www.nasa.gov www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov 1

Nobel Laureate on NRP Lecture Panel

NRP presented a panel discussion as part of its ongoing Explration Lecture Series on Oct. 2 entitled: “International Space Station: Your Lab of the Future.” Panelists included Nobel Laureate 

Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Dr. Cheryl 

Nickerson, Associate Professor of Life Sciences, Center for 

Infectuous Diseases and Vaccinology, Arizona State University 

and Thomas B. Pickens III, CEO SpaceHab, a Texas-based firm 

that supports manned and unmanned missions to space.

International Space Station National Lab Workshop 

“Going Where Our Intuition No Longer Applies”

By Kathleen Burton

The Alliance for Commercial Enterprises in Space (ACES), a 

managing partner of NRP tenant California Space Grant Foundation, together with the NASA Ames Space Portal, hosted a 

glittering, successful International Space Station (ISS) National 

Laboratory Workshop Oct. 2-4 in Bldg. 3.

The workshop’s goal was to identify and begin to craft a suite of 

pioneering research to be conducted on board the ISS National 

Laboratory when it “opens for business” after 2010. In 2005, 

the NASA Authorization Bill established the ISS as the first U.S. 

national laboratory beyond Earth, which means the US segment 

of the Space Station will be opened to new research by other 

government organizations and commercial companies.

“The field with the greatest promise of new discovery is the topic of our 

(ISS) workshop. The exploration of space is an iconic example of new 

discovery, “ said Nobel Laureate and workshop Chairman Dr. Baruch 

Blumberg of the Fox Chase Cancer Center, during the workshop’s opening remarks.

The workshop tackled five key benefits of a national lab in space: 

enabling discovery, sustaining life through medical advances, 

benefitting humanity, advancing education and generating new 

businesses and wealth. 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

A publication of NASA Research Park Winter 2007-2008

NRP Post

continued on page 9

Marc Uhran, NASA Associate Administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD), takes questions after his kickoff keynote address 

at the ISS National Laboratory Workskhop.

Apprion Provides “Cheapsat” Communication

By Dr. Peter Fuhr, CTO, Apprion

Apprion, a NASA Research Park Partner involved in the development of integrated wireless infrastructure elements for 

the secure management of critical systems, has worked with 

NASA Ames for several years on a variety of projects. In late 

2006 Apprion began assisting Ames Small Spacecraft Office 

development of inexpensive satellite systems. One project, 

euphemistically called “Cheapsat”, is an Earth imaging satellite 

using various Consumer-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components 

and systems.

Apprion is providing inexpensive high bandwidth communications systems that transfer the satellite images to the ground 

quickly. In addition, satellite components’ and systems’ health 

may be monitored using the same bi-directional communications channel and Apprion’s IONosphere network management suite of applications. 

Google Engineering Director for Google Print, Dan Clancy, introduces panelists at NASA Research Park’s Exploration Lecture “International Space 

Station: Your Lab of the Future.” Panelists included Dr. Baruch Blumberg, 

Nobel Laureate and Workshop Chairman, Dr. Cheryl Nickerson, Associate 

Professor of Life Sciences, Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, 

Arizona State University and Thomas Pickens III, CEO of SPACEHAB.

continued on page 7

continued on page 15 
NRP Post

2 www.nasa.gov

NASA Ames Spacecraft to Search for Lunar Water Ice

NASA Ames Research Center will conduct a vanguard robotic 

mission for NASA’s return to the Moon. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), to be launched in October 2008, will map 

the surface of the Moon in unprecedented detail. 

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), 

developed by NASA Ames Research Center, will fly as a secondary payload searching for water ice in early 2009.

The identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the Moon. LCROSS’ mission objectives are to 

confirm the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently 

shadowed crater at the Moon’s South Pole.

The secondary payload spacecraft 

will travel with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) satellite to the 

Moon on the same Atlas-Centaur 

rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

After launch, the LCROSS 

spacecraft will arrive in the 

lunar vicinity independent 

of the LRO satellite. On the 

way to the Moon, the LunarCROSS spacecraft’s two 

main parts, the Shepherding Spacecraft (S-S/C) and the Centaur 

Upper Stage will remain coupled. Rather than enter into a lunar 

orbit, LCROSS will swing by the Moon and enter a large orbit 

around the earth where it will circle the earth in preparation for a 

lunar impact.

As the spacecraft approaches the Moon’s South Pole, the Centaur 

will separate and impact a crater in the south polar region, ejecting 

a plume from the Centaur crash as the S-S/C heads in towards the 

Moon. The S-S/C will fly through the plume with instruments to 

analyze the cloud for signs of water and other compounds. Additional space and earth-based 

instruments will study the 

huge plume, which scientists 

expect to be larger than 200 

metric tons.

If there are substantial 

amounts of water ice hidden 

in the permanently dark crater 

at the Moon’s South Pole, it 

could be used by astronauts 

to make rocket fuel when they 

later visit the Moon.

NRP Welcomes New Tenants

California State University Monterey Bay

Building 19, July 2007

Working on environmental monitering networks

SGT Inc.

Building 19, December 2007

SGT Inc. is supporting the NASA Ames LCROSS office with 

its mission to the Lunar South Pole.

21st Century Information Management at UCSC

by Vanessa Binder

Research that benefits society is a central mission of the University of 

California. At the Jack Baskin School of Engineering, faculty members 

are working to make an impact in fields where technology is driving rapid 

change. Today’s high-tech industries are not like businesses of decades 

past. Managers must deal with modern challenges: designing products and 

marketing in a competitive economy. A new proposed degree program in 

Technology and Information Management (TIM) will prepare managers 

for success in this climate. The program emphasizes a “systems approach 

to optimizing all aspects of high-tech businesses. The goal is producing 

leaders who keep their companies agile, resilient, and responsive.” 

Students can pursue a certificate in Knowledge Services and 

Enterprise Management and/or up to three 5-unit course 

credits towards a Master’s or PhD degree. The TIM program is expected to have an official start date of Fall 2009. 

Classes are held at UCSC’s Silicon Valley Center here at 

NASA-Ames. All required courses are held on weeknights 

and are targeted to working professionals.

The School of Engineering is holding a Career Event 

on Thursday, January 3, 2008, 6:00 pm at the Silicon 

Valley Center, Building 19, Room 2073 to introduce the 

Winter Quarter classes that will begin January 7. Come 

meet the UCSC Professors who will be teaching the following classes, and see an overview of what the Winter quarter 

classes have to offer. All classes being offered are Masters 

or PhD level. 

