 Throughout America's involvement in space exploration, the importance of the human element has become clear. The human being's ability to reconfigure, repair, and in general to react to unforeseen experiment conditions is still unsurpassed by any existing automatic system. With each space flight, NASA astronauts have gathered a wealth of information and operational experience in a wide variety of scientific areas. Astronauts must understand both the science and the capabilities and limitations of the spacecraft. As a result, science and operations have become intimately linked and should not be developed separately. Today, America's space shuttle provides continued access to near-Earth space. For science, this vehicle is an excellent platform for research and experimentation in a multitude of disciplines. Scientists and engineers on the shuttle crew must actively participate in scientific planning and implementation, not as mere operators, but as frontline investigators who possess an optimum balance of scientific and operational knowledge. Six of these crew members are part of the astronaut office's newly created science support group. Their objective is to aid future scientists and payload designers in perfecting their flight hardware in order to profit more fully from the human capabilities of the shuttle crew. We will now hear from the astronauts. The space shuttle is a unique laboratory and platform. For example, it allows us to study the effects of gravity on food behavior in ways simply not possible in ground-based facilities. It is much like the great experimental laboratories of the world. Hello, my name is Bonnie Dunbar. I'm a material scientist and engineer with a background in biomedical engineering. In October of 1985, I flew as a mission specialist on a space shuttle mission dedicated to material science and life science. Just as we hope to profit from the lessons learned in ground-based facilities, going must profit from the insights and lessons learned of space flight missions. The space shuttle contains three physical areas for scientific experiments and technology development. The flight deck is the command and control center of the orbiter. From this position, panels and displays control payloads in the payload bay. Experiments on the mid-deck and in the space lab are not controlled in this position. The mid-deck, which is originally designed as the living area for the crew, has been utilized for locker-sized experiments. These require limited power from the orbiter. The integration time may be less for these experiments, but they also must provide their own cooling, sensing, and data processing resources. No downlink data is available, but crew members work closely with the experimenters to monitor hardware and to improve the science of the return. Space lab is the only facility to science the typically pressurized experimentation. While a shuttle flight may carry only a few experiments, space lab flights may carry up to as many as a hundred. Space lab flights are dedicated primary payloads. This may fly up to 10 days, with crews working in two-shift operations for 24 hours today. From the moment that the lab was activated on STS-61A, it was clear that the investigators representing the more than 100 experiments onboard were anxiously awaiting the video downlink. Even if their experiments were completely automated. In fact, CV allowed the ground to observe the activity of the crew so the communications of the crew could be made to enhance the efficiency of the activity, not conceded. The onboard procedures were very concrete, and the two-year training period extensive. However, there were occasions where the ground scientists altered their regional procedures based on preliminary results they observed by way of the downlink. The use of liquid fluids for experiments, whether they be low or high temperature, has not only yielded valuable new insights in fluid physics but has presented design problems as well. Many experiments and hardware have suffered some surprises with respect to liquid wetting behavior in the micro-G environment. Experiments using liquids should be evaluated in ground-based facilities, such as the KC-135-0G aircraft prior to shuttle flight. In addition, good spills or inadvertent wetting occur in cleaning methods and internal access should be designed and developed prior to flight. Low viscosity liquids are more susceptible to mechanical disturbances, so restrictions for both crew and orbiter motion should be articulated early in the flight planning process. Recent flight experience has also demonstrated that it's more efficient to process gases to automate only when a process is restored. For example, on this flight, the crew routinely exchange material samples in high-temperature furnitures, rather than rely on mechanized sample exchanges. This allowed alterations in the sample sequence and timeline change and simplified the in-flight maintenance. Additionally, more samples were processed and currently can be done with present-automated tailor-gray films. Baselab has also allowed the use of glove boxes for handling contaminants, such as transferring sicknesses and working with blood samples. However, as shown here, conversation with the crew should be limited when two-handed operations are required. The crew must not interrupt operations in order to respond. In-flight