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NASA NTRS1993

Sixth Annual Workshop on Space Operations Applications and Research (SOAR 1992), volume 2

This document contains papers presented at the Space Operations, Applications, and Research Symposium (SOAR) hosted by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) on 4-6 Aug. 1992. The symposium was cosponsored by the Air Force Material Command and by NASA/JSC. Key technical areas covered during the symposium were robotics and telepresence, automation and intelligent systems, human factors, life sciences, and space maintenance and servicing. The SOAR differed from most other conferences in that it was concerned with Government-sponsored research and development relevant to aerospace operations. Symposium proceedings include papers covering various disciplines presented by experts from NASA, the USAF, universities, and industry.

Krishen, Kumar↗
NASA NTRS1994

The Utilization of Flight Simulation for Research and Development

The objective of this paper is to review the conventional uses of flight simulation at NASA Ames Research Center for research and development, and to also consider the many new areas that have embraced flight simulation as an effective and economic research tool. Flight simulators have always been a very useful and economic research tool. Component technologies have evolved considerably to meet demands imposed by the aerospace community. In fact, the utilization of flight simulators for research and development has become so widely accepted that non-traditional uses have evolved. Whereas flight dynamics and control, guidance and navigation, vehicle design, mission assessment, and training have been, and perhaps always will be, the most popular research areas associated with simulation, many new areas under the broad categories of human factors and information science have realized significant benefits from the use of flight simulators for research and development. This paper will survey the simulation facilities at NASA Ames Research Center, and discuss selected topics associated with research programs, simulation experiments, and related technology development activities for the purpose of highlighting the expanding role of simulation in aerospace research and development. The information in this paper will in no way provide foreign companies with a competitive advantage over U. S. industry.

Totah, Joseph J.↗
NASA NTRS2005

An operational approach to long-duration mission behavioral health and performance factors

NASA's participation in nearly 10 yr of long-duration mission (LDM) training and flight confirms that these missions remain a difficult challenge for astronauts and their medical care providers. The role of the astronaut's crew surgeon is to maximize the astronaut's health throughout all phases of the LDM: preflight, in flight, and postflight. In support of the crew surgeon, the NASA-Johnson Space Center Behavioral Health and Performance Group (JSC-BHPG) has focused on four key factors that can reduce the astronaut's behavioral health and performance. These factors are defined as: sleep and circadian factors; behavioral health factors; psychological adaptation factors; and human-to-system interface (the interface between the astronaut and the mission workplace) factors. Both the crew surgeon and the JSC-BHPG must earn the crewmember's trust preflight to encourage problem identification and problem solving in these four areas. Once on orbit, the crew medical officer becomes a valuable extension of the crew surgeon and BHPG on the ground due to the crew medical officer's constant interaction with crewmembers and preflight training in these four factors. However, the crew surgeon, BHPG, and the crew medical officer need tools that will help predict, prevent, monitor, and respond to developing problems. Objective data become essential when difficult mission termination decisions must be made. The need for behavioral health and performance tool development creates an environment rich for collaboration between operational healthcare providers and researchers. These tools are also a necessary step to safely complete future, more autonomous exploration-class space missions.

Review↗
NASA NTRS1989

Project ARGO: The design and analysis of an all-propulsive and an aeroassisted version of a manned space transportation vehicle

The Senior Aerospace System Design class at the University of Michigan undertook the design of a manned space transportation vehicle (STV) that would transport payloads between low earth orbit (LEO) and geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO). Designated ARGO after the ship of the Greek adventurer Jason, two different versions of an STV that would be based, refueled, and serviced at the Space Station Freedom were designed and analyzed by the class. With the same 2-man/7-day nominal mission of transporting a 10,000-kg payload up to GEO and bringing a 5000-kg payload back to LEO, the two versions of ARGO differ in the manner in which the delta V is applied to insert the vehicle into LEO upon return from GEO. The all-propulsive ARGO (or CSTV for chemical STV) uses thrust from its LH2/LOX rocket engines to produce the delta V during all phases of its mission. While the aeroassisted ARGO (or ASTV for aeroassisted STV) also uses the same engines for the majority of the mission, the final delta V used to insert the ASTV into LEO is produced by skimming the Earth's atmosphere and using the drag on the vehicle to apply the required delta V. This procedure allows for large propellant, and thus cost, savings, but creates many design problems such as the high heating rates and decelerations experienced by a vehicle moving through the atmosphere at hypersonic velocities. The design class, consisting of 43 senior aerospace engineering students, was divided into one managerial and eight technical groups. The technical groups consisted of spacecraft configuration and integration, mission analysis, atmospheric flight, propulsion, power and communications, life support and human factors, logistics and support, and systems analysis. Two committees were set up with members from each group to create the scale models of the STV's and to produce the final report.