ISM-245 Data Mining covers the principles, algorithms and 

applications of data mining, including mining sequential 

data, structured data, stream data, text data, spatiotemporal 

data, biomedical, and other forms of complex data. 

continued on page 8

LCROSS will search for water and based on data 

from Clementine & Lunar Prospector Missions.
NRP Post

www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov 3

UAV Collaborative at NRP

by Diane Farrar

The UAV Collaborative, 

under the Directorship 

of Dr. Stan Herwitz, has 

been based in the NASA 

Research Park since 2004. 

Herwitz’s vision for the 

UAV Collaborative is to 

showcase data acquisition 

capabilities of low-altitude 

UAVs (Unmanned Aerial 

Vehicles) for saving lives, 

protecting property and 

increasing our understanding of the earth and its atmosphere.

He envisions data streaming from 50-100 small eyes in the sky 24 hours 

a day, aiding the success of challenging missions such as atmospheric 

sampling, fire fighting and urgent search-and-rescue operations.

According to Herwitz, fuel efficient, reasonably priced UAVs have the 

potential to stay aloft for significantly longer time periods than piloted craft. 

Low altitude UAVs flying under 5000 ft. have tremendous potential for 

effective emergency response and disaster assistance, he said.

Herwitz, formerly Professor of Earth Science at Clark University, MA, 

is a committed research scientist and educator. As part of the UAV 

Collaborative’s outreach activity, he has provided invited guest lectures 

at CMU West and San Jose State University, hosted interactive educational events, and offered hands-on internships to university students. 

Several of these interns have obtained positions with Silicon Valley 

firms such as Loral and Lockheed Martin. 

In 2004 Herwitz established the non-profit UAV Collaborative and 

signed a Cooperative Agreement with NASA for managing UAV demonstrations and creating collaborative partnerships involving the public, 

private and academic sectors. The UAV Collaborative’s charter includes: 

(1) supporting research, development and commercialization of UAV 

technology operating in the National Airspace System; (2) developing 

UAV programs for 

education and educational outreach; (3) 

building general public 

confidence in UAV 

technology; and (4) accelerating realization of 

economic and societal 

benefits from UAVs 

and their applications.

Examples of UAV demonstrations managed by Herwitz 

include imaging coffee field ripening during the harvest 

season in Kauai, HI using a solar-powered UAV, and imaging grape fields at San Bernabe Vineyard using Lockheed 

Martin’s APV-3 UAV (12-ft wingspan). In 2004 the APV-3 

was used again in a proof-of-concept mission for the detection of pipeline leakages using a NASA Ames-developed 

hyperspectral sensor at the Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing 

Center (RMOTC) in Wyoming. In 2005 the APV-3 was used 

as part of an emergency response demonstration in collaboration with the Ames Disaster Assessment Response Team 

(DART). The UAV flight demonstration over the DART collapsed structure at Moffett Field featured a Lockheed Martin 

chemical sensor.

In 2005 Herwitz and the 

UAV Collaborative initiated and managed the 

transfer of ownership 

of two Sierra UAVs (20-

ft wingspan) from the 

Naval Research Lab in 

Maryland to the NASA 

Ames Research Center. 

More recently, in 2007, 

Herwitz initiated and 

managed the transferral 

of ownership of Lockheed Martin’s APV-3 to the UAV Collaborative. The APV-3 

and the two Sierra UAVs are currently housed in Hangar 248 

at NASA Ames.

The UAV Collaborative works closely with the Range Safety 

Office at NASA Ames in preparing and submitting applications to the FAA for Certificates of Authorization (COAs), 

enabling FAA-approved UAV flight activity. The UAV Collaborative also is working closely with the Human Factors Group 

at NASA Ames on a long-term study of UAV maintenance.

More recent UAV flight demonstrations involving the UAV 

Collaborative include a communications relay payload over 

a controlled burn for the U.S. Forest Service at Fort Hunter 

Liggett using the APV-3, and a return to San Bernabe Vineyard for a test of a video payload on the Vector-P. 

Herwitz envisions significant opportunities for UAV pilot training 

as UAV technology continues to advance. Completion of private pilot 

ground school training is required to become a certified UAV pilot, 

said Herwitz. He maintains that students having an understanding of 

flight safety and the hand-eye coordination skill of video gaming may 

emerge as the next generation of UAV pilots. The UAV Collaborative continues to further develop its UAV pilot training program.

Vector-P operational team members and range safety personnel at San Bernabe Vineyard in front of FEMA vehicle, 

which was used as the UAV Ground Control Station 

Assembly of Vector-P in preparation for flight 

at San Bernabe Vineyard near King City, CA

Vector-P UAV taking off in April 2007
NRP Post

4 www.nasa.gov

You could assist the mission of Yuri’s Night Bay Area in several ways. 

If organizations are interested in exhibiting, sponsoring, hosting day 

meetings or salons, or otherwise partnering -- please let us know 

and we’ll start working with you right away. There are many diverse 

benefits to sponsorship and partnership, and we’d love to showcase 

our NRP partners during both day and evening events. 

If individuals are interested in volunteering outside of work on 

teams organizing art, deco, music, performers, vending, general 

logistics, etc., or as general event staff, please contact us and we’ll 

sign you up and get you in on the planning.

For more information contact Jessica Cullter (Jessica.S.Culler@

nasa.gov), Matt Hancher (Matthew.D.Hancher@nasa.gov), James 

Busby (James.Busby-1@nasa.gov) or info@worldspaceparty.

com. Also, visit www.worldspaceparty.com.

Yuri’s Night at NASA Ames Research Center

by Jessica Culler

On April 12, 2007, over 4,000 people from the communities 

near Moffett Field, CA, and some from further away, converged 

at NASA Ames Hangar 211 for a ten-hour celebration of space 

exploration, music, science, art, and technology. 

For Yuri’s Night 2008 we hope to double the number to 8,000 

people, with a 2 pm to 2 am event on April 12, with the theme 

Radical Sustainability. During daylight, Bay Area organizations are 

invited to hold salons and demonstrations throughout the NASA 

campus to build cross-community awareness and support for both 

technical and artistic groups, and the many that overlap. At dusk, 

the true Yuri’s Night World Space Party will begin, expanding on 

last year’s unique integration of music and art installations, hosting distinguished space speakers and technical demonstrations, 

and linking up with parties across the nation and the Earth in a 

celebration of exploration. 

