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The bibliography contains citations concerning travel between the stars. Topics include cost considerations, hyperspace navigation, exploration, and propulsion systems for vehicles to be used in interstellar travel. Human factor issues and social aspects of interstellar travel are also discussed.
From the early years of the Space Shuttle program, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shuttle crews have had a timeline of activities to guide them through their time on-orbit. Planners used scheduling constraints to build timelines that ensured the health and safety of the crews. If a constraint could not be met it resulted in a violation. Other agencies of the federal government also have scheduling constraints to ensure the safety of personnel and the public. This project examined the history of Space Shuttle scheduling constraints, constraints from Federal agencies and branches of the military and how these constraints may be used as a guide for future NASA and private spacecraft. This was conducted by reviewing rules and violations with regard to human aerospace scheduling constraints, environmental, political, social and technological factors, operating environment and relevant human factors. This study includes a statistical analysis of Shuttle Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) related violations to determine if these were a significant producer of constraint violations. It was hypothesized that the number of SCSC violations caused by EVA activities were a significant contributor to the total number of violations for Shuttle/ISS missions. Data was taken from NASA data archives at the Johnson Space Center from Space Shuttle/ISS missions prior to the STS-107 accident. The results of the analysis rejected the null hypothesis and found that EVA violations were a significant contributor to the total number of violations. This analysis could help NASA and commercial space companies understand the main source of constraint violations and allow them to create constraint rules that ensure the safe operation of future human private and exploration missions. Additional studies could be performed to evaluate other variables that could have influenced the scheduling violations that were analyzed.
Water plays an important role in underpinning equitable, stable and productive societies and ecosystems. Hence, United Nations recognized ensuring water security as one (Goal 6) of the seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs). Many international river basins are likely to experience 'low water security' over the coming decades. Water security is rooted not only in the physical availability of freshwater resources relative to water demand, but also on social and economic factors (e.g. sound water planning and management approaches, institutional capacity to provide water services, sustainable economic policies). Until recently, advanced tools and methods are available for the assessment of water scarcity. However, quantitative and integrated-physical and socio-economic-approaches for spatial analysis of water security at global level are not available yet. In this study, we present a spatial multi-criteria analysis framework to provide a global assessment of water security. The selected indicators are based on Goal 6 of SDGs. The term 'security' is conceptualized as a function of 'availability', 'accessibility to services', 'safety and quality', and 'management'. The proposed global water security index (GWSI) is calculated by aggregating indicator values on a pixel-by-pixel basis, using the ordered weighted average method, which allows for the exploration of the sensitivity of final maps to different attitudes of hypothetical policy makers. Our assessment suggests that countries of Africa, South Asia and Middle East experience very low water security. Other areas of high water scarcity, such as some parts of United States, Australia and Southern Europe, show better GWSI values, due to good performance of management, safety and quality, and accessibility. The GWSI maps show the areas of the world in which integrated strategies are needed to achieve water related targets of the SDGs particularly in the African and Asian continents.
Final document is attached. In 2018, the International Space Station (ISS) [Figure 1] partnership completed a revision for the third edition of the International Space Station Benefits for Humanity, a compilation of case studies of benefits being realized from ISS activities in the areas of human health, Earth observations and disaster response, innovative technology, global education, and economic development of space. The revision included new assessments of economic value and scientific value with more detail than the second edition. The third edition contains updated statistics on the impacts of the benefits as well as new benefits that have developed since the previous publication. This presentation will summarize the updates on behalf of the ISS Program Science Forum, which consists of senior science representatives across the ISS international partnership. An independent consultant determined the economic valuation (EV) of ISS research benefits case studies and the third edition contains the results. The process involved a preliminary assessment of economic, social, and innovation factors. A more detailed assessment followed, which included factors such as addressable market, market penetration, revenue generation, ability to leverage across other applications or customer groups, quality of life improvements, health benefits, environmental benefits, cultural and community cohesion, inspiration, new knowledge, novel approaches, creation of a unique market niche, and research leadership. Because of the unique microgravity environment of the ISS laboratory, the multidisciplinary and international nature of the research, and the significance of the investment in its development, analyzing ISS scientific impacts is an exceptional challenge. As a result, the ISS partnership determined the scientific valuation (SV) of ISS research using a combination of citation analyses, bibliometrics, and narratives of important ISS utilization results. Approximately 2,100 ISS results publications comprised of scientific journal articles, conference proceedings, and gray literature, representing over 5,000 authors and co-authors on Earth were used in this evaluation to enable the communication of impacts of ISS research on various science and technology fields across many countries. The publication also updates and expands the previously described benefits of research results in the areas of space commerce, technology development, human health, environmental change and disaster response, and education activities. Distinct benefits return to Earth from the only orbiting multidisciplinary laboratory of its kind. The ISS is a stepping-stone for future space exploration while also providing findings that develop low Earth orbit as a place for sustained human activity and improve life on our planet.
