National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NRP POST The

A publication of NASA Research Park Winter 2014

Artist’s concept of NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment 

Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft orbiting the moon.

Image Credit: NASA Ames / Dana Berry

The Sky Isn’t the Limit

While some might claim their aspirations are out of this world, 

Jason Lohn means it. The Carnegie Mellon University–Silicon 

Valley professor’s communication antennas are headed to the 

moon as part of NASA’s latest mission, the Lunar Atmosphere 

and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), launched September 6.

Lohn cont’d on page 2

NLSI cont’d on page 3

NASA MSFC and Moon Express 

Collaborate to Test Flight Software 

on Mighty Eagle Robotic Lander

by Brad Kohlenberg, Moon Express, Public Outreach Liaison

September 20, 2013

The collaboration is intended to help foster the development 

of commercial lunar landers for future low-cost missions to 

the Moon.

Under the terms of a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement 

signed with Moon Express, NASA Marshall is providing its 

“Mighty Eagle” lander test vehicle and engineering team in 

support of a series of test flights to help validate the company’s Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) flight software. 

Guidance algorithms developed by Moon Express will be integrated into the existing GNC software on-board the Mighty 

Eagle and used to perform a flight test series. In return, Moon 

Express is reimbursing NASA Marshall for the cost of providing the test vehicle and technical support.

The collaborative test flight series is part of a larger Umbrella 

Agreement between Moon Express and MSFC for Moon 

Express hardware and testing support. Yesterday the Mighty 

NASA’s NLSI Expands into the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI)

by Greg Schmidt, Deputy Director, NLSI/SSERVI

Focusing Science on the Moon: 

the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI)

With the advent of the President’s Vision 

for Space Exploration in 2004, the Moon 

became NASA’s exploration target again 

for the first time since the Apollo program. 

The Constellation program was set up to 

implement NASA’s bold challenge, and in 

2007 a National Research Council study 

entitled “the Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon” was published, with major 

scientific priorities determined by senior 

lunar scientists involved in the study. At the 

time, there were few opportunities for lunar 

scientists; indeed, lunar science itself, while 

having made progress since Apollo, needed 

a major boost in answer to the President’s 

challenge. It was in this context that Alan 

Stern, then Associate Administrator of the 

NLSI/SSERVI Director Yvonne Pendleton briefs the public on the science of the LADEE mission 

at the LADEE Launch Event 

Moon Express cont’d on page 3
2 www.nasa.gov

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CONTENTS

NASA’s Solar System Exploration 

Research Institute (SSERVI) . . . 1

Moon Express . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Sky Isn’t the Limit . . . . . . 1

New Partners . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Lunar Orbiter Image 

Recovery Project . . . . . . . . . 5

IPADE Business School Visit . . 6

LatIPnet: Sustainability and 

Living Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

NRP Lecture: Planetary 

Sustainability for Survival 

and Profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

CMU Names Bob Iannucci to 

Head SV Campus . . . . . . . . . 9

KleenSpeed Collaborates with 

Oracle Team USA . . . . . . . . . 9

Space Portal Leaders at AIAA 

Space 2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

‘Maker’ Ideas Wanted for First 3D 

Printer in Space . . . . . . . . . 11

BASF Extends Agreement 

with Apprion . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Scanadu: Tricorders and the Idea 

of Mapping One’s Body . . . . . 12

RMV Capabilities . . . . . . . . . 13

NASA Begins Exploring Quantum 

Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Getting City Commuters Out of 

Their Car—SkyTran . . . . . . . 16

Wyle Sponsors Rocket Launch 17

Kentucky Space . . . . . . . . . 18

Vasper: Biomimicry and Cooling 

Technologies for Sports 

Rehabilitation . . . . . . . . . 19

reQall Rover App . . . . . . . . . 20

Singularity University Features 

Female Entrepeneurs at 

CROWDFUNDxWOMEN . . . . 21

Intrinsyx’s Wireless Technology 

for Space Applications . . . . . 21

NeuroVigil Opens Satellite 

Research Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Bi

NRPWelcomes

Orbital Sciences

Building 19, Rooms 1070F, 1070G

Commencement: December 6, 2013

Orbital Sciences has a long history supporting NASA missions and projects and scientists at 

Ames dating back to the mid 1990’s. Beginning with engineering support to the SOFIA project, 

they became the prime contractor on the Science and Engineering Technical Support (SETS) 

contract. Following SETS, Orbital joined with Lockheed Martin as the major subcontractor on 

the Programs and Project (P&P) contract. As part of the P&P, Orbital supported numerous missions and scientists, including Mr. Bill Borucki and the Kepler Mission, the SOFIA project, 

the EXES project, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. More information about Orbital can 

be found at http://www.orbital.com.

The robotic LADEE mission is gathering 

information about the lunar atmosphere, 

surface conditions and environmental 

impact on lunar dust in an effort to increase 

understanding of the moon and other planetary bodies. Lohn’s antennas will relay this 

data back to earth.

Lohn has developed software that employs 

artificial intelligence (AI) to design superior 

antennas. The resulting devices are more 

sensitive, better performing, smaller, lighter 

and less expensive to manufacture. They’re 

also highly unusual.

“Because the antennas are designed by 

AI, they’re unlike anything that a human 

antenna designer would come up with,” 

explained Lohn, associate research professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering 

and director of the Carnegie Mellon Innovations Lab. “They’re very striking and unique, 

with an appearance that appears random.”

The AI-designed antennas often outperform human designs due to these complex, 

asymmetric shapes that can’t be created 

using manual methods.

It’s not the first NASA mission in which Lohn 

has participated. In 2006, he led a team 

that deployed three AI-designed antennas 

in space aboard the Space Technology 5 

mission. Just last June, his communication 

antennas were on board NASA’s Interface 

Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission. They relayed data regarding activity 

in the sun’s lower atmosphere, examining 

the movement of solar material and energy 

between the surface and 

the corona. 

The IRIS antennas were 

developed through 

Lohn’s company, X5 

Systems, a CMU spinoff 

founded in 2008. 

X5 Systems is a softwarebased company utilizing 

advanced optimization 

algorithms for 

antenna design.

Lohn joined the CMU-SV faculty in 2007, excited 

to become part of the new campus. “I liked the 

idea that the Silicon Valley campus was in startup mode,” said Lohn. “It was a chance to make a 

big difference, to have an impact. I’d known of 

Carnegie Mellon and its stellar reputation and it 

was a great opportunity I couldn’t turn down.”

He was also drawn by the school’s entrepreneurial culture. 

“The entrepreneurial spirit at CMU was a big 

attraction,” he said. “When I came here, I felt that 

my antenna technology would reach the point 

of spinoff and believed CMU’s entrepreneurial 

culture would be supportive.” He was completely right.

“I’ve gotten great support from CMU—the department, the college, and the university administration,” said Lohn. “It’s just been wonderful.” 

Story originally published at: www.cmu.edu.

Lohn cont’d from page 1

Jason Lohn
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 3

NRP Post

NLSI cont’d from page 1

Moon Express cont’d from page 1

Eagle flew a “textbook” flight that helped validate Moon Express 

GNC flight software. This type of software is designed to tell the 

vehicle where to go and how to get there and is critical for an 

autonomous soft landing on the Moon. Moon Express GNC software ran in an open-loop mode on yesterday’s flight, operating in 

parallel to the NASA GNC software. Results from yesterday’s flight 

are an important, progressive step in a series of tests proving and 

validating Moon Express GNC algorithms that will culminate in a 

closed loop test on the Mighty Eagle next month.

“We are really excited to begin this new series,” said Jason Adam, 

flight manager for the Mighty Eagle at the Marshall Center. “Working with Moon Express to help test their new software is a great 

example of the types of partnerships NASA is looking to build. 

By utilizing resources and expertise, we can gather data that will 

not only be used to better NASA’s robotic lander program, but can 

help advance the commercial sector as well.”

Moon Express Principal GNC Engineer Jim Kaidy was a member of the 

Mighty Eagle development team while at the John Hopkins Applied 

Physics Lab, and Moon Express Chief Propulsion Engineer Tim Pickens 

supported the development of the Mighty Eagle rocket engines.

“Our partnership with NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center is key to 

our goal of landing the world’s first commercial spacecraft on the 

Moon”, said Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards. “We 

have benefitted from NASA’s encouragement and support in every 

step of our growth and development and we look forward to the 

results of our flight software tests on the Mighty Eagle”.

The collaboration involves a high level of integration and coordination between NASA and Moon Express engineers and is representative of NASA partnerships with the private sector to expand 

commercial space activities.

Moon Express is a leading contender in the $30M Google Lunar 

XPRIZE and is headquarted at the NASA Research Park in Silicon 

Valley with a Propulsion Development Facility in Huntsville, Alabama. The company has been collaborating with NASA for lunar 

lander development since 2010 when it established a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with NASA Ames, providing Moon 

Express access to test facilities and NASA’s innovative Common 

Spacecraft Bus designs currently being flight proven within the 

LADEE lunar orbiter spacecraft on its way to the Moon.

Story originally published at: www.moonexpress.com

Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters, came 

up with the idea of establishing a new institute focused on lunar 

science—a virtual institute based on the successful business 

model of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI). It is based on the 

principle articulated by the late Mike Wargo, chief scientist for human exploration, that “science enables exploration, and exploration enables science.”

Ames responded quickly to SMD’s challenge, appointing David 

Morrison as the founding director of the NASA Lunar Science Institute and the author as his deputy. The NLSI was given the former 

Moffett Naval Air Station’s headquarters building (building 17) at 

the heart of the NASA Research Park as its central office, a stately 

building which once housed the nerve center for the Navy’s P-3 

fleet. NLSI had its grand opening in April of 2008, with various local 

and national dignitaries in attendance including U.S. Representative Mike Honda and Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin. 

The NLSI didn’t take long to have an impact on lunar science. 

In July 2008 it organized the first dedicated Lunar Science Conference in decades, which became an annual event held around the 

anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. NLSI leadership was 

NLSI cont’d on page 4

(L-R): NASA Planetary Science Director Jim Green, Representative 

Mike Honda, Center Director Pete Worden, and former NLSI Director 

David Morrison participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony commemorating the grand opening of the NASA Lunar Science Institute 

in 2008. 

NASA's "Mighty Eagle" prototype lunar lander, flying with Moon 

Express GNC software in open loop test. 
4 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

pleasantly surprised to see over 500 scientists, engineers, students 

and educators at this first Lunar Science Conference (now called 

the Lunar Science Forum), which galvanized the community and 

spawned numerous research projects. At this and subsequent 

conferences, the NLSI introduced the idea of Focus Groups, originally pioneered by NAI founding director and Nobel Prize winner 

Baruch Blumberg. These Focus Groups—by and for the broad lunar 

science community—are comprised of members of the community with varying topical interests. Examples include the Lunar 

Volatiles Focus Group, and the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment 

Package Data Recovery Focus Group—the latter aiming towards 

unearthing data thought long lost for the use of scientists in generations to come.