We hope Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2008 will be the world’s largest 

and most successful Yuri’s Night event to date. Our event will be 

far more than a party. We are planning a holistic educational and 

inspirational experience -- unifying our participants and evoking a 

new sense of wonder, excitement and optimism. We believe this 

unique event is a distinctive opportunity for sponsors to support 

positive images of scientists and engineers, for placement and 

demonstration of products and research at a technology leadership 

event, and to show support for the local community and culture. 

Kentucky Space Express Mission Update

On December.5th, 2007 at approximately 9:06am MST, KySat Space 

Express achieved a successful liftoff from White Sands Missile Range 

in New Mexico. While all of the Kentucky Space Express systems 

operated successfully, shortly after launch the vehicle suffered a catastrophic failure and the KySat payload was not able to reach the target 

altitude in space. 

Despite that, the KySat Space Express student team and mission 

advisors are extremely pleased with the performance of the student 

designed systems and payloads.

The team has conducted an initial debrief with White Sands officials 

and the launch vehicle providers to assess the mission. 

KySat thanks the Space Express student team and mission advisors for 

their incredibly hard work and the performance of their systems and NASA Ames Hangar 211, Credit: Scott Beale

NASA Ames Airfield, Credit: Scott Beale
NRP Post

www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov 5

payload. The design and successful integration of the Space Express 

payload was, despite the failure to reach the targeted altitude of 127km, 

an essential step in the continued development of the initiative including first orbital mission, projected to launch in mid to late 2008. 

The Space Express payload was carried aboard a Shadow ID rocket 

provided by Lunar Rocket and Rover Company based in Los Alamitos, California. The primary objective of Space Express was to test 

subsystems and processes being developed for future orbital KySat 

missions now in development.

The Space Express payload configuration included:

· Electrical Power System

· Command and Data Handling System

· Communication System

· Telemetry System

The mission was monitored and tracked by three (3) KySat designed 

ground stations and the radar array at White Sands Missile Range. 

Approximately twelve students plus various faculty/mission advisors 

from member KySat organizations traveled to White Sands as part of 

the launch team.

 

KySat Enterprise Members include: University of Kentucky; University of Louisville; Morehead State University; Murray State University; 

Western Kentucky University; Kentucky Space Grant Consortium, 

Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education; Kentucky Science 

and Engineering Foundation; Kentucky Science and Technology 

Corporation (Managing Partner, co-located at NRP) and Kentucky 

Community and Technical College System.

Complete mission details along with visuals of the Shadow 1D launch 

vehicle, a view from space at the approximate altitude Space Express 

is expected to achieve and names and photos of the KySat student 

design teams are available at http://www.kysat.com.

Photozig Albums Express Receives 

“Killer Download” Award 

Market Watch

As digital cameras become better and less expensive (e.g. some 7.1 

megapixel cameras cost less than $200), more and more people 

are adopting this technology and taking thousands of pictures, 

but how to manage, display, and share your best shots?

According to The Daily Download of CNET, there are a number of 

online sites that do a nice job of presenting your pictures, “but if you 

want to keep your work local before pushing it out to the Web, want 

to post pics to your personal site, or want a few more customization 

options, a downloadable program might be your best bet.” (Source: 

The Daily Download article entitled “Killer Download: Get your 

photos on the Web for free” dated Sep 25 2007)

“Some of best programs for displaying digital photos offer several options for presenting your pics, with simple methods for creating slide 

shows, customizable Web pages, and the ability to send your albums 

via e-mail or on a CD. Each of these apps have options for some or all 

of these features, but you’ll need to surrender an e-mail address to sign 

up for an included Web service. Maybe the best thing about these killer 

downloads (and their respective Web sites), is that they’re all free.”

The program on the top of the list of “Killer Download: Get your photos 

on the Web for free” was Photozig Albums Express. According to independent review of CNET Killer Download: “Photozig Albums Express 

offers a step-by-step process so you can design your project from start to 

finish. Large button icons with descriptions make it easy to start your 

project and select your preferred output for your images, including sending 

in e-mail, burning to CD, or uploading to a Web site. There are several 

skins to choose from that match the colors of specific holidays or you can 

choose skins to fit a certain color scheme. Large icons and a structured 

project path make easy to start your project and follow the process.”

Photozig Albums: create, organize, enhance, and share photo 

albums and slideshows via the Web and CDs. A free download 

of Photozig Albums is available at www.photozig.com.

Photo from payload integration captured Tuesday, December 4th. The 

launch vehicle did not reach its targeted 127km altitude, but the student 

designed payload successfully sent in-flight data.
NRP Post

6 www.nasa.gov

The following is from the pamphlet Moffett Field 60th 

Anniversary, 1933-1993:

“The creation of Moffett Field is a story linked to the birth of a new 

period in American aviation - the lighter-than-air craft era - which began 

with an idea about 70 years ago. Germany had found success in using 

giant airships for scouting purposes during World War 1, and the U.S. 

did not want to be left behind. 

These were the days before radar, and dirigibles had the 

capacity to scout large areas of land or sea for long periods, 

longer than any other aircraft at the time. At first, the Navy 

had just two rigid dirigibles, the most famous being the USS 

Shenandoah. But the career of the Shenandoah, as with many 

of its predecessors, was short-lived. The cigar-shaped airship 

was torn apart in a severe thunderstorm over Ohio on Sept. 

3, 1925, claiming the lives of 14 officers and crewmen. The 

demise of the ship added fuel to a growing controversy about 

the military effectiveness of dirigibles.

“When I first came in contact with rigid airships, I couldn’t see anything to them,” said Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, chief of the 

Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics in 1926. “It is noteworthy that every 

officer who has anything to do with these ships ... is in favor of them 

and thinks they will be of great value to the Navy.” The advocates of 

this new-found technology won out. In 1926, the Navy announced that 

it was going to build two new airships, both larger and stronger than the 

Shenandoah. They would become the Akron and the Macon.

The Navy launched a search for a West Coast place to base one 

of the two ships. In an attempt to better their chances of receiving the base, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco and Alameda 

counties set up a financing program to buy the land and donate 

it to the Navy for the purposes of building an air base. San Francisco raised $330,000, while Santa Clara County communities 

contributed most of the remaining $ 100,000 to buy the land. 

The communities eventually purchased 1,000 acres of the bay 

side property for $476,066. Still the Navy had not made up its 

mind. After discarding dozens of possible West Coast sites, the 

choice was between Camp Kearny and the Bay Area. The competition ended in December. Two months later, President Herbert 

Hoover, himself a product of Stanford University, signed the bill 

that authorized the Navy to accept the Mountain View property 

for one dollar and appropriated $5 million for construction on 

the base to begin as soon as possible. 