In 2018, the International Space Station (ISS) [Figure 1] partnership completed a revision for the third edition of the International Space Station Benefits for Humanity, a compilation of case studies of benefits being realized from ISS activities in the areas of human health, Earth observations and disaster response, innovative technology, global education, and economic development of space. The revision included new assessments of economic value and scientific value with more detail than the second edition. The third edition contains updated statistics on the impacts of the benefits as well as new benefits that have developed since the previous publication. This presentation will summarize the updates on behalf of the ISS Program Science Forum, which consists of senior science representatives across the ISS international partnership. An independent consultant determined the economic valuation (EV) of ISS research benefits case studies and the third edition contains the results. The process involved a preliminary assessment of economic, social, and innovation factors. A more detailed assessment followed, which included factors such as addressable market, market penetration, revenue generation, ability to leverage across other applications or customer groups, quality of life improvements, health benefits, environmental benefits, cultural and community cohesion, inspiration, new knowledge, novel approaches, creation of a unique market niche, and research leadership. Because of the unique microgravity environment of the ISS laboratory, the multidisciplinary and international nature of the research, and the significance of the investment in its development, analyzing ISS scientific impacts is an exceptional challenge. As a result, the ISS partnership determined the scientific valuation (SV) of ISS research using a combination of citation analyses, bibliometrics, and narratives of important ISS utilization results. Approximately 2,100 ISS results publications comprised of scientific journal articles, conference proceedings, and gray literature, representing over 5,000 authors and co-authors on Earth were used in this evaluation to enable the communication of impacts of ISS research on various science and technology fields across many countries. The publication also updates and expands the previously described benefits of research results in the areas of space commerce, technology development, human health, environmental change and disaster response, and education activities. Distinct benefits return to Earth from the only orbiting multidisciplinary laboratory of its kind. The ISS is a stepping-stone for future space exploration while also providing findings that develop low Earth orbit as a place for sustained human activity and improve life on our planet.
Despite varied programmatic inducements and the documented benefits of Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), participation rates of underrepresented communities within NASA’s planetary sciences activities have remained low and nearly unchanged over the last decade. The lack of success of various efforts may be attributable to factors identified in social science research. First, the proportionality of under-represented groups has been shown to be critical to achieving the positive impacts of DE&I. When under-represented groups make up less than ~30%, group dynamics such as assimilation or tokenism routinely appear, with destructive and counter-productive results. Additionally, if participation only occurs within limited segments of an organization, benefits may be limited. Proportionality must extend across all levels or layers of the organization for the benefits of DE&I to accrue. Second, the inclusion of “Third Spaces” in the planning and support of DE&I efforts is critical to the long-term success or “stickiness” of DE&I activities. Third Spaces are those beyond home (First Space) and work (Second Space) where informal, community-building activities occur. Examples include conferences, after-work activities, and weekend social engagements. Without explicitly acknowledging and including “Third Space” interactions, DE&I efforts can fall short of their long-term goals. In 2014, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder began a partnership with the United Arab Emirates to develop and fly a space mission to Mars. The scientific mission had an explicit goal of training scientists and engineers, and creating a sustainable ecosystem that would spark and accelerate the UAE’s space economy. To accomplish this, LASP and the UAE set up a program that matched scientists and engineers in one-on-one mentorship relationships, at all levels of the organization. Over the course of the roughly 4-year project, those partnering relationships fostered not only strong professional relationships and knowledge transfer, but also personal friendships that extended into “Third Spaces.” The UAE/LASP partnership now continues through the co-development of an asteroid mission currently in definition phase. In collaboration with NASA Ames Research Center, LASP is developing the conceptual frame work to extend this deep partnership model to domestic opportunities. By implementing a planetary science mission that employs an analogous one-on-one partnership model across all elements of the organization, this project will demonstrate how proportionality and Third Space relationships can enable the development of localized, sustainable communities that are explicitly and deeply engaged with the NASA ecosystem.
The task of flying a multipilot transport aircraft is a classic small-group performance situation where a number of social, organizational, and personality factors are relevant to important outcome variables such as safety. The aviation community is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of these factors but is hampered in its efforts to improve the system because of research psychology's problems in defining the nature of the group process. This article identifies some of the problem areas as well as methods used to address these issues. It is argued that high fidelity flight simulators provide an environment that offers unique opportunities for work meeting both basic and applied research criteria.