With the major new emphasis by NASA in lunar science, it quickly 

became apparent that the community needed to grow to answer 

these new challenges. A core part of NLSI’s mission was developing the next generation of lunar scientists. Each year at the Lunar 

Science Forum NLSI sponsors “LunaGradCon,” a conference for, and 

organized by, graduate students in lunar science. NLSI also sponsors the Next Generation Lunar Scientists and Engineers group, 

started by a group of young scientists at NASA Goddard Space 

Flight Center but including scientists and students around the 

country. And NLSI has sponsored other student programs and activities as well as postdoctoral fellowships throughout its existence.

It was apparent at the inception of NLSI that unlike the Apollo era, 

lunar science and exploration is now a global effort with many 

nations joining in the effort to explore Earth’s nearest neighbor. In 

addition to NASA’s missions, the Europeans, Japanese, Indians and 

Chinese have all launched their own missions to the Moon recently, 

with plans for the Koreans and Russians to join in this exploration 

soon. It was clear from the beginning that joining hand in hand 

with international partners would be a winning strategy for NLSI 

and would help raise the tide of lunar science around the world. 

Canada was announced as NLSI’s first international partner at 

the first Lunar Science Conference, and they were soon joined by 

others including South Korea, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Germany. Discussions are ongoing 

to bring several more partners into the fold. These partnerships 

have impacted lunar science in a number of ways, resulting in such 

efforts and groups as the Pan-European Lunar Science Consortium 

and the Canadian Sudbury Field School. The future is even more 

exciting as both South Korea and Russia gear up for major new 

mission programs.

At the advent of NLSI, the only recent NASA missions to the Moon 

had been led by Ames center directors—the 1994 Clementine mission by Pete Worden, then with DOD, and the 1999 Lunar Prospector mission, led by former Ames director Scott Hubbard. Both had 

produced very important data, but much more was needed by the 

growing lunar science community. In the mere 5 1⁄2 years since the 

inception of NLSI, NASA has launched the Lunar Reconnaissance 

Orbiter—whose data now accounts for a majority of data in the 

Planetary Data System, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, the Gravity Recovery and Interior 

Laboratory (GRAIL) mission and the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust 

Environmental Explorer (LADEE) mission, which is still orbiting the 

Moon as of this writing. Additionally, in 2011 the two Acceleration, 

Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s 

Interaction with the Sun (ARTEMIS) spacecraft became the first 

ever to achieve orbit around the Moon’s Lagrangian points. Two 

of these missions—and in particular, the two which have broken 

stereotypes on mission costs (LCROSS and LADEE)—have been 

developed and managed by Ames. These missions together, along 

with the international missions, have provided a wealth of data for 

the lunar science community and NLSI in particular. NLSI scientists 

have been integrally involved in these missions as instrument 

Principal Investigators and Co-Investigators as well – developers of 

the ideas behind the missions as well as users of the data.

Another major mission of the NLSI has been to share the excitement of lunar science with the public. Its outreach efforts, both 

through its central office and its teams, have been many and varied. It co-hosted (along with LCROSS) the MoonFest event, the largest public event at Ames since the 1997 Ames Open House, with 

over 11,000 in attendance to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 

Apollo 11 mission (NLSI leadership was also invited by Buzz Aldrin 

to participate in 40th anniversary activities on the U.S.S. Hornet, 

the aircraft carrier currently located in Alameda which picked up 

the Apollo 11 astronauts). NLSI supported the design and production of “Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters,” a unique book designed 

for the blind community which allows individuals to sense lunar 

craters by feel as well as read about them in Braille. NLSI supported 

what was likely the largest-ever eclipse observation in a stadium 

in Colorado with over 10,000 in attendance, and worked with the 

National Park Service on a special viewing of the annular solar 

eclipse at the Grand Canyon in 2012. The NLSI, (and now the Solar 

System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI)), maintains a 

very active social media program with presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Instagram, in addition to articles posted on 

its website. Its public outreach products have been used widely; 

the “Lunar Gallery” collection of artistic photos of the Moon with 

accompanying scientific descriptions have not only been distributed widely to the public but were used in the NASA package for 

the 2013 Presidential Inauguration. This collection was recently 

translated into Spanish. NLSI developed “Exploration Uplink,” a 

NLSI cont’d from page 3

NLSI cont’d on page 22

Ames PI Dr. Tony Colaprete describes the LCROSS instruments 

launched in November 2008, which impacted the moon in 2009—

an event witnessed world-wide! 

Photo by Teague Soderman
Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project at Five

by Dennis Wingo

McMoon’s, Earthrise, Technoarcheology, 

LOIRP—five years ago all of these terms 

were unknown yet today have hundreds of 

thousands of hits on the Internet. Such has 

been the unlikely public appeal of a project 

to rescue, from the dustbin of NASA history, 

the original high resolution images from 

the NASA Research Park project located in 

the abandoned McDonald’s onsite. Much 

of the appeal has come from this unlikely 

marriage between the outward appearance an iconic fast food franchise and a 

NASA related project. 

The project is called the Lunar Orbiter 

Image Recovery Project, or LOIRP. LOIRP’s 

goal is to transfer the original high resolution images from the five Lunar Orbiter 

spacecraft that first mapped the Moon 

in 1966. The Lunar Orbiter photos were 

used to choose the landing sites for the 

first Apollo lunar landings and are the 

first science photos of any heavenly body, 

including the Earth, at one meter or better 

resolution. The project was started after 

a random blog post stated that Lunar 

Orbiter tape drives were being given away 

by retired JPL archivist Nancy Evans, who 

had saved the tapes from destruction. The 

project was kickstarted by NASA Watch 

raconteur Keith Cowing providing seed 

money for the move of 28,000 lbs of tape 

and 4,000 lbs of tape drives from Los Angeles to NASA Ames.

The location suggestion for “McMoons” 

came from an offhand comment by NASA 

employee Lynn Harper that perhaps the 

fumes from soldering could be vented using the old french fryer fans. When Cowling 

and I started our project in July of 2008, the 

fast food franchise had just vacated the 

premises and no one else really wanted 

the building. 

Our presence in the McDonald’s almost 

immediately generated intrigue. An inadvertent posting of pictures of the project 

spawned Internet conspiracy theories i.e. 

that McDonald’s is owned by former aerospace giant McDonnell Douglas (confusion 

over spelling), and that the Pentagon had 

sent former USAF general Pete Worden to 

be the NASA Ames center director to keep 

hidden the alien civilization on the Moon 

to the sublime: a query from NASA headquarters public affairs asking how in the 

world we were able to get the New York 

Times to say something nice about NASA? 

The New York Times article was inspired by 

our first image, itself an accidental choice 

of the iconic first image of the Earth ever 

taken from around another celestial body, 

shown here in the original and in all of our 

2008 restored digital glory.

LOIRP has had many beneficial “accidents” 

that have helped our project be a success. 

The first is of course Ames center director 

Worden’s willingness to adopt unorthodox and frequently high risk projects. The 

second is the openness and willingness of 

Ames personnel to pitch in and help make 

things happen. After Harper’s stroke of 

genius came the chance meeting between 

some of the facilities contractors, one of 

who’s brothers was a long time engineer 

who had worked for decades on similar 

type video tape machines (Kenneth Zin) 

who was available for the LOIRP project. 

Ken brought with him a coterie of retired 

who’s who from the 60’s-80’s era video 

business, one of whom (Al Sturm) was able 

to whip up the design for the critically 

important video demodulator that could 

covert the predemodulation format data 

on the tapes to lunar orbiter images. Al 

recently passed away, but not before 

NASA headquarters had awarded him the 

NASA public service medal for his feat 

of technoarcheology.

Our project has also been blessed with 

remarkable support from the NASA Lunar 

Science Institute, first led by Dr. David 

Morrison, then Yvonne Pendleton and 

her trusty second in command, long time 

Ames employee Greg Schmidt. Schmidt 

and his team understand how to navigate 

the ins and outs of helping to make an 

unorthodox project a reality within the 

confines of the system. Another stellar individual is Mark Newfield, another long time 

Ames employee who does not know the 

meaning of can’t. The folks over at the 

“Toy Store”—what we call NASA Ames 

surplus— have provided us with cast off 

equipment that, with Ken’s magic, we have 

made into a serviceable source of test 

equipment, some as old as our tape drives, 

to make our project a success.

Another amazing resource at NASA Ames 

has been the students. We began with 

NASA Image LOI-101H “Earthrise” (1966)

NRP Post

www.nasa.gov/researchpark 5

Lunar Image cont’d on page 23
6 www.nasa.gov

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IPADE Business School Visits NASA Research Park

by Sophia Varga, LatIPnet

On Tuesday, September 13th, a delegation from IPADE Business 

School (Instituto Panamericano de Alta Dirección de Empresa) 

came to NASA Research Park for an Innovators’ Workshop organized by LatIPnet. The attendees learned how businesses innovate, 

collaborate, and adapt technology to the market with several case 

studies presented by companies associated with LatIPnet. 

LatIPnet seeks to transform knowledge into wealth in Spain and 

Latin American countries. Through a network of experts in intellectual property, technology transfer and commercialization, hightech businesses, and regional development strategies, LatIPnet has 

established alliances with prestigious universities and research centers around the world, as well as with global high-tech companies 

that offer invaluable resources to support the process of transforming knowledge and technological resources into economic and 

social value.

IPADE is ranked as one of the top Business Schools in the world 

and is based in Mexico City. Part of the school’s mission statement 

is “To educate [and enable] leaders ... to positively transform organizations, society, and [to] make an impact on the world, embedded with a global vision [and] social responsibility”. To fulfill this 

mission, the school believes in “research, creation, innovation, and 

transmission of knowledge” as well as “broadening people’s horizons” and “learning and entrepreneurship”. The workshop served 

to give real-life examples of the embodiments of these values and 

how NASA Research Park is a center of innovation. The attendees of 

the workshop ranged from high-tech entrepreneurs to materials 

distributors to insurance groups- all interested in developing and 

financing businesses that have sustainable global impacts, both 

short-term and long-term, and committed to moving Mexican companies into modern international markets.

The purpose of the workshop was to demonstrate how collaboration within Silicon Valley creates innovations by learning about 

NASA Research Park and businesses that LatIPnet has successfully 

supported. Executives from these businesses gave short presentations about their companies- the original idea, idea-to-market 

strategies, and current status. 

Michael Marlaire, the director of the NASA Research Park (NRP), 

gave a presentation about the mission, history, and achievements 

of NASA Ames and the NRP. He then spoke of the new Google Bayview Campus as an example of the collaboration that NRP enables. 

Marlaire also talked about the Sustainability Base, the only LEED 

Platinum certified government building, which was designed with 

cutting-edge ideas and technology regarding resource use and 

acts as a testing-ground for closed-loop engineering.