Noted a San Francisco Chronicle editorial at the time: “What has been done with 

Sunnyvale is an example of what Northern and Central California can do when 

they play the game.” For the Peninsula, the construction of the Naval base was 

Moffett Field Museum

by Bill Stubkjaer, Museum Curator

For a fascinating and informative step into the earliest 

days of Moffett Field, visit the Moffett Field Museum 

in Bldg. 126 on Severyns Avenue, NASA Research Park, 

Wednesday thru Saturday, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Admission is 

free and the staff is friendly. 

http://www.moffettfieldmuseum.org/ 

The Moffett Field Historical 

Society, formed in May 1993, 

created the Moffett Field 

Museum in 1994. The museum, managed and staffed 

entirely by volunteers, was 

originally located in the west 

side of historic Hangar One. This location was closed 

by NASA in January 2002 due to contamination in the 

Hangar One structure, and in May 2003 Hangar One was 

closed permanently due to contamination.

The Society obtained the use of Building 126 in NASA 

Research Park and reopened in its new spaces on April 12, 

2005. The museum continues to look for photographs and 

other artifacts relating to the history of Moffett Field and 

all of the tenants based at Moffett Field and NASA Ames 

Research Center.

Left to right: Bob Lopez, NRP Account Manager, John Ellis, Bill Stubkjaer, 

Museum Curator, Gloria Perlett, Eugene “Frenchie” Choiniere, Bernie 

McDonough, MFHS President Photo courtesy of Sagar N. Pathak

Macon at Hangar 1
NRP Post

www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov 7

As a “proof-of-concept,” Apprion and Ames installed communications components at the NASA Vulcan Observatory on 

Mt. Hamilton, and at Ames. This 50+ Mbps communications 

channel carries live video from a camera at the observatory, 

and provides a Voice-over-IP telephony connection through 

a secure wireless 802.11 “cloud” layered over the observatory. Sensors have also been deployed at the site, allowing the 

“triple-play” of voice, video, and data to be simultaneously 

transmitted through the network. Network management and 

monitoring is performed 40+ km away, in Apprion’s Bldg. 19 

site and in Ames Bldg. 240. 

The IP-addressable nature of the network management application is well suited for Cheapsat, or similar satellite systems, 

and will allow ground-systems to easily monitor the satellite’s 

system status and health while simultaneously being able to 

examine the imaging feeds. This integrated network management and visualization tool makes it much easier for individuals 

to perform functions previously done by multiple individuals, 

systems and displays.

For more information on this effort, please contact Dr. Peter 

Fuhr, Apprion, Building 19, Suite 1000, v: 650-934-5700, e: 

peter.fuhr@apprion.com.

a boon in bad times. It meant an average of 500 construction jobs a month in a 

time when jobs were hard to come by. Merchants in local communities also looked 

forward to the purchasing power that would come with the 500 people expected to 

be stationed at the base upon its completion.

As excited as the Bay Area was to see the massive airships, the local 

interest in the construction of its storage hangar Hangar One - was 

almost as great. The hangar, 211 feet high, would be taller than all the 

buildings in the South Bay except one, the Bank of America tower in 

San Jose. The base also would be equipped with a massive nine-story 

mooring mast responsible for grabbing the giant airship by the nose 

and leading it in and out of the hangar on tracks. 

The hangar was still under construction when the Bay Area got 

its first glimpse of the kind of monster for which it was intended. 

Despite a veil of fog that had settled on the San Francisco Peninsula, it was a carnival-like scene at the Mountain View-Sunnyvale 

border on the morning of May 13, 1932. More than 100,000 

people - enough to fill Stanford Stadium - packed the bay side 

fields where they huddled in cars and sat in bleachers set up by 

concessionaires. Sixty-five state troopers were called in to handle 

the traffic on the still-uncompleted Bayshore Freeway where cars 

inched ahead four abreast en route to the site. 

The crowd had assembled by the bay to greet a Navy aircraft carrier that was 

due to dock any time that morning. But this new ship would not be arriving 

by water. Suddenly, about 7 a.m., the recently completed USS Akron, which 

would be based in Lakehurst, N.J., dropped ghostlike out of the clouds. The 

silver dirigible stretched across the sky, two and a half times the length of a 

football field. The crowd cheered. “It was a never to-be-forgotten sight” noted a 

Palo Alto Times story. 

This would be the first and last time the Akron would visit the base. Less 

than a year later on April 4, 1933, the “sky-queen” got caught in heavy storm 

winds and crashed off the Atlantic Coast, killing 73 of the 76 officers and 

crew on board. Among those lost was Admiral William Moffett. Eight days 

later, a somber crowd gathered at the base, and Sunnyvale Naval Air Station 

was commissioned. Acting Commanding Officer M.J. Walker concluded the 

ceremonies by giving the now-famous orders to a deputy officer named D.M. 

Mackey, “Enter in the log that the Sunnyvale station is placed in commission 

at 11: 30 a.m. Set the watches and pipe down.”

Illustration of Cheapsat Configuration

On Feb. 12, 1935, the 

785-foot-long Macon 

-- the largest and last 

built rigid dirigible in the 

United States -- was traveling at 80 knots, 100 feet 

above the water when 

winds around Point Sur, 

California knocked off the 

tail fin. The Macon drifted 

toward the choppy seas 

and sank.

Cheapsat continued from front page
NRP Post

8 www.nasa.gov

mantic mining, financial engineering, enterprise resource 

planning, new product development and management of 

technology. The seminar material will be prepared and 

presented by faculty, visiting scholars and students.

Two additional classes that the Baskin School of Engineering will be offering are in Computer Engineering 

which offers a Master’s degree with emphasis on Network 

Engineering:

CMPE-250 Multimedia Systems, A study of state-of-theart technology in data processing and communication 

requirements for networked multimedia systems

CMPE-256 Project in Computer Networks, This project 

based course is a capstone for the program. It helps 

students tie together what they have learned in the other 

program courses by applying these concepts to a practical 

problem or project.

In today’s “Information Age” companies must design effective information systems that give managers the right 

information, in the right form, at the right time to help 

them make better strategic decisions. Come join us for 

this event and meet our professors who will share their 

technological expertise in helping you better understand 

these concepts.

If you are interested in attending or have questions 

regarding the forum, contact Lucia MacLean at 831 459-

1384 (lmaclean@soe.ucsc.edu) or Vanessa Binder at 650 

528-4030 x-146 (vbinder@soe.ucsc.edu)

ISM250: Stochastic Optimization of Information Systems 

& Technology Management: This is the first in a sequence 

of courses in Technology and Information Management. 

