plausible sources of this inhomogeneity. It is concluded that the formation of primordial 'quark nuggets' and other cold exotica requires very low entropy regions at the outset, and that even the more modest nonlinearities perturbing nucleosynthesis probably require some ingredient in addition to a quiescent, mildly supercooled transition.

Hogan, Craig J.↗