The Sustainability Base was one of the examples of a zero net 

emissions system that LatIPnet looked at when they proposed a 

self-sufficient, zero-waste development on the island of Fuerteventura (Canary Islands, Spain) that would simultaneously attract tourists and create an area for innovation. The development is called 

the International Entrepreneurial Laboratory for Touristic Islands 

Sustainability (IELTIS) and is currently under review from local and 

Spanish governments.

Through the Innovators’ Workshop delegates from the IPADE Business School in Mexico discovered how supporting innovative and 

disruptive technologies can have effects that cross state lines and 

improve the quality of life for people globally. 

For more information about LatIPnet, visit www.latipnet.org.

Aonori Aquafarms: A novel, sustainable aquaculture for shrimp 

production- Armando Leon, CEO

Fifteen alumni of Mexican business school IPADE visited the NRP on 

Sept. 3, 2013. The alumni are CEOs of Mexican companies and 

entrepreneurs. The group was hosted by NRP tenant LatIPNet, an 

information technology firm focused on technology companies in 

Spanish-speaking countries. Dr. Steve Zornetzer, Associate Director 

for Research, welcomed the group and Michael Marlaire, Director of 

NRP, provided an in-depth overview of the NASA Research Park.
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 7

NRP Post

Green Tech Center, Denmark Delegation visited NASA Ames on 

September 5, 2013. Michael Marlaire, Director of NASA Research 

Park provided an overview of the NRP partnerships.

LatIPnet Invited by Fuerteventura 

to Help Define a Sustainability Model

and Living Lab for Tourist Island

Invited by the government of Fuerteventura, Drs. Simon Goldbard and Adolfo Nemirovsky, founding members of LatIPnet Inc. 

visited the island to present a model of a sustainable tourist island to local authorities, general public, and academia and industry leaders. The model developed by LatIPnet included valuable 

input from local and regional leaders and institutions. Additional 

suggestions and recommendations were provided during the 

three-day visit.

Pursuing a novel model of sustainability for the tourist industry 

through international partnerships, Fuerteventura intends to become a pioneer in converting the island into a living lab, a model 

of sustainability for our planet, with an innovation ecosystem 

focused on clean tech and sustainable resources: energy, water 

and food. 

Fuerteventura, one of the seven Canary Islands, has a population 

of seventy-five thousand people and an area of 640 square miles. 

The Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago just off the northwest 

coast of Africa, are located sixty miles west of the border between 

Morocco & Western Sahara. 

LatIPnet Inc., a NRP partner, is a global non-profit 501(c)(3) organization with the mission of transforming knowledge into wealth 

for Latin countries. 

(L-R): Mario Cabrera, President and Manuel Miranda, Secretary of 

Economy, Cabildo de Furteventura; and Simon Goldbard and Adolfo 

Nemirovsky of LatIPnet

A workshop on building the sustainable tourist island, at the table 

from left to right, Javier Franco, Adolfo Nemirovsky, Manuel Miranda 

and Simon Goldbard. 

Swiss Space Systems (S3) is developing a low cost suborbital 

launch capability. Their CEO and founder, Pascal Jausi, and three 

other S3 colleagues visited and toured Ames and NRP on Sept. 

20, 2013 to discuss potential synergies with NASA and possible 

location of their recently incorporated U.S. subsidiary at the NRP.

On December 11, 2013, Michael Marlaire, Director of NRP, briefed 

Executive Director of Japan Space Forum Shushi Ueta and 

Izumi Yamashita, Fellow, Center for Research and Development 

Strategy Japan Science and Technology Agency.
8 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

NASA Presentation: Planetary Sustainability for Survival and Profit

by Mark Ciotola, Editor, SustainSpace.com

December 4, 2013

The NASA Research Park (NRP) held 

“Planetary Sustainability for Survival 

and Profit”, a presentation and audience 

Q&A on the evening of December 3 at 

Moffett Field as part of its Exploration 

Lecture Series.

Speakers presented on several sustainability-related start-ups at the NASA 

Research Park, including Bloom Energy, 

Bio-Vessel (in stealth mode), and Oyokits. 

Panalists spoke about other endeavors 

such as the Space Portal, NEX, a warehouse and collaboration platform for 

Earth data, the UAV Collaborative, and 

the Smart Energy Enterprise Development Zone (SEEDZ).

Dr. Rose Grymes emceed the event and 

moderated a lively panel discussion. 

Dr. Daniel Rasky surveyed the growing 

field of space and sustainability. He mentioned the natural connection between 

space and sustainability by pointing out 

that Elon Musk has created both SpaceX 

and Tesla. Dr. Rama Nemani indicated 

how NEX makes vital data regarding 

climate change available. He mentioned 

how the typical scientist will spend 

80% of their time with data and writing 

software and how NEX can reduce that 

time, and by implication that scientists 

can thus improve their impact.

Dr. Stanley Herwitz discussed how unmanned ariel vehicles (UAVs) can be used 

to gain high resolution environmental 

data and showed beautiful video of a 

UAV flying over the Florida Keys. 

Mr. Donald Bray, discussed how the 

Smart Energy Enterprise Development 

Zone (SEEDZ) in Silicon Valley is producing synergies by integrating the various 

components of energy production 

and management.

Speakers/Panelists:

•	 Dr. Rose Grymes, Office of the Center Director, Technical Lead, Sustainability, GSA Sustainability Fellow 

2012-2013

•	 Dr. Daniel Rasky, Director, NASA 

Ames Space Portal – NASA Planetary 

Sustainability Initiatives + Partnerships

•	 Dr. Rama Nemani, Director, NASA 

Earth Exchange – NASA Supercomputer-driven Planetary 

Sustainability Programs

•	 Dr. Stanley Herwitz, Director, UAV 

Collaborative – Investigating + 

Documenting Global Climate 

Change using UAVs

•	 Mr. Donald Bray, Director, 

Smart Energy Enterprise Development Zone (SEEDZ) Initiative, Joint 

Venture Silicon Valley Network – 

Green Development/Green Jobs

 Story originally published at SustainSpace.com

[Need to get Ames photographer photos for these.]

(L–R): Panelists Dr. Rama Nemani, Dr. Stanley Herwitz, Dr. Rose Grymes, Dr. Daniel Rasky, 

and Mr. Donald Bray.

Panelists during the audience Q&A 
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 9

NRP Post

Carnegie Mellon Names Bob Iannucci to Head Silicon Valley Campus

Carnegie Mellon University’s Bob Iannucci has been named associate dean and director of CMU’s Silicon Valley campus, effective 

Sept. 1. He succeeds Martin L. Griss, director of the Disaster Management Initiative and founder and former director of the CyLab 

Mobility Research Center.

“I am honored to be named head of CMU’s innovative and entrepreneurial campus that sits in the middle of Silicon Valley, the worldwide hub of technology innovation,” said Iannucci, a distinguished 

service professor at CMU Silicon Valley and director of the CyLab 

Mobility Research Center with a courtesy appointment in the 

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “CMU’s international reputation for research and academic excellence, coupled 

with the entrepreneurial opportunities here in Silicon Valley, make 

this campus a truly unique place. I look forward to the challenge 

and the opportunity.”

James H. Garrett, Jr., dean of the College of Engineering and the 

Thomas Lord Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 

praised Iannucci for his extensive experience directing research 

activity at several internationally recognized companies in Silicon 

Valley. “His stellar research reputation, and his more recent experience as an interdisciplinary educator and researcher at the CMU 

Silicon Valley campus, make him ideally suited to be the associate 

dean and director of the CMU Silicon Valley campus.”

Prior to joining CMU, Iannucci served as the chief technology officer 

of Nokia and head of Nokia Research Center (NRC). There, he spearheaded the effort to transform NRC into an open innovation center, 

creating “lablets” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 

Stanford University, Tsinghua University, the University of Cambridge and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). Under his leadership, NRC’s previously established labs and the new 

lablets delivered fundamental contributions to the worldwide Long 

Term Evolution for 3G (LTE) standard; created and commercialized 

Bluetooth Low Energy; created and promulgated what is now the 

MIPI UniPro interface for high-speed, in-phone networking; and 

generated many other communications technology innovations.

An entrepreneurial pioneer, Iannucci 

has led engineering teams at two 

startups-one focused on virtualized networking and the other on 

computational fluid dynamics (Exa 

Corporation, which went public in 

2012)-creating systems that offered 

order-of-magnitude improvements 

over alternatives. He also served 

as director of Digital Equipment 

Corporation’s Cambridge Research 

Laboratory (CRL) and was vice president of research at Compaq. 

His CRL team (along with CMU’s Dan Siewiorek, Asim Smailagic 

and other researchers from the Institute for Complex Engineered 

Systems) created MoCCA-a mobile communication and computing 

architecture that anticipated much of what has become today’s 

smartphone technology.

After receiving a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science in 1988 from MIT, Iannucci led a team at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center that developed highly scalable computing systems.

CMU’s Silicon Valley campus, established in 2002 at Moffett Field, 

offers master’s and Ph.D. degree programs in electrical and computer engineering, as well as master’s degree programs in software 

engineering, software management and information networking.

The campus also offers a novel entrepreneurship program. 

Designed to capitalize on the speed of the Internet and tech-based 

innovations in the broader Silicon Valley economy, the CMU program blends both technical acumen and business problem-solving 

skills in a rigorous 12-month, full-time program.

Story orignally published at www.cmu.edu

Bob Iannucci

KleenSpeed Collaborates with ORACLE TEAM USA

October 24, 2013

KleenSpeed Technologies Inc. was given a chance to collaborate 

with ORACLE TEAM USA and jointly developed the high performance lithium-ion batteries used to power the onboard 

electronics on the AC72 Race Boats, and the ORACLE TEAM 

USA Chase Boats.

ORACLE TEAM USA Electronics Team Manager Richard Kent 

and his team supplied the specifications and together with the 

KleenSpeed Team led by Laura F. Reyes EVP Global Business 

Development & Strategic Partnerships; Hugues Marceau Engineer, 

and Pierre Hinse of EV Fern, developed the winning KleenSpeed 

GenESSys Marine lithium-ion battery technology that powered the 

boats instrumentation through 11 races. Timothy Collins, the CEO 

of KleenSpeed, stated that, “As a Global provider of Lithium-Ion 

solutions with electric racing wins, KleenSpeed understands the 

need for high performance, and reliability; we knew that we could 

produce the right solution.”

KleenSpeed Technologies Inc. is a lithium-ion solutions provider 

located at the NASA Research Park in Moffett Field CA, with experience in developing high speed and high performance electric race 

cars, electric vehicles and Lithium–Ion Energy solutions.

ORACLE TEAM USA was founded on Aug. 11, 2000, by Oracle Corp 

CEO Larry Ellison. Led by CEO Russell Coutts and skipper James 

Spithill, ORACLE TEAM USA is comprised of the best international 

sailing, design, build and support talent and successfully defended 

the trophy on San Francisco Bay in September 2013.