The objective of the course is to provide students with 

a systematic methodology and the corresponding set of 

methods and analytical tools to address the field of Technology and Information Management in an integrated 

manner. Topics covered will include a subset of quantitative marketing, including information search and retrieval 

using linear algebraic methods, data mining in product 

development and in supply chain management and ebusiness, constrained optimization and risk management 

in product development, planning and financial engineering, basic queuing and time responsiveness in enterprise 

level problems 

ISM-270 Service Engineering and Management: This 

course is a thorough introduction to service engineering 

and management, from the role of services in the global 

economy to analytical models in service operations management. This is a rapidly developing field, and the material will cover fundamental principles of services as well as 

recent research developments in the field. Topics include 

designing efficient service networks, forecasting, resource 

allocation, and globalization.

ISM280S Seminar on Special Topics 1 Seminar participants 

will discuss a current research topic. The topics will follow a theme throughout the quarter, focusing on a specific 

aspect of TIM research. The theme of research presented 

throughout the course will be selected by the instructor. 

Topics may include, but are not limited to, knowledge management, service engineering and management, text and seUCSC Professor Ram Akella teaching Knowledge Services & Data Analytics at Silicon Valley Ctr.

UCSC Professor Subhas Desa with Management of Technology students

UCSC continued from page 2
NRP Post

www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov 9

Keynoter William Gerstenmaier, NASA Associate Administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD) 

and the senior executive responsible, emphasized the discovery 

possibilities ahead for both the Space Shuttle and Space Station 

during his keynote address. “...We are opening up the U.S. 

segment of the Space Station to be used by both governmental 

and commercial organizations. We want to take maximum 

advantage of this unique laboratory in the sky, but we need 

you to be creative in how we use it,” he said to attendees. 

“Forget scientific disciplines and organizational barriers. With 

unprecedented access to this facility, let’s begin to discover what 

amazing research and development (we can) accomplish 220 

miles in low Earth orbit.”

Attended by 175 people from both inside and outside NASA, 

the workshop had “quite a few ‘wow’ moments,” according to 

the event’s creative force, Lynn Harper, Lead, Integrative Studies at the Space Portal. “The ISS Workshop was chaired by 

one of the greatest medical life savers in history, Dr. Baruch S. 

Blumberg, who won the Nobel as co-inventor of the Hepatitis 

B vaccine, which is the most widely used vaccine in the world 

and the first vaccine to prevent a cancer (liver cancer),” she 

said. Harper also noted other highlights during the three day 

event: a keynote by Dr. Craig Venter, a visionary technical and 

programmatic leader of the Human Genome Project; a panel 

featuring Venture Capitalists representing over $50 billion 

in assets; a keynote by NASA’s Associate Administrator for 

the SOMD, Mark Uhran; a panel moderated by senior staff 

from California Senator Barbara Boxer’s office and a taped 

presentation by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. “It was 

an amazing, exceeds-our-expectations event,” Harper said.

Harper noted that the 

Workshop was cosponsored by NASA 

Ames Research Center, 

Adobe Systems, BayBio, 

BINRIDI, Google, Planners Collaborative, Joint 

Venture Silicon Valley 

Network, Silicon Valley 

Space Club, Universities 

Space Research Associates and the University of 

Santa Cruz University Affiliated Research Center.

Among other Workshop highlights were presenta -

tions made by three NASA Astronauts – Dr. Lar r y 

DeLucas, Dr. Don Pettit and Mario Runco. The 

three provided compelling arguments for the value 

of the space environment for pharmaceutical de -

velopment, monitoring global climate change and 

exploring new areas of fundamental physics and 

materials development.

Pettit, who spent over five months as an Astr onaut 

on the ISS , completing two EVA spacewalks to continue exter nal outfitting of the orbital out post, gave the 

lunch-time keynote on the second day of the Workshop 

with a demonstration of unscripted ‘discover y’ science he 

performed on the ISS. “This is why we go to fr ontiers ... 

and space is certainly a fr ontier ... to go someplace wher e 

our intuition no longer applies,” he noted.

Another high point of the workshop was a Biotechnolog y panel moderated by Adrienne Bousian, 

Deputy State Director, Office of the Honorable 

Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator from California.

During the panel’s presentation, Dr. Cheryl Nickerson of the University of Arizona presented 

recent research that showed the value of the ISS 

ISS continued from front page

continued on page 15

Michael Marlaire, Director, Partnerships 

Office, NASA Ames Research Center

Dr. Ventor, a leader in human genome research, addresses the ISS Workshop.
NRP Post

10 www.nasa.gov

Carnegie Mellon West Grads Toss Hats at NRP 

Carnegie Mellon West celebrates the fifth anniversary of its 

successful Master’s of Software Engineering program with 116 

students receiving degrees on August 11, 2007 at a ceremony 

at the NASA Research Park, Mountain View, CA campus.

Drew Perkins, a 1986 graduate of Carnegie Mellon and chief technology officer at Infinera Corporation, gave the keynote address.

Formerly a principal architect at FORE Systems, Inc., Perkins 

invented point-to-point protocol (PPP) and several other early 

Internet technologies while working at Carnegie Mellon in the 

1980s. The recipient of an alumni achievement award from 

Carnegie Mellon in 2005, he has been an active developer of 

networking standards throughout his career.

Ren Bitonio, winner of an Outstanding Service Award from 

the university, said the master’s program enhanced with the 

unique learn-by-doing-in-sandbox methodology is a great 

complement to the technical work he does at Yahoo.

“My taking this educational opportunity to become a software leader 

at Carnegie Mellon West is definitely one of my best life decisions,” 

said Bitonio. “As I reflect on the past two years, I am very grateful for 

receiving the very fine education from Carnegie Mellon West and forging 

the valuable and meaningful relationships that will continue past my 

years at the campus.”

Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Carnegie Mellon West 

continues the tradition of offering world-class professional 

graduate programs in software engineering and software 

management, meeting the needs of working professionals. 

A team-oriented, project-based curriculum provides the opportunity to learn invaluable skills and then immediately apply 

what is learned to actual work situations.

Within the Master’s of Software Engineering program, 56 

students are graduating from the program management track; 

22 students from the development management track; and 28 

students from its technical track.

Ten students are graduating from Master’s in Information 

Technology program.

Carnegie Mellon Tartan Racing Wins DARPA 

Urban Challenge and goes for Lunar X Prize

A self-driving 2007 Chevy Tahoe called Boss earned Carnegie 

Mellon’s Tartan Racing first place $2 million prize in the Nov. 3, 

2007, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) 

Urban Challenge. 