maintenance has been an important part of science operations. Over 40% of experiment hardware has failed in first flight. Most have been recovered through two interventions. Hardware should be designed with potential repair in mind. I'm Ray Seddon. I'm a physician who first flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in April, 1985. I have a particular interest in space life sciences. Any life sciences experiments require humans in space as operator, subject, observer, scientist, and repairman. But it must be remembered that humans are not machines. In this vestibular experiment, changes in the perception of motion and zero gravity are being studied. However, the spinning chair may cause disorientation, vertigo, and motion sickness that may impact the next experiment in a timeline. Experiments must be integrated so they don't interfere with one another, both for crew comfort and clean science return. Countermeasures to maintain muscle and bone strength in space must be devised. However, exercise to the point of extreme fatigue may be great performance after its completion. With proper rest periods you're not allowed. This is especially true for all pre- and post-flight testing. In this vestibular experiment, a crewman has taken the place of a machine to make motion inputs. This may permit an experiment to be flown that would otherwise be too complex or costly to automate. In addition, it is much easier to ask a human to modify a protocol than to reprogram a machine that is orbiting the Earth. When a human is a subject, as in this test of leg reflexes, we or she may need to be heavily instrumented. Crew inputs early can help to integrate this equipment with other orbiter crew-worn hardware. Flying animals in space promises to provide us with a great deal of information unobtainable in humans, but accommodating animals is a new technology. Crew people can be very helpful in this type of hardware development. Free flight evaluation, in-flight observation, and with on-the-spot repair. If the crew is expected to be caretakers for other living species, their input into equipment design and procedures is critical. Plants are also increasing for study in space to understand gravity receptor function. But many of the plant and animal samples require fixation during the flight for later study on the ground. However, fixatives for plant and animal tissues also fix humans. In this scene, fixative is being transferred between two containers. There are rules that chemicals such as formaldehyde must be triple contained, so that if there are breaks in one or two of the containers, the crew will not be exposed to the chemical. This is especially important in 0G, since materials tend to float around the cabin and may get into eyes or be impaled or swallowed. When humans are used as subjects, sometimes sterilization of equipment is needed. You can see the many small pieces that must be located, then unwrapped and connected to do this blood collection. Since sampling through blood is such an important aspect of many life sciences experiments, this hardware has evolved over time into a well organized system. However, more could still be done to assemble components free flight to speed procedures and eliminate some of the sterile over wraps to generate a great deal of paper trash. It is possible to modify off the shelf medical diagnostic equipment such as this echocardiograph machine, so that it can fly in a locker on midday. In this case, crew input on hardware design and operations was solicited early in the design and contributed to a very successful flight, which brought back some of the first pictures of the functioning human heart in space. So humans are vital, not only as subjects, but as scientists. We can assist in experiment design and make direct observations as we flight test the human machine. Hello, I'm Jeff Hoffman. My background is in astrophysics. I'm going to talk to you about the great variety of experiments that we can do in the shuttle army and show you some of the equipment that we use to carry out those experiments. It is often possible to use non-built equipment in producing additional flexibility or allowing for light planning. But it is important to make sure the plan in advance where the equipment will be used and how it will be secured. Here is an example of an inexpensive but effective way one experiment was secured. Space flight would be impossible without Velcro and gray tape. This configuration was planned and reversed several times prior to flight in the shuttle simulator in Houston. PV is one of the most common methods of collecting visual data on experiments, both for post-flight analysis and for real-time downlinking to ground-based experiments. Lighting is critical to obtain good results. Photographic and PV requirements could be planned far in advance of the flight and to be rehearsed by the crew working together with the experiments. Johnson's Space Center person is not familiar with NASA's photographic system. Notice that things we take for granted on the Earth like tables lying neatly out of the way on the ground do not occur in whiteness. Tables have a memory of their own and often get in the way of operations. It is necessary to plan for table restraints in designing experiments. Notice also that what seems to be a fairly small experiment has, by the time it is all set up with cameras and