Story originally published at www.kleenspeed.com
10 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

(L–R): Dan Dumbacher, Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development, 

NASA Headquarters; Bruce Pittman, Director of Flight Projects & Chief System Engineer NASA 

Space Portal NASA Ames Research Center; Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, Planetary Resources; Robert “Bob” Richards, Co-Founder and CEO, Moon Express, Inc.

Space Portal Leaders Play Key Roles at AIAA Space 2013 Conference

by Bruce Pittman

On September 11, 2013, Dr. Dan Rasky 

and Bruce Pittman of the NASA Space 

Portal made presentations at the American 

Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 

Space 2013 conference that was held in 

San Diego, CA. This meeting attracted over 

800 leading aerospace professionals from 

all over the world. Bruce chaired a plenary 

panel discussion titled Space Exploration 

for Inspiration and Profit. On the panel with 

Bruce were Dan Dumbacher, NASA Deputy 

Associate Administrator for Exploration 

Systems who is in charge of NASA’s deep 

space exploration program; Chris Lewicki, 

President of Planetary Resources a company that is planning to mine asteroids; 

and Dr. Bob Richards of Moon Express that 

is planning to mine the Moon. 

In his opening remarks Bruce reflected 

that the space program was in the middle 

of a major paradigm shift in which all of the 

rules for success where being challenged. 

In particular the rules pertaining to the 

roles performed by government and industry are being radically altered from the 

traditional government led/industry supported model that was successfully used 

for Apollo. In its place is emerging the use 

of public/private partnerships to leverage 

increasing scarce government resources 

and make use of the government as an 

anchor customer while other markets are 

developed. The two space entrepreneurs, 

Chris and Bob, talked about the challenges 

and opportunities of attempting to bring 

the resources of the solar system into the 

Earth’s economic sphere and make a profit. 

They are both taking a stepping stone approach that starts off with small steps and 

then builds upon them. Mr. Dumbacher 

talked about NASA’s beyond LEO exploration strategy and the Space Launch System 

and Multipurpose Crew Exploration Vehicle 

(MPCV) that NASA is developing for this exploration. He also stressed the innovation 

that they are attempting to bring to the 

process and the challenges he faces with 

regards to the uncertainties of the federal 

budget process. All three mentioned that 

partnerships and collaboration were key to 

their progress and success.

On Wednesday evening Dr. Rasky made 

a keynote presentation on lessons learned 

from the recently completed Commercial 

Orbital Transportation Services 

(COTS) program. 

In the COTS program rather than using a 

traditional government contract, NASA 

used its congressionally authorized “other 

transaction authority” which NASA has codified in their Space Act Agreements (SAA). 

In his talk Dan presented the concept of 

“commercial leverage” where the government leverages off commercial interest and 

investment to enable it to meet its mission 

need. In the case of COTS the need was to 

deliver cargo to the International Space 

Station after the retirement of the Space 

Shuttle. To meet this need, NASA undertook an open competition of space launch 

providers under a program to demonstrate 

the capability to delivery cargo to the ISS, 

and possible return payloads to earth. 

The COTS program used funded Space Acts 

Agreements (SAA’s) instead of the usual 

government cost plus contracts. Under the 

SAA’s the companies are paid only for the 

completion of mutually agreed upon milestones. This shifts a majority of the risk for 

failure from the government to the contractor. It also aligns the business goals of 

both parties by incentivizing both parties 

to meet budget and schedule commitments. In just seven years Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital 

Sciences were able to design, build, test 

and successfully demonstrate two launch 

vehicles and two capsules that could successful carry cargo to the ISS. In addition, 

the SpaceX Dragon capsule can not only 

deliver cargo to the ISS, it can also return 

three tons of payload back to Earth. The 

Dragon capsule is currently being upgraded to be able to carry people as well 

as cargo to the ISS, with the first flights currently scheduled for 2015. A recent NASA 

audit of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle 

showed that its total development costs 

was just under $400 million. When NASA 

ran the Falcon 9 design through its own 

cost models (the NASA/Air Force Costing 

Model, or NAFCOM) the results of the analysis showed that if NASA had undertaken 

the Falcon 9 development with traditional 

contracting methods, the calculated cost 

was almost $4 billion. This 10X difference in 

development cost shows the power of the 

Commercial Leverage Model. 
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 11

NRP Post

‘Maker’ Ideas Wanted for First 3D Printer in Space

by Denise Chow, Staff Writer, Space.com

September 23, 2013

A California-based company that will launch a 3D printer to the 

International Space Station in 2014 is aiming to change the way 

space agencies think about how they transport goods to the orbiting outpost. But, using a machine to spit out spare parts for the 

space station is only the beginning.

Built by the firm Made in Space, Inc., the first 3D printer in space 

will launch to the space station aboard commercial spaceflight 

provider SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. The mission will largely be a 

proof-of-concept flight, in which astronauts will use the device 

to demonstrate its functionality in the microgravity environment, 

Mike Chen, Made in Space co-founder and chief strategy officer, 

told an audience at World Maker Faire in Queens here Saturday 

(Sept. 21).

While astronauts will initially use the 3D printer to create spare 

parts and tools for the space station, Made in Space is hoping 

“makers” on Earth will get a chance to flex their creativity by 

coming up with designs for science experiments, innovative 

projects and artwork.

“Once our printer is there, we’re going to be opening it up to the 

world to print things in space,” Chen said, while openly soliciting 

ideas and encouraging people to contact the company 

with thoughts.

If all goes well, a permanent version of the 3D printer will be 

launched to the International Space Station in 2015.

“The paradigm shift that we want everyone to understand is: 

instead of launching things to space, just print it there,” Chen said. 

“Why would you go through all the energy to build it here and 

launch it, when you can just build it there?” 

Made in Space was founded in 2010 with the mission of broadening access to space. “[I]t’s really expensive and difficult to launch 

things into space, and that puts a real dampening effect on innovation,” Chen said.

Having a 3D printing capability on the International Space Station 

will open up possibilities for the materials that can be produced in 

orbit, and the types of experiments that can be performed in space.

“Everything that you launch is going to have to withstand up to 9Gs 

in the rocket and crazy vibrations,” Chen said. “Things in space are 

vastly over-engineered, really, for the first 8 minutes of its existence. 

Think about what you can do now that you have 3D printing capabilities on orbit. For the first time, we’ll be able to design things for 

space that don’t ever have to exist in a gravity environment.”

Made in Space co-founder and chief strategy officer Mike Chen 

discusses his company’s 3D printer, which is launching to the 

International Space Station in 2014, at the 2013 World Maker Faire at 

the New York Hall of Science in New York.

Photo by Denise Chow/SPACE.com

BASF Extends Agreement with Apprion (Former NRP Startup)

Multi-million dollar agreement names Apprion as core technology and services provider 

for safety, security, compliance and performance projects

September 3, 2013 

BASF Corporation announced today it has selected Apprion as the 

sole source provider of industrial wireless applications, systems 

and services for its North America manufacturing facilities. BASF 

and Apprion have finalized an initial $10 million purchase agreement for multiple application projects to be implemented over the 

next two years. These applications will enable BASF facilities to address their industrial safety, security, compliance and performance 

initiatives via Apprion’s systems and services offering. “We decided 

to pursue this extended relationship with Apprion because of 

the proven success with various Apprion implementations at our 

North American BASF facilities to date,” said Chris Witte, Site Manager, for BASF’s Freeport facility. “In addition to reliable systems, 

Apprion’s services team has consistently exceeded expectations 

during the engineering and implementation phases of our 

current and completed projects. Its ION Managed Services offering was a key factor in our decision to extend our agreement.” 

Apprion, a leading provider of wireless application systems and 

services, offers a full suite of industrial applications to improve 

safety, security, compliance and performance at industrial facilities. 

Core to Apprion’s offering is the ION System - an open industrial 

wireless system that supports all devices, vendors and protocols 

and integrates all applications in a single platform. The ION System 

includes ION services and Apprion’s full suite of ION industrial applications: mustering; video; communications such as emergency 

notification; condition monitoring; mobility for operations and 

turnarounds; personnel tracking; access control; and many more. 

The new contract covers safety applications such as mustering, 

Apprion cont’d on page 15
12 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Personal Tragedy, Tricorders and the Idea of Mapping One’s Body 

by Quentin Hardy, New York TImes

When Walter De Brouwer puts his head to something, he can 

produce single-handedly what usually takes several hospital 

machines and labs. His single hand, it should be said, holds a small 

and promising device with which Mr. De Brouwer, the co-founder 

and chief executive of Scanadu, hopes to remake medicine.

The object Scanadu is working on is an oval disk about two inches 

wide and a half-inch thick. Held to the forehead, it uses light to 

measure oxygen intake, an accelerometer to figure out how far the 

chest extends in breathing, and a small electrical plate under the 

thumb to measure heart rate. Other sensors, some still in development, will measure temperature, blood pressure and other 

body functions.

In some cases the sensors are taking direct measurements, including some from a mild circuit that is created by the loop of the arm 

to the forehead and through the body, which the device reads and 

sends to a smartphone app. Still others are planned to deduce 

more information, using software that draws from among the 

different measurements.

The Scanadu device is a long way from perfect, despite having 

been through a significant revision since it was first announced 

to some hoopla (the “Star Trek” tricorder comparisons came fast) a 

year ago. In an informal test, it first got my heart rate 60 beats per 

minute above what it had been in a doctor’s office a week before. 

A few moments later, it seemed absolutely accurate.

And that, in a sense, is part of the point. Rather than taking the rigorous and expensive approach usually applied to medical devices, 

Scanadu works like a software company. It creates a product, then 

toys with it, improving the software and tweaking the algorithms. 

Eventually, both theory and experience show, a product can become pretty good.

“It’s all off-the-shelf stuff,” Mr. De Brouwer said. His Mountain View, 

Calif., company hopes to have the device available as a mass 

market consumer product in late 2014, for about $199. “It’s the 

algorithms that are new.”

Mr. De Brouwer, a well-known tech entrepreneur, sees the device 

as only a part of his ultimate goal. “Everyone who comes into a 

hospital is so powerless,” he said. “Why don’t we have our own 

devices, so we can create and take our own data about ourselves?” 

Once we do, he figures, we can share and pool the data for novel 

research in a kind of homemade medical hackathon.

Scanadu gained notice when it raised $1.6 million on Indiegogo, 

the crowdfunding website. Of the 8,800 people who gave money 

to the project, he says, some 1,100 were medical professionals 

(mostly doctors and nurses) in the United States. These contributors will soon receive an early version of the device, and their experience with it will go into further improving the product. Since 

then the company has picked up another $10.5 million in funding.

Scanadu has one of consumer tech’s more somber creation 

histories. Mr. De Brouwer, who is originally from Belgium, made a 

fortune during the first Internet boom, then lost much of it in the 

crash. He was earning the money back with a financial institution 

he purchased in 2003, when his son, then 4 years old, fell about

40 feet, landing head first on a concrete pavement.