Boss was the fastest competitor by a large margin, averaging 

about 14 miles an hour over approximately 55 miles, and 

finishing about 20 minutes before the second-place finisher, 

Stanford University. Boss followed California driving laws, 

navigating the course of suburban/urban roadways at the former George Air Force Base in Victorville, CA. Racing against 

10 robot competitors, Boss drove swiftly and safely, sharing the 

road with human drivers. 

“Robots sometimes stun the world, inspire a lot of people and change 

beliefs about what is possible,” said William “Red” Whittaker, a 

Carnegie Mellon robotics professor and team leader of Tartan Racing. 

“Once the perception 

of what’s possible 

changes, it never 

goes back. This is 

a phenomenal thing 

for robotics,” said 

Whittaker, who 

spoke at NASA 

Research Park in 

2005.

Tartan Racing gained experience in two previous DARPA 

Grand Challenge robot races and built on the expertise of 

Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, one of the largest robotic 

research and education organizations in the world. In addition to GM, Caterpillar and Continental AG, Tartan Racing’s 

continued on page 14

August 11 graduation ceremony at Building 23, NASA Research Park

Boss wins $2 million for Tartan Racing
NRP Post

www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov 11

“We are proud of our innovation in sub vocal rover control,” said AlAli. Sub vocal control of robotic rovers opens the door to making 

human-robot interaction more seamless,” he said.

NASA needs the advantage of sub vocal commands for effective communication in noisy environments, especially where 

speech recognition technologies are planned as in Astronaut 

EVA suits. Fire fighters and SWAT teams also could benefit 

from sub vocal control technology.

On September 13, 2007, Ames’ Kalmanje Krishnakumar and Corey 

Ippolito, with Carnegie Mellon West researchers led by Al-Ali, 

successfully completed flight tests for a distributed reconfigurable 

autonomous landing controller in a collaborative multi-vehicle 

system. Comprised of a small-scale autonomous unmanned aerial 

vehicle coordinated with an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle, 

the system is part of the Polymorphic Control Systems (PCS) project 

investigating the use of wireless technology for adaptability and 

robustness through multi-system reconfiguration and coordinated 

control in a multi-agent environment. 

Building on the award-winning 2006 NASA-Carnegie Mellon West 

Atacama Rover Mission, two autonomous vehicle systems from 

NASA Ames Adaptive Control and Evolvable Systems (ACES) group 

took part in the exercise: the Exploration Aerial Vehicle (EAV) and the 

Mobile Autonomous eXplorer (MAX) unmanned ground rover, built 

by Carnegie Mellon West. 

The EAV is a low cost experimental aerial test platform built from 

commercial off-the-shelf technologies (COTS), including commercial-grade GPS, MEMS-based sensors, and Intel-based processors, 

which are insufficient to conduct autonomous landings because of 

altitude measurement inaccuracies. MAX, a four-wheel small-scale 

rugged all-terrain ground vehicle test platform, also built with COTS 

technologies, provides a suite of sensing capabilities, including stereoscopic vision sensors. 

During the autonomous landings, the EAV reconfigures its onboard 

controllers to use MAX’ vision sensors and processing capabilities, 

hosting vision-based tracking algorithms, closing real-time control 

loops around the ground-based sensors to overcome the inaccuracies of the onboard sensors, and guide the aircraft to a safe landing. 

The Polymorphic Control Systems project provides a model and 

methods for autonomous agents to coordinate control strategies and 

reconfigure controller topologies across networks that span multiple 

agents and systems. These flight experiments demonstrated an 

instrument-style approach and landing on uninstrumented vehicles, 

at uninstrumented landing sites, by utilizing and coordinating robotic 

resources in the local vicinity, communicating over secure wireless 

communication networks.

Carnegie Mellon Appoints Dr. Khalid Al-Ali 

Director of Research at West Coast Campus

by Diane Farrar

Founder of the Carnegie Mellon Innovation 

Lab (CMIL) in 2003, Dr. Khalid Al-Ali has 

been selected as Carnegie Mellon West’s 

new Director of Research. CMIL creates 

compact, highly capable mobile autonomous 

vehicles covering ground, air and space 

operations. As principal investigator and 

project lead, Al-Ali collaborates with NASA 

Ames and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

on advanced aircraft and spacecraft control 

systems, intelligent avionics, novel power systems, planetary rovers and robots, spacecraft 

and autonomous vehicles for lunar, martian 

and Antarctic missions. Ames and JPL use some of these platforms as test beds for technology research, and as educational 

tools to engage students in robotics, science and engineering. 

Al-Ali is the principal UAV test pilot for the Adaptive Control 

and Evolvable Systems Group at Ames.

The recipient of numerouos awards and patents, Al-Ali’s 

work has produced breakthroughs and methodologies that 

became “best practices.” While a scientist at the Universities 

of Colorado and California, he led efforts in robotics, controls, 

acoustics for multi-media systems, space shuttle payload and 

medical systems. Dr. Al-Ali is the principal inventor of a 

US and worldwide patented technology involving advanced 

control systems for nonlinear acoustic devices.

Carnegie Mellon West & NASA Collaborate on 

Sub Vocal Control

Al-Ali and NASA Ames researchers Dr. Chuck Jorgensen and Corey 

Ippolito, Intelligent Systems Division, Exploration Technology Directorate, collaborated on a new application of Jorgensen’s technology.

Jorgensen developed skin-attached electrodes that record electrical 

impulses en route to muscles, prior to muscle movement. Attached 

to the larynx, the system translates and relays these impulse signals 

as sub vocal commands. These signals can then either be processed 

as voice commands through a text-to-speech processor, or directly 

command devices such as rovers.

CMIL’s star low-cost rover MAX was the world’s first rover to be 

controlled using sub vocal speech, and was recently featured on the 

History Channel’s Modern Marvels program (“The Telephone”).

Khalid Al-Ali
NRP Post

12 www.nasa.gov

Dr. Vadim Kotov Dr. Vadim Kotov joined Carnegie 

Mellon West in 2002 as Director of Engineering at the 

High Dependability Computing Program, a $23.3M NASAfunded multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional program to 

improve NASA’s capability to create dependable software. 

With expertise in high-performance and high-dependability 

systems -- concurrency theory, parallel programming languages and computers, mission-critical embedded systems 

and large-scale enterprise IT systems – he conducts research 

to improve software dependability.

His main projects with NASA include: 

• Dependability of real-time Java for future Mars rover software.

• Dependable next generation air-traffic management software 

• Dependability and performance of Java messaging for the 

 NASA Deep Space observation network.