The task of flying a multipilot transport aircraft is a classic small-group performance situation where a number of social, organizational, and personality factors are relevant to important outcome variables such as safety. The aviation community is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of these factors but is hampered in its efforts to improve the system because of research psychology's problems in defining the nature of the group process. This article identifies some of the problem areas as well as methods used to address these issues. It is argued that high fidelity flight simulators provide an environment that offers unique opportunities for work meeting both basic and applied research criteria.
Create an improved method to calculate reliability of a conceptual launch vehicle system prior to fabrication by using historic data of actual root causes of failures. While failures have unique "proximate causes", there are typically a finite amount of common "root causes". Heretofore launch vehicle reliability evaluation typically hardware-centric statistical analyses, while most root causes of failures are been shown to be human-centric. A method based on human-centric root causes can be used to quantify reliability assessments and focus proposed actions to mitigate problems. Existing methods have been optimistic in their projections of launch vehicle reliability compared to actuals. Hypothesis: reliability of a conceptual launch vehicle can be more accurately evaluated based on a rational, probabilistic approach using past failure assessment teams' findings predicated on human-centric causes."Human Reliability Analysis Methods Selection Guidance for NASA"Chandler F.T., et al., NASA HQ/OSMA study group, July 2006. Outside HRA experts from academia, other federal labs, and the private sector. 50 system reliability methods considered, fourteen selected for further study, four finally selected as best suited for human spaceflight. Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) + Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) enabled incorporating effects and probabilities of human errors. While four down-selected methods deemed appropriate for failure assessment, it did not appear that these methods could be concisely applied to perform major system-wide assessment of probability of failure of a conceptual design without becoming unwieldy."Engineering a Safer World", Detailed, comprehensive study external to NASA Leveson N. G., MIT, 2011.Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP). All-encompassing accident model based on systems theory analyzed accidents after they occurred and created approaches to prevent occurrence in developing systems not focused on failure prevention per se, but rather reducing hazards by influencing human behavior through use of constraints, hierarchical control structures, and process models to improve system safetySystem Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) addresses predictive part of problem (a "hazard analysis"). Includes all causal factors identified in STAMP: "...design errors, software flaws, component interaction accidents, cognitively complex human decision-making errors, and social organizational and management factors contributing to accidents" can guide design process rather than require it to exist before-hand did not appear capable of concise application for system-wide assessment of probability of failure of a conceptual design without becoming unwieldy.
Advanced air mobility (AAM) is an emerging field in aeronautics that involves utilizing small aircraft for everyday transportation and other services, and many AAM aircraft are envisioned to take off and land at new infrastructure termed vertiports. This paper describes a variety of considerations related to AAM vertiports that need to be considered in the planning for and deployment of vertiports in practice. The factors include siting, design, regulations, safety, environmental impact, social acceptance, equity, and operational integration factors. Over 450 considerations were compiled from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) participating in NASA’s AAM Ecosystem Working Groups (AEWGs) in October 2021. This paper consolidates these considerations and broadly disseminates the valuable knowledge of these SMEs. These considerations can be used by researchers to conduct demand and network analysis, local transportation planners to develop AAM networks for their community, and the AAM ecosystem members to identify policy, standards, and research gaps.
The technical concept underlying the roadway powered vehicle system is the combination of an electrical power source embedded in the roadway and a vehicle-mounted power pickup that is inductively coupled to the roadway power source. The feasibility of such a system, implemented on a large scale was investigated. Factors considered included current and potential transportation modes and requirements, economics, energy, technology, social and institutional issues. These factors interrelate in highly complex ways, and a firm understanding of each of them does not yet exist. The study therefore was structured to manipulate known data in equally complex ways to produce a schema of options and useful questions that can form a basis for further, harder research. A dialectical inquiry technique was used in which two adversary teams, mediated by a third-party team, debated each factor and its interrelationship with the whole of the known information on the topic.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of U.S./Russian cultural differences in communications among scientists and engineers in applied technology industries. This is important because the advent of perestroika, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and massive moves toward privatization make Russia a potential partner in economic endeavors and, at the same time, a possible competitor in the international arena. Unfortunately the results of U.S./Soviet collaborative endeavors have not always met with expectations. Since 1987, when the former USSR adopted a law on joint ventures, evidence has emerged as to the causes of many failures of these cooperative arrangements. While international strategic alliances face many structural barriers, failures of these cooperative ventures have often resulted from a lack of understanding of the more intangible barrier of major differences in cultural environments between the partners (Cattaneo, 1992). Cultural differences not only affect business operations but also raise questions for scholars and practitioners who have advocated that U.S. management theories apply abroad. Boyacigiller and Adler (1991), Doktor, Tung, and Von Glinow (1991), and Hofstede (1993) observed that most