The child was in a coma for 11 weeks, and eventually lost half of 

his brain; he is now in a school in California. Mr. De Brouwer spent 

a year inside a Belgian hospital, looking after his son and learning 

how to interpret a large number of medical machines. “I didn’t 

know anything about medicine — what a child’s blood pressure 

should be, what oxygenation was, what any of the displays said or 

how they worked,” he said.

Eventually he figured most of them out, and asked an administrator in the hospital’s information technology department where all 

the data was consolidated for collective analysis. “He told me that 

everything was stored 1:1; it didn’t get compared,” he said. 

“To someone from the tech world, this was like something from the 

dinosaur age.”

Mr. De Brouwer hopes not just to sell the device, but also to create 

a substantial body of people willing to store and share complex 

medical readings over a long period, measuring effects like stress 

and heart rates. He’s also running a “wet lab,” which is looking into 

a similar test system for urine and saliva.

That could produce both personalized medicine and a kind of collective information about the relationships between, say, respiration, temperature and oxygen intake before the onset of a disease.

The product still needs approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which will look at how people use the device and whether 

it is safe for individual use. Scripps Translational Science Institute 

will also be doing a study, drawn from the Indiegogo contributors, 

on the accuracy of the device. 

 Story originally published at http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Scanadu’s medical device is about two inches wide and a half-inch 

thick. When held to the forehead, it can measure oxygen intake, 

breathing and heart rate.
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 13

NRP Post

RMV Capabilities

by Renee Mitchell, President, RMV Technology Group LLC. 

RMV Technology Group LLC, a California 

Certified Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise (DVBE) located in Building 19 is a fully 

equipped ESD laboratory for evaluation of 

ESD materials and system level IEC 61000-

4-2 testing of components, parts, subassemblies, LEDs and other ESD Sensitive 

Devices. RMV engineers measure, troubleshoot and validate automated equipment, 

robotics, equipment centers and satellites 

in high bays. 

ESD Control extends far beyond work 

station certification and must include 

validation! When ARC needs to determine 

if materials will tribocharge in space, then 

RMV can provide the SME “know how” necessary to measure resistance, electrostatic 

decay, charge retention, triboelectrification, ESD events and other tests necessary 

for qualification and mitigation. Cable 

harness assembly produces electrostatic 

fields and FIM discharges during connection or launch. Onsite at NASA Ames, RMV 

can benchmark ESD performance during 

dynamic shock & vibration testing. For 

NASA contractors and University partners, 

RMV not only conducts advanced level 

computer interfaced interactive ESD “hands 

on” instrument driven training, but also as 

a 3rd party, RMV reviews and can recommend design changes for space bound 

circuit cards. 

With testing of ESD materials for space 

bound applications becoming even more 

critical due to the surge of supplier noncompliance and suspect counterfeiting of 

Asian Pacific sourced components, parts 

and static control materials, the need for 

test and evaluation is stronger today than 

ever before! 

It is unprecedented for any organization 

to circumvent qualification & validation 

testing in order to reduce costs for payloads 

bound for space. Reliance on a vendor 

specification sheet as proof of qualification 

opens the door to product non-conformance or suspect counterfeit materials. 

Bottom line - if you do not test, you do not 

have much of a program. 

An LED under test per IEC 61000-4-2 is 

performed in house at RMV. One cannot 

issue a Return Materials Authorization 

(RMA) for space bound materials as qualification testing is critical to flight systems 

before launch. 

Bob Vermillion, CEO/Founder, is the first 

in the Aerospace & Defense Industry to 

identify, publish and present on Non-Compliant & Suspect Counterfeit ESD Materials in the Global Supply Chain before and 

during the NASA Quality Leadership Forum 

(QLF) in 2010.

Today’s trend in overlooking the initial 

product qualification with reliance on supplier claims constitutes one root cause for 

ESD damage and failures in harsh environments. Using NIST traceable equipment, 

RMV can develop and implement an ESD 

test plan and troubleshoot while testing 

space bound materials and products for 

supplier conformance in a Trust but 

Verify format. 

As part of RMV Technology’s efforts to educate the aerospace & defense community 

on the issues of Supplier Non-Compliance 

and Suspect Counterfeiting of components 

and materials, Bob Vermillion will conduct a 

workshop for the CALCE SMTA Counterfeit 

Conference (10-21 November 2013) plus 

two white papers (one in collaboration with 

Boeing) for the DMSMS Conference (3-6 

December 2013) that addresses the need 

for periodic testing of supplier materials 

throughout the product life cycle that is 

listed on the Corporate Materials Qualification List (MQL). 

Failure in space due to supplier non-compliance or suspect counterfeiting is not an 

option! Ultimately, it is the taxpayer who 

funds a Federal project. Doing it right the 

first time is the only way to insure 

that all parties have come to the table

so that NASA, the OEM and supplier reduce 

their risk. 

If a Federal agency or prime contractor 

thinks that testing can be substituted for 

reliance upon a vendor specification sheet, 

then think again. 

RMV Technology Group LLC, a NASA 

Industry Partner, provides technology 

engineering services, 3rd party ESD test 

and evaluation of engineered materials and 

composites, system level testing and ESD/

EMC Training for the scientific and engineering community. For more information, 

contact Renee Mitchell at 650.964.4792 or 

email renee@esdrmv.com.

Robotics Troubleshooting in the RMV Lab LED System Level Testing 
14 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

NASA Begins Exploring Quantum Computing

By Frank Konkel, Federal Computer Week Staff Writer

Nov 22, 2013

Deep within the recesses of NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., a small team of researchers is beginning to run 

applications on a revolutionary machine that could pave the way 

for a new era of computing.

After delays caused by the partial government shutdown, scientists in NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing Division are running 

applications on the D-Wave Two to probe the possibilities of 

quantum computing.

NASA’s early experiments with the computer, developed by 

D-Wave Systems, are geared toward optimizing aeronautics and 

other processes vital to the agency’s mission, said Rupak Biswas, 

deputy director of the Exploration Technology Directorate at Ames. 

But in these primordial days of quantum computing, every experiment will serve as a benchmark for where the technology is and 

where it might go, he added.

“From our perspective, we are trying to get better answers,” Biswas 

said. “Am I getting the same solution as a classical computer, but 

faster? Second, if I didn’t get a faster solution, did I get a more accurate one? And third, did I find solutions that a classical computer 

never found?”

In the next five years, NASA will share access to D-Wave Two as 

part of a three-way partnership with Google and the Universities 

Space Research Association. USRA’s team has not yet carried out 

tests with D-Wave Two, but Google engineers have been busy 

refining classical computing algorithms to pit the processing capabilities of today’s computers against the D-Wave Two.

NASA’s efforts have been more mission-oriented, but neither NASA 

nor Google expects to publish research results until early next year.

In traditional computing, data is encoded as either a 1 or a 0, but 

a quantum computer’s use of quantum mechanical phenomena 

allows a quantum bit, or qubit, to represent a one, zero or both 

values simultaneously.

The simultaneous calculation is the key.

Even today’s fastest supercomputers, which crunch trillions or 

more operations per second, carry out only one operation at a 

single moment in time. There is no classical computing approach 

in today’s desktop PCs or supercomputers equivalent to the way 

the qubit allows information to be processed.

Biswas said NASA’s efforts on the 512-qubit D-Wave Two have 

concentrated on planning missions, scheduling processes and reanalyzing portions of data collected by the planet-seeking Kepler 

telescope. In mission planning, NASA might use its quantum computer to come up with the optimal navigation plan for the Mars 

Curiosity rover, with variables that include various stop points and 

resource limitations.

NASA also wants to use the quantum computer to schedule 

supercomputing jobs. At Ames, NASA’s Pleiades, one of the most 

powerful supercomputers in the world, constantly runs jobs but 

almost always has open nodes available for more work. Assuming 

1,000 nodes are available to carry out a 500-node job, Biswas said 

the quantum computer should be able to sift through a gargantuan number of node combinations to tell NASA engineers exactly 

which 500 nodes to use for optimal results. NASA currently uses a 

classical computing approach to guess which nodes to use.

Finally, NASA is beginning to use D-Wave Two to look at the lightcurve data of stars collected by the Kepler telescope. The quantum 

computer has nowhere near the capacity to sift through all the 

Kepler data, but if it looks at a small portion and finds additional 

planets hiding within, it would be a groundbreaking moment in 

quantum computing.

NASA will develop further experiments with D-Wave Two based on 

the results of the initial applications.

Challenges and questions

About the only thing D-Wave Two and a classical computer have in 

common is the word “computer.”

D-Wave Two takes about one month to boot up because of the 

complex calibration necessary, and its 512-qubit Vesuvius processor operates at 20 millikelvin, which is 100 times colder than outer 

space. Without shielding to protect it from Earth’s magnetic field, 

the machine would be nothing more than a large paper weight.

The biggest challenges, however, come in its actual use. Classical 

algorithms and quantum algorithms are not interchangeable, and 

a lot of work goes into feeding the right information to the 

D-Wave Two.

The dilution refrigerator inside the D-Wave Two quantum computer 

cools the processor to 20 millikelvin—more than 100 times colder 

than interstellar space. 

Quantum cont’d on page 15

Photo by NASA
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 15

NRP Post

First, engineers have to map a problem in quadratic unconstrained 

binary optimization, a mathematical model for any optimization 

problem and the input form required by any variant of quantum 

computer. Biswas said there is not a set way to do this, so engineers 

use a variety of math tricks to convert optimization problems 

to QUBO.

The larger challenge, though, is taking the QUBO form of the problem and embedding it into the D-Wave Two hardware.

All 512 qubits on the machine are not totally connected, yet 

problems require multiple qubits to work “in such a way that they 

actually represent a single vertex on your graph,” Biswas said. DWave Two’s 512 qubits are composed of 64 unit cells. Each unit cell 

is made up of 8 qubits, four on one side and four on the other, with 

each qubit composed of a bipartite graph.

“How to embed QUBO onto quantum architecture is the real problem,” Biswas said, adding that the process can be “convoluted and 

can take a lot of work.”

Once a problem is embedded in quantum architecture, D-Wave 

Two produces answers in the form of probability. In classical systems, calculations carried out repeatedly that measure unchanging 

variables such as height or weight produce the same results. That is 

not the case in quantum systems where measurements change the 

system, Biswas said, so engineers typically run a problem thousands of times or more and then examine the probability distribution and measure value accordingly.

It is far from simple science. Questions even remain about whether 

D-Wave Two is a true quantum computer.

“We don’t know yet,” Biswas said, but he added that thus far, the 

machine clearly demonstrates quantum tunneling and superposition—two important features of any quantum computer. Less clear 

is whether D-Wave Two exhibits quantum entanglement across 

unit cells beyond those interconnected 8 qubits.

Regardless, the most important thing will be determining “whether 

this device, whatever it might be, might solve problems better than 

classical machines,” Biswas said.