Wang, H.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Prospective memory in dynamic environments: effects of load, delay, and phonological rehearsal

A new paradigm was developed to examine prospective memory performance in a visual-spatial task that resembles some aspects of the work of air traffic controllers. Two experiments examined the role of workload (number of aeroplanes that participants directed), delay (between receipt of prospective instructions and execution), and phonological rehearsal. High workload increased prospective memory errors but increasing delay from 1-3 or 5 minutes had no effect. Shadowing aurally presented text reduced prospective memory performance, presumably because it prevented verbal rehearsal of the prospective instructions. However, performance on the foreground task of directing aeroplanes to routine destinations was affected only by workload and not by opportunity for rehearsal. Our results suggest that ability to maintain performance on a routine foreground task while performing a secondary task--perhaps analogous to conversation--does not predict ability to retrieve a prospective intention to deviate from the routine.

Aerospace Medicine↗
NASA NTRS1993

Breathing 100% oxygen compared with 50% oxygen: 50% nitrogen reduces altitude-induced venous gas emboli

The risk of venous gas emboli (VGE) and decompression sickness (DCS) must be determined before selection of the lowest pressure for an extravehicular activity (EVA) pressure suit which eliminates the requirement for prebreathing. In earlier studies, use of a 50% oxygen:50% nitrogen breathing mixture (50:50 mix) during 139 zero-prebreathe decompressions of male subjects to 8.3-7.8 psia resulted in 51 instances of severe VGE and one case of DCS. Our current study investigated effects of 40 zero-prebreathe decompressions of male subjects to 8.3-6.8 psia for 6 h while breathing 100% oxygen and performing moderate exercise. No DCS symptoms were observed. Severe VGE were not detected at 8.3 psia, but were present during 10%, 20%, and 40% of the exposures at 7.8, 7.3, and 6.8 psia, respectively. Zero-prebreathe decompression while breathing 100% oxygen results in significantly lower VGE and DCS risk levels than while breathing a 50:50 mix. Our results show that 7.3 psia EVA pressure suits with 100% oxygen should be safer than 8.3 psia suits with a 50:50 mix.

NASA Program Environmental Health↗
NASA NTRS2023

SafeAeroBERT: Towards a Safety-Informed Aerospace-Specific Language Model

As aviation systems continue to operate with high traffic, large amounts of documents containing safety-relevant data continue to be generated via reporting systems such as the ASRS. Advanced natural language processing techniques, specifically pre-trained language models, have shown great success in domain-specific applications; however, the text in aviation safety reports is inundated with jargon and thus not fully utilized by general pre-trained models. In this research, we work towards developing a safety-informed aerospace-specific language model by pre-training a Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformer (BERT) model on reports from the Aviation Safety Reporting System and the National Transportation Safety Board. The resulting model, called SafeAeroBERT, is fine-tuned for the specific task of document classification, and can be further tuned for named-entity recognition, relation detection, information retrieval, and summarization. Results from the classification task are compared between SafeAeroBERT, the base BERT, and SciBERT models and show SafeAeroBERT outperforms the general BERT and SciBERT on classifying reports about human factors, aircraft, and procedure. SafeAeroBERT can be used on custom tasks, not limited to document classification, and is intended to aid an intelligent knowledge manager for safety report repositories.

Aviation↗
NASA NTRS1994

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 395)

This bibliography lists 82 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during Nov. 1992. Subject coverage includes: general life sciences; aerospace medicine (including physiological factors, biological effects of radiation, and effects of weightlessness on man and animals); behavioral sciences (including psychological factors, individual and group behavior, crew training and evaluation, and psychic research); man/system technology and life support (including human engineering, biotechnology, and space suits and protective clothing) and space biology (including exobiology, planetary biology, and extraterrestrial life).