• Evaluation and calibration of tools for verification and 

 validation of ground and flight software.

Dr. Kotov has authored 

more than 160 publications, 

including three books, and 

is an invited and keynote 

speaker at top-tier conferences, an awardee of the 

IFIP Silver Core award, a 

member of editorial boards 

of Information Processing 

Letters (1986-1994), Journal 

of Parallel Programming 

(1987-1995), Theoretical 

Computer Science (1988-

1992), Parallel and Distributed Computing Practices (1994-2005). Dr. Kotov is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian 

Academy of Natural Sciences.

Dr. Jason Lohn is a Senior Research Scientist at 

Carnegie Mellon University. He has worked at Google, 

NASA Ames Research Center, Stanford University, and 

IBM Corporation. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in 

Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland 

at College Park and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering 

from Lehigh University. He 

led research in Evolvable 

Systems while at NASA and 

was closely affiliated with the 

field of evolvable hardware 

-- the study of how simulated 

Darwinian evolution can be 

used to design and configure 

electronic and mechanical 

hardware. He co-founded 

and chaired a series of successful NASA/DoD evolvable hardware workshops and 

conferences. He led a team of scientists and engineers 

to successfully evolve, develop and fly three evolved 

X-band antennas in space aboard a NASA mission in 

2006.

His main interests are to research and develop search 

algorithms that can automatically design and optimize 

hardware systems to achieve increased performance and 

reliability in application areas such as electromagnetics, 

microelectromechanical systems, robotics, and spacecraft 

design. Dr. Lohn is a member of the IEEE, ACM, Sigma 

Xi, and Phi Kappa Phi. He has over 40 technical publications and has made contributions in automated hardware 

design, self-replicating systems, parallel processing, and 

neural networks. His other research interests include selfassembling systems, robotics, and biological computation.

Dr. Lohn serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation.

 Mars rover Rocky 7 with Java software

Jason Lohn

Vadim Kotov

CMIL’s Award Winning Research Faculty
NRP Post

www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov 13

Dr. Scott Howe, with CMIL, has PhDs in architecture 

and mechanical engineering, and specializes in construction 

robotics for planetary surface and orbital space environments. 

Involved with automated construction research for a decade, 

he first proposed robotic assembly and maintenance strategies 

for buildings in his master’s thesis. In 1998 he began research 

with Kajima Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, on a variety of automated construction concepts, including the working prototype 

AMURAD that constructed several buildings.

Dr. Howe, as an assistant professor at University of Oregon (3 

years) and Hong Kong University (6 years), developed curriculum in architectural & engineering design, digital media tools & 

process, construction process & engineering, scientific method 

in design, and extreme structures. He is involved in the growth 

of the new aerospace field “space architecture” that studies 

engineering intensive approaches to construction in extreme 

environments like orbital space or planetary surface environments. Dr. Howe continues research with next generation 

Japanese robotic construction systems “IF7 Field Factory”, 

“Digiosk” robotically deployed kiosk, conceptual “Birdhouse” 

robotic assembly, “Cubolding”, and “Trigon” modular robotic 

self-assembly systems. Visit his design projects, research, publications, and teaching at: http://bureau.west.cmu.edu/~ash

Reconfigurable rover using the Trigon modular robotic system

(Credit: Chris Howe Design)

Truss design using Transformable Robotic InfrastructureGenerating Object Network 

(TRIGON)

Corey Ippolito is a member of the Adaptive Controls 

and Evolvable Systems (ACES) Group in the Intelligent Systems 

Division at NASA Ames Research 

Center, and an honorary Deputy 

Director of Engineering at CMIL. 

He has worked with NASA Ames’ 

Haughton-Mars Project and the 

Biologically-Inspired Engineering 

for Exploration Systems (BEES) for 

Mars. As Lead Engineer on the Ames’ 

Exploration Aerial Vehicles (EAV) 

and the Polymorphic Control Systems 

(PCS) projects, he developed traditional 

control systems for unmanned aerial 

vehicles and ground-based autonomous unmanned vehicle system, and 

non-traditional controllers for Mars 

exploration aerial vehicle concepts. An 

active researcher in Control Systems and 

Artificial Intelligence, he formulated a mathematical framework for 

developing emotion-based controllers in machines.

Corey has over ten years 

of experience in control 

systems design, computer 

architecture design, physicsbased modeling and simulation of rigid-body and 

flexible structures, software 

engineering methodologies, 

graph theory, and computer 

graphics and animation. 

His major accomplishments include large-scale 

software designs and implementations such as the Reflection Architecture 

for distributed embedded systems development and simulation, the 

Cognitive Emotion Layer Architecture for machine intelligence, the Perception Physics Engine for constrained rigid bodies and soft-body physics 

simulations, the Reconfigurable 

Flight Simulator at Georgia 

Tech for the management of 

shared distributed development 

of flight simulation technologies, and the Self-Assembling 

Brokering Object Architecture 

for automating and verifying the 

assembly of component-based 

simulation modules.

Shuttle Docking Simulation

MAX Rover Simulation

Corey Ippolito

CMIL’s Award Winning Research Faculty
NRP Post

14 www.nasa.gov

Corey worked with the video entertainment industry, providing physics simulation software and optimized 3D graphics and animation 

engines, and has published and given presentations on topics including 

software engineering techniques and smart hardware sensor design 

using emotional constructs.

available through innovative corporate sponsorships, could be 

a breakthrough for the first-ever private robot on another body 

in space,” he said. Commercial sponsors will be able to take 

ownership of innovative features, such as the first video feeds 

from the moon or have an opportunity to take the wheel and 

explore the moon independently.

Whittaker is looking for partners with experience in launching 

spacecraft and landing payloads, and veterans of engineering 

challenges posed by lunar exploration. A web site at www.

LunarRover.org explains the team’s plans for winning the 

Google Lunar X Prize. The team contact is Michele Gittleman 

at 412-268-6556 or michgitt@cmu.edu.

The Lunar X Prize includes an additional $5 million for bonus 

achievements: imaging Apollo or other manmade artifacts, driving for more than 5 kilometers, surviving a lunar night and/or 

discovering water ice. If the rover mission is not accomplished 

by the end of 2012, the first prize drops to $15 million. The 

competition may be terminated if no one achieves the challenge by the end of 2014. A $5 million second prize is allotted 

for a second team if successful prior to 2014.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to pioneer the endless frontier, and I 

am excited that Carnegie Mellon will be there,” said Jay Apt, a former 

NASA astronaut who is now an associate research professor at Carnegie 

Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and a Distinguished Service Professor 

in Engineering & Public Policy.