NASA plans to upgrade the machine to 2,048 qubits in the next 

year or two and potentially to 4,096 by 2018, depending on budget 

and results. Biswas envisions an ecosystem developing around 

quantum computing in the next five years, with the potential for 

finding better ways to convert problems to QUBO form, advancements in embedding QUBO into quantum architecture and improvements in linking qubits together.

“We believe, just like 50 years ago with classical computing, we are 

in the early days of quantum computing,” Biswas said. “Clearly, it 

has moved one step forward and is no longer conceptual.”

Story oiginally published at www.fcw.com

Quantum cont’d from page 14

Apprion cont’d from page 11

personnel location and emergency notification and future plans 

for monitoring and video at numerous BASF facilities in North 

America. “BASF has made it clear that safety, security and compliance are top priorities at its facilities,” said Doug Donzelli, Apprion 

CEO. “BASF’s management teams take a proactive approach to utilizing technology for these projects. We initially worked with BASF 

to implement perimeter video security, condition monitoring and 

mobility projects at its Freeport, Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas; 

and Geismar, Louisiana facilities. These BASF facilities started their 

wireless application projects with strategic plans and well thoughtout implementations. All projects have proven successful to date 

and we look forward to our continued arrangement with BASF.” As 

the sole source provider, Apprion will equip multiple BASF facilities 

with the ION system which includes ION hardware and services 

and Apprion’s full suite of ION applications

•	 ION hardware – world-class, industrial grade hardware devices designed to integrate and extend leading IT devices. 

The Apprion ION hardware family includes IONizers, industrial wireless network application, IONite personnel tags and 

IONizer asset tags.

•	 ION services – Site planning, design, implementation and 

unique managed services offering with around-the-clock 

networking monitoring from industry expert.

•	 ION applications – ION mustering, ION video, ION condition monitoring, ION mobility and more.

Story originall published at www.basf.com

On November 20, 2013, guests from Recoapp, Finnish 

Delegation visited the NASA Research Park. OTANIEMI 

is the largest high tech park in Finland and is Finland’s 

Silicon Valley. Mejghan Haider, Deputy Director of NASA 

Research Park provided an overview and they also 

visited Vasper Systems.
16 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Getting City Commuters Out of Their Car and Into the Air - SkyTran Is the Future 

of Urban Transport

By Jerry Sanders, SkyTran CEO

Traffic is too heavy. Rush hour is too long. Highways are too narrow 

and byways too slight. Our roads are congested, backed-up, overcrowded, and bumper to crash-proof bumper...

The urban environment as we once knew it is gone. Most of the 

world now lives in mega-cities; cities that for one example begin 

in San Francisco and end 50 kilometers south in San Jose. And 

commuters in these new urban sprawls typically spend two to 

three (and sometimes four) nerve racking, stress inducing, nonproductive hours each day going back and forth to work. Revealingly, these commuters prefer to spend their commuting time 

in the privacy of their own car and not in public transportation. 

Indeed—and despite all government incentives—the overwhelming majority of commuters will not even join a car pool, let alone 

use one.

A recent study by 2e2, an ICT services company showed that 

commuting costs UK companies over $4 billion dollars a year. The 

American Public Transportation Association established that traffic 

congestion costs the US over $63 billion dollars a year. And according to other recent authoritative studies, German motorists time 

in traffic leads to the loss of nearly $5 billion dollars a year, while 

Indian traffic jams and toll plazas cost that nation over $10 billion 

dollars a year.

These statistics and many others make it clear: if we are going to 

preserve our ability to move about our cities, alleviate congestion, reduce pollution, and make all of our lives more enjoyable by 

getting at least some of the commuters out of their cars, we must 

provide a transportation solution that combines privacy, speed 

and comfort.

Some folks advocate electric busses. But these combine all of public transportation’s worst features: they get stuck in surface traffic, 

follow (and usually miss) their own schedules, and are crowded in 

rush hour, and empty during the day. Others argue for subways. 

And, yes, subways do move below the traffic, and are generally 

convenient. But they are certainly not private. Subways also take 

a long time to build, and cost a lot of money. How much time 

and how much money? Well, one mile of New York City’s 

Lexington Avenue line was over ten years in the making and 

cost $2 billion dollars...

And so we come to SkyTran: elevated, high-speed, low-cost, silent 

and “green”, personal rapid transportation.

•	 Elevated: SkyTran flies above the surface traffic and roads. 

Flies—yes, flies. SkyTran is a unique velocity-based adaptation of passive magnetic levitation. To the uninitiated that 

means that SkyTran vehicles fly in a self-generated magnetic field using a magnetic wing. And they do so without 

generating harmful magnetic emissions.

•	 High speeds: How does 150 MPH grab you? SkyTran is the 

only system of its kind that can connect the urban to the 

suburban to the ex-urban.

•	 Low-cost: Less than 1/10 to 1/20th the cost of light 

rail systems.

•	 Silent: As in “whoosh”. SkyTran rides on a cushion of air: 

no rail-on-rail, no rubber on the road.

•	 Green: SkyTran vehicles use less than 1⁄2 the energy of a 

hybrid car. And SkyTran returns energy directly into the grid, 

without resorting to inefficient batteries.

•	 Personal: Get in and go. No waiting on bus or train schedules, no stopping at other people’s stations, no intrusive 

commuters reading your emails. 

Can SkyTran enable you to get from here to there? We think so. 

And we welcome you to learn more about us and join us in the 

campaign for smarter, cheaper, faster, public transportation.

Originally published at www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Concept image of SkyTran’s personal rapid transit system

Image courtesy of: www.skytran.us
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 17

NRP Post

Wyle Sponsors Rocket Launch with an Eye towards the Future

by Catherine J. Tsairides and Danice Wilson

Wyle has long been involved with America’s space programs and 

continues to support efforts in this important arena as private U.S. 

entities collaborate with NASA to develop and launch smaller more 

efficient rockets capable of carrying smaller, more technologically 

advanced payloads into space. 

This year Wyle partnered with NASA and other organizations to 

sponsor the Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation in fostering future 

space technology and exploration and the next generation of space 

explorers during the foundation’s annual Research and Education 

Rocket Safari in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, held Sept. 14–17.

The Mavericks’ vision is to enable the common man to build and 

operate vehicles and small spacecraft that can conduct space exploration missions in near-space, sub-orbital space, orbital space and 

even planetary exploration one day. 

Through next generation space research and technology development conducted with undergraduate and graduate partnering 

university students, the foundation creates and flight-qualifies reference designs that can be replicated and enhanced by fellow civilian 

space explorers under creative common licensing. The foundation 

then uses those reference designs in high school and middle school 

STEM education programs they establish and operate to inspire and 

engage the next generation of space explorers worldwide.

This year their rocket safari took place just days before successful 

commercial launches by Orbital Sciences and Space-X that highlighted the greater roles private interests will play in space technologies and exploration in the future and the importance of developing 

and cultivating those who will one day lead these efforts. 

The safari brought together high school students from the San 

Francisco Bay area and students and alumni of University of Maine 

with industry experts to get hands-on advanced rocket operations 

and space exploration experience. It also supported the University 

of Maine’s URSA space flight mission with the FAA flight qualification 

of Maverick’s new sounding rocket reference design and additional 

rocket launch operations, vehicle tracking and recovery, and mission 

payload operations.

URSA Mission sponsors included NASA, Maine Space Grant, and 

Mide Technology Corporation. Sponsors for the week’s events included, Dassault Systemes, Solidworks, the Margaret Jonsson Family 

Foundation, Digital Solid State Propulsion, and Wyle.

The main event for the week was the flight qualification launch of

the Delta P sub-orbital sounding rocket, an URSA Class reference 

design sounding rocket developed by Mavericks with several 

University of Maine senior engineering students, in completion of 

milestones by Mavericks’ associated with their Space Act Agreement 

with NASA. In addition to the qualification test flight, the students 

were also conducting on-board scientific supersonic fluid flow studies, as well as testing some next generation smart materials sensors 

and instrumentation associated with their work with Mide Corporation.

The Delta-P team prepared more than a year for the URSA Mission. 

“From an engineering point of view there were a lot of things that 

worked well,” said Luke Saindon, the student lead on the project. 

“The airframe flew straight and true. We had our procedures figured 

out and we knew how to work together as a team—not getting too 

snippy with each other most of the time. That was very successful, 

so I think we have a good template for how to go about building 

and designing the next vehicle.” 

According to Thomas Atchison, a Tripoli certified experimental amateur rocket developer, civilian space explorer, and founder of the 

Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation, the foundation mentored the 

development of this sounding rocket in support of the foundation’s 

astrobiology research work with NASA Ames Research Center. It will 

make it available through common creative license as a reference 

design on its new space exploration education and research Internet 

portal developed under a grant by NASA Ames, for high school and 

university students in STEM education programs nationwide.

“We became good friends with the Mavericks, initially out of necessity,” said Gerard Desjardins, University of Maine alumnus and member 

of the rocket project team, who is now conducting graduate work 

and heading up one of the small satellite teams at the University of 

Colorado. “With a project like this, there are a lot of legal obstacles 

like FAA waivers. When we contacted Tripoli Rocketry Association, 

they sent us straight to Tom (Atchison). The Mavericks were able to 

deal with these things we had no idea about.”

“Now, I can ask questions that other students might not ask because 

I have the experience to look back and say, ‘What about this?’” said 

Michael Ostromecky, a current mechanical engineering student at 

the University of Maine with hopes of continuing development of 

his own rocket project there. “At the end of the day, you walk away 

with a more robust knowledge that you’ve learned from application 

that you can’t get anywhere else. That’s really valuable and I don’t 

think I’ve quite grasped how much this experience will help me.” 

“Wyle’s involved with the Mavericks because we are seeing the future 

of satellite technology getting smaller and smaller, even to the size 

where you can fit an individual satellite in your hand,” said Jim Juve, 

a director of program development in Wyle’s ST&E Group. 

“And that means you can use smaller and cheaper rockets to get 

those satellites into space. It also means that smaller technology 

opens up the rocket launch industry to a new class of companies 

that are entrepreneurial based, creative and highly motivated. 

We see the seeds of that with students during the Rocket Safari.”

For more information on the Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation, 

you can follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/

pages/Mavericks-Civilian-Space-Foundation/130245926994946. 

You can also watch their Emmy Award Winning documentary 

through their website at http://www.rocketmavericks.com/

For more information on Wyle, visit www.wyle.com 
18 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

CASIS Reaches Agreement with Kentucky Space to Advance Regenerative Research

On October 3, 2013, the Center for the Advancement of Science 

in Space (CASIS), which was selected by NASA in July 2011 to 

maximize use of the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National 

Laboratory, announced an agreement with Kentucky Space LLC to 

facilitate biomedical research on the ISS.