lighting, is a real mid-deck and has occupied the time of two free members. Never assume that an experiment is so simple that it can be carried out with no impact in flight operations. Imperial science experiments are often sensitive to orbiter acceleration, such as that caused by shoveling and firing. Objects inside the shuttle including experimental apparatus must be secured before engine firing. The effects of engine firing on any experiments involving liquids are massive. Similarly, any experiments requiring jet firing have an effect on crew members who may be trying to sleep. Clearly, experimental operations cannot be planned without checking for compatibility with the total mission timeline. The shuttle has the capability of carrying out sophisticated observations of the sun and astronomical objects. This instrument pointing system smooths out the shuttle's residual motion to provide arc-second pointing stability. Even without the IPS, fine astronomical photographs of course not in such high magnification have been obtained using time exposures with cameras hard mounted to the shuttle. Certain photographic equipment needs to be shielded from stray light. Subtle crew members have worked with NASA engineers to develop this camera hood. It is a multi-purpose device and can be used for many light shielding applications. Experimenters with special requirements should talk with crew representatives to see how these can be met. The crew spends a lot of time taking out-the-window photographs. Often these are used for scientific purposes. Oceanography, geology, meteorology, and ecology. The crew can sometimes take pictures on request of certain areas. Scientists with potential Earth photographic requirements should contact crew representatives who can assist them in obtaining archival photos or perhaps in scheduling new photography where appropriate. This shot of a crew member changing the role of movie film is a good reminder that although it may eventually be possible to automate many tasks in space laboratories, this time it is often most efficient and cost-effective to use people. This applies to many areas of space investigations. Too many times experiments have been artificially limited in scope or in data collection capability as experimenters did not realize the flexibility they could have gained by using human operators. Obviously, crew time must be used efficiently and it does not normally make sense to ask a person to do repetitive tasks but a computer could do. However, when crew participation is called for, astronauts normally spend a lot of time with experimenters planning how best to carry out the experiment. Here is an example of how astronaut participation in an experiment was successful. This vapor transport experiment was computer controlled and was designed to operate autonomously which was entirely appropriate under normal circumstances. The crew member assigned to carry out the experiment spent a lot of time with the experimenters during the last year before flight and together they developed a way of monitoring the experiment and possibly modifying its operation using the small controller visible here. As often happens in space the thermal environment was different from what had been calculated pre-flight and the automatic sequence would not work. The crew member working together with scientists on the ground and using the controller was able to diagnose the problem and manually operate the apparatus. This made the difference between a failed experiment yielding no data and success. With crew members are going to operate equipment it is important to consider the effects notice that the crew member is able to hold on to this apparatus by squeezing his legs around the sides. This is perfectly acceptable in this circumstance and illustrates the novel ways people operate in space compared to in the Earth. However, if the required operations took a long time his legs would become fatigue a better body restraint system would be necessary. Interaction between scientists on the ground and crew members in orbit is crucial for the success of many experiments. Here, the onboard crew member is examining the crystal grown during the space lab flight. He sets up a shuttle TV camera to send pictures down to scientists on the ground. The picture is available both on the ground and in the shuttle so the crew members can discuss experimental results and procedures that scientists on the ground will both are looking at the same data. Here, the ground-based scientists see the results of the crystal-grown experiment as soon as the astronauts do. They have far more time available than the onboard crew and have no responsibilities for other experiments. Therefore, while the crew members are operating other experiments, the scientists on the ground can proceed with detailed real-time analysis of their data. This may be used to modify the protocol of subsequent flight experiments to be carried out later in the mission. I'm Mary Cleve an environmental engineer and the RMS operator on 61B. The remote manipulator system is a telerobotic arm in the payload bay of the shuttle. It is a valuable tool which has been used for many pre-planned and real-time operations. Understanding the unique operating capabilities and limitations of this system before designing hardware that will interface with it cannot be stressed enough. Here