“This challenge is a thrilling thing for space exploration and a thrilling 

thing for robotics,” Whittaker said. “It’s inevitable that someone will find 

a way to win it. Regardless of who takes home the cash, this achievement 

will enrich us all.”

sponsors include Intel, Google, Applanix, TeleAtlas, NetApp, 

Vector CANTech, Ibeo, Mobileye, HP, CarSim, CleanPower 

Resources, M/A-Com and McCabe Software.

According to Whittaker, his team will use the $2 million award to “win 

the Google Lunar X Prize Challenge.” He is now establishing a team to 

land and operate a robot on the moon by 2012 to capture the $20 million 

challenge announced Sept. 13 by the X Prize Foundation and Google Inc.

The Google Lunar X Prize, www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar, 

is the richest international competition in history, with a total 

purse of $30 million. To win the $20 million grand prize, a 

team must drive a robot for at least 500 meters on the lunar 

surface and transmit images to Earth. This will be the first 

private off-planet exploration. 

“Planetary exploration is a dream,” said Whittaker. “We have spent decades 

building and testing robotic technologies for just this purpose, so combining 

lunar rovers with a competitive race to the moon is a great opportunity.”

The moon will severely test robotic technology, more so than 

Mars. “At noon, it’s hotter than boiling water and the lunar night 

stays colder than liquid nitrogen for two solid weeks,” he noted. 

“Moon robots also risk harsh radiation and lunar dust, which has 

microscopic jagged edges that can rapidly clog joints and seals.”

Because the moon is so close to Earth — only three seconds 

away for radio communication — it will be possible to deliver 

streaming video and two-way interaction. “Public access, made 

PCS Final Flight Group Shot

Boss, a self-driving Chevy Tahoe

DARPA continued from page 11
NRP Post

www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov 15

for combating infectious disease. Recent experiments flown by Nickerson on the space shuttle 

showed that salmonella bacteria g row deadlier 

when freed from Earth’s g ravity. Her team’s 

results appeared recently in the Proceedings of 

the National Academy of Sciences. Other biotechnolog y panelists discussed the use of ISS for 

tissue engineering, for a better understanding of 

organ disease and aging and for launching a new 

generation of nano-scale medical tools.

The Workshop also featured as a keynote speaker 

genome pioneer Dr. Craig Venter, one of the 

most important technical and programmatic leaders of the Human Genome Project. The visionar y 

Venter -- whose round-the-world yacht voyage 

discovered an ar ray of new genes and new gene 

families in the world’s oceans, including 6 million 

new proteins – proffered the idea of sampling 

human astronauts to see how biota, including 

bacteria, are affected by space flight.

“We have a hundr ed trillion human cells and pr obably 

an equal number of bacterial cells in our bodies. You 

can’t describe the human body assuming we ar e a sterile 

or ganism,” he said. “We depend on these bacteria and 

they depend on us. We have been using new techniques 

(recntly) for sampling the biota of (human) body cavities, and one of the things we have talked about with 

private space gr oups is to conduct this sampling on 

private astr onauts befor e, after and perhaps even during 

their trips (to space) to understand how this entir e range 

of biota may be affected by a space flight, “ he said.

A commercial and private investor perspective on 

using the ISS as the first in-space national labora -

tor y was offered by a g roup of venture capitalists 

representing over $50 billion in assets including 

Thomas Pickens III, CEO of SPACEHAB, Tom 

Stedding, author and senior corporate executive 

of several high tech companies, Petter Kleppan, 

Managing Partner and founder of NORROC, Alan 

Marty, investment consultant to NASA and Russ 

Hancock, President and CEO of Joint Venture 

Silicon Valley Network.

The moderator was Dr. Dan Clancy, Engineering Director for 

Google Print, a project focused on indexing off-line printed 

content to make it text-searchable on the web.

The panelists presented their perspectives on the value of using 

the ISS as a national lab. In 2005, the NASA Authorization Bill 

established the ISS as the first US national laboratory beyond 

Earth, opening it to commercial and non-NASA payloads. 

The panelists discussed the ISS’ potential to enable discovery, 

advance education, sustain life through medical advances and 

generate new business and wealth. Nickerson presented recent 

research showing that samonella bacteria flown in space grow 

deadlier when freed from Earth’s gravity.

Nobel continued from front page

ISS continued from page 9 “You need thr ee things to make a commercial model (for 

Space Station users): Demand, Supply and Capital,” 

said Marty. If you don’t have all thr ee of these, you 

don’t have a commercial model. Unless you have all 

three points engaged voluntarily, you have nothing.”

Space solar power is another possibility for space 

station research, as fossil fuel prices on Earth soar 

and g reenhouse gases rise, noted Harper. Other 

sug gestions from the Workshop were to use the 

Space Station as an Earth obser ving platfor m for 

climate change, weather, polar ice obser vation 

and the evolution and understanding of killer 

hur ricanes. 

“The ISS National Laboratory provides the first op -

portunity to bring together biotech, info-tech and microminiaturization in the ISS envir onment to explor e the 

biolog y of the only life in the universe we know in its 

first generations beyond the planet of origin,” Har per 

noted.

Upcoming Events

December 20 - NRP Holiday Party

NASA Golf Course

Tee-1 Bar & Grill 

4p.m.-6p.m.

April 12 - Yuri’s Night 2008 at 

NASA Ames Research Center
NRP Post

16 www.nasa.gov

Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Diane Farrar

Layout and Design . . . . . . . . . . . Brandy Dettmer

NRP Post deadlines

Please submit articles to nrppost@mail.arc.nasa.gov

on or before February 15, 2008 for the next issue.

Phone: (650) 604-2NRP

Email: researchpark@mail.arc.nasa.gov

Website: www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov

Donna Barrese, former NRP Project Liaison, with 

Dave Guerrieri of InformArt/GaryAir at 2007 NRP 

Ice Cream Social. We miss you Donna.

Mejghan Haider, Chief, NRP Office

Cyndi Carbon-Norman, NRP Account Manager 

Bob Lopez, NRP Account Manager

L to R: NRP Account Managers Kathleen Burton & Dani Thompson with Donna

Diane Farrar, NRP Acount Manager, with NRP 

Partner, Bruno Kajiyama, Photozig CEO

Brandy Dettmer, Web Designer with guest. Brandy leaves NRP 

for Fairchild Semiconductor December 21st. Good luck Brandy!

In remembrance of our dear friends Sam Addala & Johnny Green

Seasons Greetings & Best Wishes for the New Year from NRP Staff