Dr. Mahendra Jain, principal investigator for Kentucky Space, 

has proposed an experiment to study regeneration in planarians, 

which are flatworms capable of rebuilding body organs and nervous systems after damage. In partnership with Dr. Michael Levin 

of Tufts University, Dr. Jain will examine the effects of the space 

environment on these enhanced healing abilities. Gravity, and the 

lack thereof, influences the way cells behave and their ability to rebuild tissue. Studying planarians in space may reveal new aspects 

of how cells rebuild tissue, which could lead to breakthroughs in 

medical treatments for humans. For example, regenerative medicine has the potential to treat conditions like Parkinson’s, heart 

disease, or lost limbs.

“CASIS is excited to forge a partnership with Kentucky Space,” said 

CASIS Research Pathway Manager Dr. Michael Roberts. “Regenerative research in model organisms in microgravity may yield 

incredible benefits to accelerate the treatment of human disease 

and injury, improving life on Earth and creating a foundation for 

additional inquiry to better understand the more debilitating 

conditions we as humans face.”

CASIS evaluates unsolicited proposals on a regular basis for scientific and economic merit and potential impact. In some instances, 

CASIS can provide funding to assist highly qualified research to be 

performed on the ISS U.S. National Laboratory.

For additional information about unsolicited proposals, including 

instructions on submitting research ideas, please visit: 

www.iss-casis.org/Opportunities/UnsolicitedProposals.aspx

Kentucky Space Announces 

Successful Satellite Launch

November 20, 2013

Kentucky Space LLC (KS) announced early today that at 8:15 PM 

EST last night KentuckySat-2 (KySat-2) was launched from the 

NASA Launch Facility at Wallops Island, Virginia. Shortly after liftoff the spacecraft was successfully inserted into orbit at 500 km 

x 500 km @ 40.5 degrees. Ground operation stations in Kentucky, 

the US and Japan have reported receiving data packets from the 

satellite indicating that systems are functioning normally.

KySat-2 is a 1.3 kg (approximately 3 pound) CubeSat class satellite whose primary mission involves a technical demonstration 

of a stellar gyroscope—an innovative imager and mathematical 

models to determine spacecraft dynamics. KySat-2 was launched 

as a secondary payload on the Operationally Responsive Space 

(ORS-3) mission on an Orbital Sciences Minotaur rocket. KySat-2 

was selected for flight by NASA’s Educational Launch of a Nanosatellite (ELaNa) program. The KySat-2 spacecraft was designed 

and built exclusively in the state by Kentucky Space along with 

its partners Morehead State University and the University of 

Kentucky. Students at these universities made up the core of the 

spacecraft design/build team. This launch represents another 

major milestone in the growth, impact and reach of Kentucky 

Space said KS Mission Director Twyman Clements.

The mission team from Kentucky Space, including students and 

faculty from the universities, were on-site for the launch. 

Kentucky Space is a private nonprofit enterprise focused on entrepreneurial, educational and commercial space solutions.

For additional information relating to the launch contact Kris 

Kimel at kkimel@kentuckyspace.com or 859-229-6161 or Twyman 

Clements at tclements@kentuckyspace.com or 859-229-2719. For 

information on the program please visit kentuckyspace.com.

Kentucky Space Confirms Successful 

Operation of Tiny Experimental Spacecraft

Eagle-1, a PocketQube class satellite that measures 5 cm x 5cm 

x 15 cm and weighing just 430 grams (just under one pound), 

was launched on November 21, 2013, on a DNEPR-1 rocket from 

Dombarovsky Cosmodrome at Yasny, Russia.

This extremely small experimental satellite (which is one of, if 

not, the smallest functional spacecraft ever placed in orbit) was 

deployed in orbit by a larger satellite Unisat-1 developed in a 

partnership between Kentucky Space (KS), Morehead State University (MSU) and the University of Rome La Sapienzia Aerospace 

Engineering School and a commercial spin-off called the Group of 

Astrodynamics for the Use of Space Systems (GAUSS, Inc.). Since 

the November launch KS ground ops has confirmed that Eagle-1 

is functioning normally with all systems performing as expected. 

This class of satellite, which was originally proposed by MSU Professor Robert Twiggs, further demonstrates the power and potential of new micro technologies in space. Eagle-1 was designed and 

built by Twiggs, KS and MSU students along with the involvement 

of Dr. Garrett Jernigan and students at Sonoma State University 

in California.

The PocketQube class satellite is envisioned to have a wide range 

of applications including: space network nodes, sensor platforms, 

inexpensive test-beds and novel satellite constellations that are 

inexpensive, redundant and spatially organized. 

Kentucky Space is a private nonprofit enterprise focused on 

entrepreneurial, educational and commercial space solutions. For 

additional information relating to the launch contact Kris Kimel 

at kkimel@kentuckyspace.com or 859-229-6161 or Dr. Benjamin 

K. Malphrus at b.malphrus@moreheadstate.edu or 606-776-2390. 

For information on the program please visit kentuckyspace.com.
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 19

NRP Post

Biomimicry and NASA’s Cooling Technologies are the New Frontier in Sports Rehabilitation

by Jeremy White, Wired Magazine

In the heart of Silicon Valley, at NASA Research Park in Mountain 

View, California, in an unassuming one-story building, Peter 

Wasowski believes he can transform fitness regimes, and in the 

process heal both bodies and minds.

Combining cooling and compression pads that hold blood in the 

upper arms and thighs, his Vasper (short for vascular performance) 

fitness system fools the brain into thinking it has been working 

flat-out for several hours, when in fact it has only been exercising 

for 20 minutes. It sounds like an infomercial for an abs machine 

that promises the Earth for little effort, but Wasowski’s team has 

been getting startling results—as have high-profile test subjects 

such as US Olympic athlete Erica Ashley McLain (pictured), who 

used the system to recover from a serious ankle injury. 

The concept is to biomimic the physiology of children. “Watch a 

child and you do not see them walk—they move quickly, they play 

and expend a tremendous amount of energy,” says Wasowski. “If 

you were to look inside their muscles you would see high concentrations of lactic acid, and the higher the concentration, the 

stronger the feedback to the brain requesting growth hormones 

and other anabolic hormones, such as DHEA, IGF1 and testosterone, which rebuild damaged tissues.”

Once humans reach puberty, the body, being much bigger, can no 

longer concentrate lactic acid at previous levels. At the same time, 

metabolic rate slows along with the growth process. “So every ten 

years after puberty, we lose 14 percent of what we call endogenous growth hormone release.” According to Wasowski, a 16-yearold athlete is already running at 86 percent of growth hormone, 

not 100 -- and this slows recovery. By contrast, a footballer with an 

injured knee given six to ten weeks to recover completely can, supposedly, hit the Vasper machines and be match-fit in two weeks.

“We concentrate the lactic acid in the quads and biceps, and we 

fool the brain into believing that the athlete has just run up a 

600-metre-high mountain, and all those muscles are damaged. 

So the brain releases massive amounts of endogenous hormones 

to rebuild the muscle tissue, and anything else that requires repair 

gets repaired, just like it would with a small child.”

Along with this biomimicry, Vasper relies on cooling technology 

modelled on NASA spacesuits to aid healing and performance. 

Wasowski explains: “If you were to take a bowl of water and heat 

it over a flame, you would see it starting to warm up and oxygen 

coming out of it. The same thing happens to the bloodstream. As 

your body temperature goes up, the blood temperature increases 

and starts releasing blood oxygen. The less of that oxygen you 

have on board, the more you start gasping for air. You hit the wall, 

or the ‘O2 max’—the ability of the body to metabolize oxygen. 

And that’s when your performance goes south.”

Wasowski says that in swimming, as blood has much higher bloodoxygen volumes because the temperature is cooler, this type of 

exercise burns 45 percent more fat as the body is giving maximum 

fuel to the muscles and running at a much higher efficiency.

“We’re duplicating that scenario out of the water,” he states. 

“We have a temperature gradient, between 4.5 degrees celsius and 

12 degrees celsius, where we cool the chest, head and feet. So during a 20-minute session you get the benefit of a two-and-a-halfhour workout.”

These ultra-efficient workout sessions have generated some 

compelling improvements in performance: “We had a triathlete 

here who did only ten sessions. Then she flew to Hawaii and did an 

Iron Man race. After those ten sessions, she took 50 minutes off her 

race time—50 minutes.”

Vasper is also working on a special programme with US Navy Seals 

to explore the benefits of the system for troop training. The US 

Navy refused to comment, but, particularly in this area, Wasowski 

has noted extraordinary mental rewards using the equipment.

“There are tremendous issues with post-traumatic stress syndrome 

in the military. And this technology works very well to help those 

soldiers regain their mental balance, because hormonal balance 

has a very close relationship to mental balance. We’ve seen amazing turnarounds with people close to being suicidal who were fine 

after doing this therapy.”

Wasowski expects to have data published on Vasper this year from 

studies conducted by the Navy Seals, the University of Hawaii and 

an additional base setting up next month at University of California, San Francisco. For now, he offers himself as further evidence 

of Vasper’s efficacy, having used it to rid himself of arthritic pain in 

both ankles. He now takes no arthritis medication whatsoever.

“People say, ‘This must be a dream come true.’ But it’s beyond 

a dream.”

After an open dislocation of her ankle during a training accident in 

2011, the Vasper machine sped up Ashley McLain's recovery

Photo by Cody Pickens
20 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

reQall Rover: The App That Organizes Your Day

by Shalini Kathuria Narang 

October 10, 2013

Welcome to the world of anticipatory assistance where you don’t 

need to search for the information you require, it is served to you 

on a platter. Or rather, it will appear on your smartphone without 

you having even asked for it. And very soon, it will be available on 

any smart device, be it a tablet, a pair of glasses or a watch.

Your proactive personal assistance will not only provide you 

information about your local traffic, weather, nearby restaurants, 

etc. but also anything else you can think of. You can also hear the 

information instead of having to read it. You can get an audible 

summary which can be listened to even while you are brushing 

your teeth, bathing or driving.

One of the players in the field of predictive personal assistance 

computing is reQall Inc. It started off with an app named reQall—

a location-based to-do list or memory aid of sorts that was created 

at the MIT Media Lab.

Today the company boasts a robust platform that corporate houses 

can build their customized predictive searches on. To showcase the 

potency of the platform, the company has an internal app called 

reQall Rover—a personalized, location-based app providing information on various things. reQall Rover uses location, time of day, 

and other contextual information to provide quick capsules 

of information.

If you connect it to your email and social networks, it can process 

even more information - such as the kind of news you like to read 

or information about your specific commute. It can even pick out 

important points from your email and Facebook feeds, summarizing the content for you when you don’t have time to read it. If you 

have a meeting coming up with a bigwig from another company, 

it’ll see this on your calendar and provide you information about 

that person from sources like LinkedIn. reQall Rover is an intelligent, 

proactive assistant that continuously data mines past, current, and 

future context and offers assistance unprompted. It doesn’t sit idle 

waiting for the user to ask a question before offering assistance.