we see a Simcon satellite that didn't activate properly after deployment. In an attempt to correct this problem, the crew, working with ground engineers, is able to improvise using existing onboard materials. A special tool that could be attached to the RMS during a spacewalk. This tool was used to catch the activation switch to ensure it had been front. We copy. We estimate we got a hard physical contact on at least two occasions. And we concur with that. That was a great job. The RMS was designed to deploy objects. This free-flying payload carrier is supporting a mass spectrometer and two other optical scanners. Rappel fixtures should be placed on free-flying experiments in case they may require on-orbit retrieval, re-servicing, and or repair. As you can see, it's a very smooth operation coming in. The RMS is very easily controllable and as far as itself is a very stable platform. The RMS was also used as a mobile platform for crewmen working outside of the shuttle. You can see the crewman inside the cabin operating the RMS to position a space-suited crewman running a cable along a truss. Although the arm was not designed for this purpose, this mode of operation was now possible and really increased the flexibility of operations in the payload bay and above it. Are you ready to go up? Yup. At the age of tele-robotics, the crew rendezvoused with a non-functional satellite, repaired it, and then re-deployed it. For this task, we used the arm to position a crewman to manually spin up and deploy the satellite after the crew had repaired it. Although a contingency operation, this deployment method was successful. The RMS can also be used to position larger structures. Here a large truss is being manipulated to define how manageable this is. This experiment also highlights the benefits of man-manipulator interactions. This information is important to construction tasks on space station and other future projects. We have also used the arm to retrieve damaged satellites in conjunction with pre-flying crewmen on the man-maneuvering unit. This tele-robotic system can be used in both planned or contingency operations of experiments outside of the shuttle much more effectively if proper considerations are made during the experiment's design phase. Hi, I'm Jerry Ross. I'm going to talk to you about spacewalks or EVAs. I have worked various aspects of EVAs almost ever since the shuttle first flew. In fact, I performed PVAs myself on STS-61B in 1985 to investigate space construction techniques. EVAs provides unique capabilities for operating, servicing, fixing or assembling spacecraft and experimental hardware. Many EVAs have already been conducted on space shuttle mission utilizing these capabilities. Several future satellites are being designed for on-orbit maintenance and servicing. The space station will be heavily dependent upon EVAs for assembly and operation. Payloads can request EVAs to support their requirements. No more than two EVAs can be planned for a specific space shuttle mission and each EVA will have a maximum duration of six hours. EVAs are not normally planned before Flight Day 4 and are not performed on the day before we entry. Nor are EVAs normally planned consecutive days. An EVA is at least a three-person task with two EVA crew persons and at least one crew person that supports the EVA from inside the orbiter. Crew coordination is essential to avoid entanglement of feathers and conflicts with orbiter operations such as RMS units. Since EVAs do require a large measure of the crew's on-orbit as well as training time they should not be planned or used indiscriminately. However, when EVAs are contemplated there are several factors to be considered. Our brother is being designed to incorporate EVA tasks to be designed such that it ensures safe operation for the orbiter the EVA crew person and the spacecraft. Safety's requirements, NASA's safety and your own safety and quality assurance organization should be involved from the earliest stages of the design process. The harbor should also be designed to be EVA-friendly. Workstations should be properly positioned and must provide adequate restraint. Designs that minimize loose parts, utilize standard interfaces and tools provide adequate marking and indication and that utilize large muscle groups will help maximize the productivity of EVAs and help ensure a successful operation. Insertive timelines are used when planning EVAs and whenever possible the unexpected is anticipated and backup procedures are developed. Backup procedures have been used on several previous shuttle EVAs when some of the hardware didn't function as planned. Most of these problems could have been avoided had the as flown configuration of the spacecraft been adequately documented. EVA is a very unique undertaking that has special considerations and limitations. The best and most effective way to design for EVA is to establish an early working relationship with the Johnson Space Center and the Ashtonaut offices science support group. Some of the most operationally demanding types of research we do in space involve the use of the orbiter itself or the experimental apparatus. The orbiter becomes more than a payload carrier, it becomes an instrument. Hello, my name is Franklin San Diaz and I flew on mission 61C on board the space shuttle Columbia. My background is in plasma physics and mechanical