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1988

Assessment of the efficacy of medical countermeasures in space flight

Changes in body fluids, electrolytes, and muscle mass are manifestations of adaptation to space flight and readaptation to the 1-g environment. The purposes of this paper are to review the current knowledge of biomedical responses to short- and long-duration space missions and to assess the efficacy of countermeasures to 1-g conditioning. Exercise protocols, fluid hydration, dietary and potential pharmacologic measures are evaluated, and directions for future research activities are recommended.

NASA Discipline General Space Life Sciences↗
NASA NTRS1997

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A Continuing Bibliography With Indexes

This issue of Aerospace Medicine and Biology, A Continuing Bibliography with Indexes NASA SP-7O11 lists reports, articles, and other documents recently announced in the NASA STI Database. In its subject coverage, Aerospace Medicine and Biology concentrates on the biological, physiological, psychological, and environmental effects to which humans are subjected during and following simulated or actual flight in the Earth's atmosphere or in interplanetary space. References describing similar effects on biological organisms of lower order are also included. Such related topics as sanitary problems, pharmacology, toxicology, safety and survival, life support systems, exobiology, and personnel factors receive appropriate attention. Applied research receives the most emphasis, but references to fundamental studies and theoretical principles related to experimental development also qualify for inclusion.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES↗
NASA NTRS2009

Population Analysis: Communicating About Anthropometry in Context

This slide presentation reviews the importance of communications about anthropometry and population analysis in particular for the design of aerospace systems. The difficulty of providing anthropometric accomodation an entire range of the population is reviewed, and the importance of communication of the issues with human system integration is emphasized, and the analysis of population as it applies to existing human factors methodologies is a novel way to assist with the communication. The issues of space suit design and anthropometry is reviewed as an example.

Thaxton, Sherry↗
NASA NTRS2003

The impact of skeletal unloading on bone formation

Skeletal unloading leads to decreased bone formation and decreased bone mass. Bone resorption is uncoupled from bone formation, contributing to the bone loss. During space flight bone is lost principally from the bones most loaded in the 1 g environment. Determining the mechanism(s) by which loading of bone is sensed and translated into a signal(s) controlling bone formation remains the holy grail in this field. It seems likely that matrix/cell interactions will underlie much of the mechanocoupling. Integrins are a prime mediator of such interactions. The role for systemic hormones such as PTH, GH and 1,25(OH)2D compared to locally produced factors such as IGF-I, PTHrP, BMPs and TGF beta in modulating the cellular response to load remains unclear. Our studies demonstrate that skeletal unloading leads to resistance to the anabolic actions of IGF-I on bone as a result of failure of IGF-I to activate its own signaling pathways. This is associated with a reduction in integrin expression, suggesting crosstalk between these two pathways. As the mechanism(s) by which bone responds to changes in mechanical load with changes in bone formation is further elucidated, applications of this knowledge to other etiologies of osteoporosis are likely to develop. Skeletal unloading provides a perturbation in bone mineral homeostasis that can be used to understand the mechanisms by which bone mineral homeostasis is maintained, and that such understanding will lead to effective treatment for disuse osteoporosis in addition to preventive measures for the bone loss that accompanies space travel.

NASA Discipline Musculoskeletal↗
NASA NTRS1991

The use of activity-based cost estimation as a management tool for cultural change

It will be shown that the greatest barrier to American exploration of the planet Mars is not the development of the technology needed to deliver humans and return them safely to earth. Neither is it the cost of such an undertaking, as has been previously suggested, although certainly, such a venture may not be inexpensive by some measures. The predicted costs of exploration have discouraged serious political dialog on the subject. And, in fact, even optimistic projections of the NASA budget do not contain the resources required, under the existing development and management paradigm, for human space exploration programs. It will be demonstrated that the perception of the costs of such a venture, and the cultural responses to the perceptions are factors inhibiting American exploration of the moon and the planet Mars. Cost models employed in the aerospace industry today correctly mirror the history of past space programs, and as such, are representative of the existing management and development paradigms. However, if, under this current paradigm no major exploration programs are feasible, then cost analysis methods based in the past may not have great utility in exploring the needed cultural changes. This paper explores the use of a new type of model, the activity based cost model, which will treat management style as an input variable, in a sense providing a tool whereby a complete, affordable program might be designed, including both the technological and management aspects.