U.S. scholars have continued to export management concepts and practices abroad assuming the concepts were universally valid despite the fact that Western organizational theory has placed little emphasis on factors such as history, social setting, culture, and government (Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991). High technology industries such as aerospace, which includes the cormmercial aviation segment, have characteristics that make the industry an excellent platform to study cultural implications for technical communications. The investigation of this group is worthwhile for several reasons. First, high technology industries are becoming more international and more engaged in collaborative endeavors. Second, the industries are highly dependent on effective innovation diffusion which, according to Fischer (1979), is essentially information exchange. And, third, studies of innovative project management have found that information availability was a critical factor in project success or failure (e.g., Link & Zmud, 1987; Tushman, 1978, 1979). We propose that a gap in the literature exists that centers on whether U.S. paradigms of commnunications behavior apply to other cultures. First, we will explore early findings in the U.S. that held that the choice of an information source was a function of the 'law of least effort' rather than quality (e.g., Allen, 1977; Cuinan, 1983; DeWhirst, 1971; Hardy, 1982; O'Reilly, 1982; Rosenberg, 1967). Second, we will explore the contingency approaches such as that of Tushman (1979) and the later work of Daft and Lengel (1984, 1987), Huber and Daft (1987) and Lengel and Daft (1988) who held that information choice was a function of the nature of the task at hand. A third issue to be addressed is the confounding problem of presumed differences between scientists and engineers in information gathering behavior (Allen, 1977). Finally, we will investigate whether cultural differences cast doubt on the applicability of findings from U.S. situations to other cultures.
The trend for the increasing need for aircraft-in-general as a major source of transportation in the United States is presented (military and commercial aircraft are excluded). Social, political, and economic factors that affect the aircraft industry are considered, and cost estimates are given. Aircraft equipment and navigation systems are discussed.
Social psychological and personality factors that can influence resource management on the flight deck are discussed. It is argued that personality and situational factors intersect to determine crew responses and that assessment of performance under full crew and mission conditions can provide the most valuable information about relevant factors. The possibility of training procedures to improve performance on these dimensions is discussed.
Both NASA and DoD have had a long standing interest in teamwork, distributed decision making, and automation. While research on these topics has been pursued independently, it is becoming increasingly clear that the integration of social, cognitive, and human factors engineering principles will be necessary to meet the challenges of highly sophisticated scientific and military programs of the future. Images of human/intelligent-machine electronic collaboration were drawn from NASA and Air Force reports as well as from other sources. Here, areas of common concern are highlighted. A description of the author's research program testing a 'psychological distancing' model of electronic media effects and human/expert system collaboration is given.
Space development scenarios and the choice of technologies to carry them out depend upon the future social, economic, and political factors. A brief discussion concerning the impact of sociopolitical conditions on space exploration is presented. Some of the topics mentioned include: space weapons/warfare, international cooperation, NASA's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Program, and superpower rivelry.
We present a prototype human assistant system for space crew assessment and mission management. Our system is based on case episodes from American and Russian space missions and analog environments such as polar stations and undersea habitats. The general domain of small groups in isolated and confined environments represents a near ideal application area for case-based reasoning (CBR) - there are few reliable rules to follow, and most domain knowledge is in the form of cases. We define the problem domain and outline a unique knowledge representation system driven by conflict and communication triggers. The prototype system is able to represent, index, and retrieve case studies of human performance. We index by social, behavioral, and environmental factors. We present the problem domain, our current implementation, our research approach for an operational system, and prototype performance and results.
To sustain growing food demand and increasing standard of living, global water use increased by nearly 6 times during the last 100 years, and continues to grow. As water demands get closer and closer to the water availability in many regions, each drop of water becomes increasingly valuable and water must be managed more efficiently and intensively. However, soaring water use worsens water scarcity conditions already prevalent in semi-arid and arid regions, increasing uncertainty for sustainable food production and economic development. Planning for future development and investments requires that we prepare water projections for the future. However, estimations are complicated because the future of the world's waters will be influenced by a combination of environmental, social, economic, and political factors, and there is only limited knowledge and data available about freshwater resources and how they are being used. The Water Futures and Solutions (WFaS) initiative coordinates its work with other ongoing scenario efforts for the sake of establishing a consistent set of new global water scenarios based on the shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) and the representative concentration pathways (RCPs). The WFaS "fast track" assessment uses three global water models, namely H08, PCR-GLOBWB, and WaterGAP. This study assesses the state of the art for estimating and projecting water use regionally and globally in a consistent manner. It provides an overview of different approaches, the uncertainty, strengths and weaknesses of the various estimation methods, types of management and policy decisions for which the current estimation methods are useful. We also discuss additional information most needed to be able to improve water use estimates and be able to assess a greater range of management options across the water-energy-climate nexus.