engineering and I'd like to talk to you a bit about some of the lessons we have learned in using the orbiter as an experimental platform. There are three significant lessons which must be considered by payload designers in preparing experiments to be conducted outside the orbiter. First, we must understand the outside environment. This is important as it will affect many other free flying experiments in disciplines ranging from microgravity research to remote sensing. A partial characterization of the near environment was accomplished on Space Lab 2 during the activities with the University of Iowa's Plasma Diagnostic Package, the PDP. The PDP is a probe to study the properties and dynamics of the ionostatic plastic. Using PDP, scientists can study the effects large orbital vehicles like the shuttle have on their near environment. The PDP can be flown attached to the mechanical arm to sample the near environment or as an inertially stabilized free flyer to study wake effects and electromagnetic interactions with the plasma medium. The second lesson we have learned is the importance of crew involvement in experiment definition, planning and of course execution. The crew must understand not just the science but the capabilities and limitations of the vehicle which makes it possible. For example, in the case of PDP the orbiter is used to generate known disturbances at precise points in space and time. Precise alignment of the orbiter PDP combination prior to release was crucial and was accomplished by the crew through controlled inputs to the orbiter and the RMS. To carry out the experiment the crew performed an intricate set of maneuvers around the PDP shown in the diagram. This operation produced a map of the plasma weight structure. Because the orbiter required a large number of maneuvers to accomplish the science objectives the crew devoted a great deal of time planning and fine tuning these maneuvers to such an extent that without their participation part of the experiment would have been impossible. For example in two of the orbital passes the orbiter was taken slightly out of the orbital plane to intersect and connect with your magnetic field line passing through the PDP at a precise instant. These operations required critical and precise adequate maneuvers using the orbiter's reaction control system. The third lesson we have learned is that the unique capabilities of the orbiter RMS combination to deploy and retrieve scientific payloads give us access to a much more quiescent and pure environment than the orbiter itself would provide. These capabilities should be utilized in future experiment planning. A now mature flying technique which we call proximity operations can be used in these types of investigations. It is being demonstrated here during the recapture maneuvers for the SPAS-01 sub-satellite. The crew uses visual cues out the orbiter's overhead window and during the deployment and subsequent recapture of the payload it requires a coordinated action of several two members at once. The value of human beings as observers cannot be overemphasized and time available can be used productively. For example, being at the right place at the right time would use this spectacular low light level motion pictures of the Aurora Australis. They are imperious of high solar activity, astronauts acting as onboard scientists with used handheld instruments like spectrometers and image intensifiers to make a more complete recording of this interesting plasma phenomenon. These comments also apply to another plasma process with which we are intimately familiar, namely reentry. For example, handheld photography reveal the interesting weight structures which develop downstream as the orbiter descends. As the orbiter decelerates through the atmosphere, this patterns change and exhibit low instabilities. For those wanting to study this phenomena, it is possible with early crew involvement to plan simple experiments with crew operated instruments from inside the cabin. The knowledge gained from this observation will help us understand the allowable maneuver envelope of the shuttle. In addition, it will enable us to design better lightweight reentry vehicles and develop aerobraking techniques for future orbit transfer vehicles and interplanetary probes. The greatest advantage of human space exploration is achieved through the unique perspective astronauts can bring to the operation. With early involvement in the science objectives, their ability to react to a known phenomena, to reconfigure experiments in real time and to repair those systems which fail. This approach, using the orbiter as a test bed and the crew as a critical interacting element greatly enhances the scientific return for each mission flown. These have been the lessons learned. We are now attempting to communicate them to scientists and payload designers working in their laboratories to ensure that future experiments are designed not as sealed black boxes but as flexible elements with human interaction. To facilitate this, the astronaut office has created the science support group. These astronauts will combine their scientific and operational skills to provide an early interface with space scientists and clinical investigators to optimize the design of operational scientific hardware and to ensure its proper integration in the space shuttle and the space station.