Mandell, Humboldt↗
NASA NTRS2001

Psychosocial issues in long-term space flight: overview

Anecdotal evidence of the individual and interpersonal problems that occurred during the Shuttle-Mir Space Program (SMSP) and other long-duration Russian/Soviet missions, and studies of personnel in other isolated and confined extreme (ICE) environments suggest that psychosocial elements of behavior and performance are likely to have a significant impact on the outcome of long-duration missions in space. This impact may range from individual decrements in performance, health and well being, to catastrophic mission failure. This paper reviews our current understanding of the psychosocial issues related to long duration space missions according to three different domains of behavior: the individual domain, the interpersonal domain and the organizational domain. Individual issues include: personality characteristics that predict successful performance, stress due to isolation and confinement and its effect on emotions and cognitive performance, adaptive and maladaptive coping styles and strategies, and requirements for the psychological support of astronauts and their families during the mission. Interpersonal issues include: impact of crew diversity and leadership styles on small group dynamics, adaptive and maladaptive features of ground-crew interactions, and processes of crew cohesion, tension and conflict. Organizational issues include: the influence of organizational culture and mission duration on individual and group performance, and managerial requirements for long duration missions. Improved screening and selection of astronaut candidates, leadership, coping and interpersonal skills training of personnel, and organizational change are key elements in the prevention of performance decrements on long-duration missions.

Review, Tutorial↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Defining Collaborative Control Interactions Using Systems Theory

Human teams collaborate by establishing roles, changing functional authorities, maintaining team cognition, coordinating, and mutually helping one another close control loops. These complex inter-actions are inspiring novel concepts to improve human-machine and multi-machine collaboration. However, these new systems face engineering gaps in modeling, analysis, design, and assurance. As such, few have been fielded in safety-critical domains like aerospace. To analyze safety, this paper introduces a system-theoretic framework to describe interactions that are—or are planned to be—used in multi-controller systems. It outlines a taxonomy of seven structural dimensions that influence controller interactions and nine dynamics observed in collaborative control that are defined using Systems Theory. An analyzed set of 101 controller interactions in aerospace systems demonstrates how to apply the framework and that designers are trying to create more sophisticated systems. This framework provides the foundation to extend system-theoretic hazard analysis techniques to systematically find collabora-tive-control causal factors.

Human machine teaming↗
NASA NTRS1998

Psychosocial issues affecting crews during long-duration international space missions

Psychosocial issues can negatively impact on crew performance and morale during long-duration international space missions. Major psychosocial factors that have been described in anecdotal reports from space and in studies from analog situations on Earth include: 1) crew heterogeneity due to gender differences, cultural issues, and work experiences and motivations; 2) language and dialect variations; and 3) task versus supportive leadership roles. All of these factors can lead to negative sequelae, such as intra-crew tension and cohesion disruptions. Specific sequelae that can result from single factors include subgrouping and scapegoating due to crew heterogeneity; miscommunication due to major or subtle language differences; and role confusion, competition, and status leveling due to inappropriate leadership role definition. It is time to conduct research exploring the impact of these psychosocial factors and their sequelae on space crews during actual long-duration international space missions.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS2016

Why an Eye Limiting Display Resolution Matters and How to Achieve It

Many factors affect the suitability of an out-the-window simulator visual system. Contrast, brightness, resolution, field-of-view, update rate, scene content and a number of other criteria are common factors often used to define requirements for simulator visual systems. Since 2008, NASA has worked with the USAF on the Operational Based Vision Assessment Program. The purpose of this program has been to provide the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine with a scientific testing laboratory to study human vision and testing standards in an operationally relevant environment. It was determined early in the design that current commercial and military training systems weren't well suited for the available budget as well as the highly research oriented requirements. During various design review meetings, it was determined the OBVA requirements were best met by using commercial-off-the-shelf equipment to minimize technical risk and costs. In this paper we will describe how the simulator specifications were developed in order to meet the research objectives and the resulting architecture and design considerations. In particular we will discuss the image generator architecture, database developments to meet eye limited resolution, and future reusablity in other projects.

flight simulator↗