“What our platform does is offer a palate of assistance that companies across varied domains can license to build on. Some of the top 

areas of need for personal assistance that we are seeing are email 

assistance, including email summarizing, commute assistance, 

biography assistance, meeting help and taxi booking,” says Sunil 

Vemuri, Co founder and Chief Product Officer at reQuall Inc. 

“Our business model is licensing the technology which companies 

can then customize. We concentrate on building and fine tuning 

our platform on which companies can build their own apps of 

personal assistance.”

Comparing their offering to Google Now, Vemuri says, “Google 

Now is a closed environment that companies can’t augment, 

change or build on or customize whereas the reQall platform is 

customisable. Companies in a variety of industries can build on it 

to customize personal assistance for their customers.”

“Also, if a company uses Google Now, Google owns the data. A lot of 

companies do not want to share their data. Companies using the 

reQall platform do not need to share their data. The reQall platform 

offers email assistance and we also have the technology for gauging what activity the user is engaged in, how much attention he or 

she can give and can filter information that comes to a user based 

on the activity. For example, if a user is in an important meeting, 

he/she might get a message from a spouse but not a message that 

can await a response,” adds Vemuri.

Proactive personal assistance has expanded people’s imagination 

on what technology can do. This is just a start. Commenting on 

some of the requests for personal assistance they get from their 

partners, Vemuri adds, “Personal assistance in travel scenarios 

where a smartphone can act like a travel guide, or requests for engaging users to not just react to a doctor’s advice but to proactively 

engage in improving the quality of their health like reminders set 

for exercising or eating right etc. are some of the many areas that 

we are getting requests for from various verticals.” 

Story originally published in Business Today

ReQall Rover app
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 21

NRP Post

Wireless Technology for Space Applications

by Ahsan Ali, Business Development for Intrinsyx Technologies

Intrinsyx Technologies has partnered with Pabellon Technology 

to leverage Pabellon’s unique wireless technology and Intrinsyx’s 

history of space systems development to pursue opportunities for 

space applications. Pabellon has developed a revolutionary technology for fully wireless and partially wired (conductively coupled 

path) power transfer usable over short, medium, and long range 

distances. They have designed, built, and demonstrated multiple 

and distinct very electrically small configurations of transmit and 

receive systems using these techniques. These systems work at a 

variety of power levels, possess both large and small form factors 

(standard printed circuit board implementation has been shown), 

and one transmitter to many receiver configurations have been 

demonstrated. Importantly, their systems have demonstrated 

novel efficiency as a function of range scaling laws that are distinct 

from the predictions of standard electromagnetic theory, but that 

are still compatible with standard electromagnetic theory.

Careful experiments have measured linearly decreasing efficiency 

with range for their fully wireless configurations and constant 

efficiency with range between transmitter and receiver for their 

conductively coupled path configurations. Theory of operation for 

their devices states that constant efficiency with range is possible 

for fully wireless configurations. This is in contrast to resonant 

inductive coupling techniques using their devices with the “secret 

sauce” removed. The high-efficiency with range power transfer and 

electrically small nature of our systems allows for real-world space 

system application.

One immediate space application of high value is removing high 

mass and bulk spacecraft wiring harnesses. The spacecraft bus 

itself can be used as the conductively coupled path, which serves 

as an extremely low voltage return. Devices to be powered can 

simply be powered wirelessly with standard grounding techniques 

providing the low voltage return. This maximizes powered device 

placement options and eliminates power feeds through mechanical joints such as solar arrays. Data can also be transmitted and 

multiplexed concurrently with power. In another use case for this 

technology, the research team is exploring potential remote sensing of nearby objects (~100 meters).

In the coming weeks, Intrinsyx and Pabellon plan to host technology demonstrations at the NRP open to the NASA and NRP community. For inquiries regarding the technology and upcoming demo 

days, email Ahsan Ali at ahsan@intrinsyx.com.

Singularity University Features Female Entrepreneurs at CROWDFUNDxWOMEN

On December 6th, 2013, Singularity University hosted 

CROWDFUNDxWomen, a contest open to women-owned 

startups who are leading high growth & technology driven 

businesses, at its NASA Research Park campus. Ten finalists 

from the online contest pitched their startups to a room 

of investors, and a panel voted on a winner and runner up: 

1-Page (CEO, Joanna Weidenmiller) and Switch Automation 

(co-founder and CEO, Deb Noller).

To read more about the event, visit: http://bit.ly/1kLjq8J

CROWDFUNDxWOMEN pitch event hosted by Singularity University
22 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

way for students and the public alike to drive a small rover on 

simulated lunar terrain (located in the NRP); Exploration Uplink has 

been used to connect Ames to schools across the country and a 

host of nations including South Korea, South Africa and Canada. 

Citizen science is a major effort of the NLSI and now SSERVI; this 

effort was started by NAI founding director Baruch Blumberg, who 

NLSI brought on as its Distinguished Scientist. From identifying 

meteorite impacts on the Moon to sizing lunar craters, the public is 

increasingly contributing to important aspects of lunar science.

Scientifically, the Moon we know now is far different than the 

Moon we thought we knew only 5 years ago, and NLSI has had a 

major impact on this transformation. Thought for decades to have 

been a dry body, NLSI Principal Investigator Carle Pieters showed 

in 2009 that water is distributed widely (if thinly) across the Moon’s 

surface at times. LCROSS and other mission data then showed that 

not only does water exist on the lunar surface, but there is a lot 

of it—enough (particularly in polar regions) to be used by future 

human missions. NLSI scientists showed that the Moon preserves 

the history of the early Solar System in a way that can shed light on 

its evolution. Models developed by NLSI, coupled with analysis of 

Apollo lunar samples with advanced technologies not available in 

the Apollo era, have revolutionized our understanding of the Solar 

System’s beginnings. And NLSI scientists have shown that the far 

side of the Moon is an ideal astrophysics laboratory for observing 

a time in the history of the universe not previously seen—after the 

Big Bang, but beyond the reach of any visible or infrared telescope. 

Observations of this era of the universe—the so-called “Dark Ages” 

—will trace life’s origins to a point beyond their very beginning, the 

formation of the first stars.

While pushing scientific boundaries, NLSI also pushed boundaries in the way science is done. With its national and international 

teams, NLSI has always had a challenge to connect scientists. As 

with the other Ames virtual institutes, NLSI lies in the middle of 

Silicon Valley and through its many partnerships, employs the 

best in new collaborative methods and technologies. 

Being a virtual organization, much if not most of NLSI’s business 

(and now SSERVI’s) is focused on external organizations, and the 

central office is aided greatly by its location in the middle of the 

NASA Research Park (NRP). NLSI has also sponsored projects and 

efforts within the NRP—examples include the Lunar Regolith 

Excavation Challenge in 2009, part of the Centennial Challenges 

program, as well as the ongoing Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery 

Project housed in the former McDonald’s, which is bringing nearly 

2,000 old Lunar Orbiter images from the 1960s to a greatly heightened clarity.

NLSI EXPANDS INTO SSERVI

With the Obama administration came a new strategy for NASA, 

based on the “flexible path” for human exploration of the Solar 

System. Although still a major target, the Moon is no longer the 

only one—Near Earth Asteroids, as well as (somewhat further 

along the line) the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos, are new 

and important destinations on the path toward eventual human 

exploration of Mars. Because of this, the NASA HQ sponsors of NLSI 

decided that its scientific emphasis should expand as well, to also 

include these Solar System objects. NLSI officially transitioned into 

the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) 

in July 2013, under the direction of Yvonne Pendleton, who had 

assumed the position of NLSI director in July 2010. SSERVI recently 

announced selection of its first teams and will be initiating science 

operations in February 2014. NASA HQ intends SSERVI to be an 

institute for decades to come as the agency forges ahead addressing the many scientific challenges in human exploration of the 

Solar System.

The Moon remains a critically important destination for NASA—for 

both exploration and science. The NLSI has had a major impact in 

all aspects of lunar science, both from the work it funded and the 

national and international community it supported. 

NLSI PI David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in 

Houston perhaps put it best when he said, at the 2012 Lunar Science Forum, that “lunar science has changed more in the last 3 

years than in the previous 30.” The more we study the Moon, the 

more questions are raised—and the more fascinating our cosmic 

companion becomes.

NLSI cont’d from page 4

Deputy Director Greg Schmidt

Former American astronaut, and the second person to walk on the 

Moon, Buzz Aldrin (right) talks with Ames staff about the future of 

lunar science. 

Photo by Teague Soderman
www.nasa.gov/researchpark 23

NRP Post

Dr. Philip Low, Founder, Chairman & CEO, 

NeuroVigil, Inc.

NeuroVigil Opens Satellite Research Lab at NASA to Develop Assistive Technologies for ALS

NeuroVigil, Inc. is setting to collaborate with 

a number of partners in the Silicon Valley 

where it is opening a satellite research laboratory at NASA Research Park in Mountain 

View, CA, to develop assistive technologies 

for individuals suffering from ALS and other 

conditions affecting the central nervous 

system. “We thank NASA for this wonderful 

opportunity and are excited to tap into the 

resonant energy, sense of urgency, innovation and consumer expertise of Silicon 

Valley and to provide talented individuals 

with impactful careers which contribute to 

the public good,” said NeuroVigil’s Founder, 

Chairman and CEO, Dr. Philip Low.

Based on Dr. Low’s PhD research in Computational Neuroscience which yielded a 

mathematical framework to convert singlechannel sleep and waking encephalography 

(EEG) into high-resolution maps of brain 

activity, NeuroVigil was able to create a 

wireless neurotechnology platform including an ultra-light device called the iBrainTM 

for comfortable at home EEG monitoring, 

and sophisticated algorithms to analyze the 

data and extract a bank of drug and pathology biomarkers. Since 2009, the Pharmaceutical Industry and elite academic institutions 

have made use of this neurotechnology 

platform to better characterize brain 

activity in response to compounds or 

neuropathologies.

In 2011, a kitchen table conversation 

between Dr. Low, and Dr. Stephen Hawking inspired Dr. Low to apply his technology for assistive purposes, including to 

enable patients with ALS to interact with 

their environment. “Dr. Low and his company have done some outstanding work in 

this field and I am pleased to be invited to 

collaborate with him and his colleagues,” 

said Dr. Hawking. Dr. Low unveiled preliminary results from his collaboration with 

Dr. Hawking at the Francis Crick Memorial 

Conference in Cambridge, UK, in 2012, 

which Dr. Hawking attended as a guest of 

honor during the signing ceremony of the 

Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, a 

document formally rejecting the Cartesian 

assumption that Consciousness is a phenomenon restricted to human experience 

alone. Additional results from the NeuroVigil 

study may be announced at Dr. Low’s upcoming keynote address at Israel’s First Brain 

Technology Conference.

The clinical trial on mind enabled communication for people living with ALS began 

in Philadelphia in 2012, with the participation of Dr. Terry Heiman-Patterson, Director 

of the MDA/ALS Center of Hope, funded 

by the ALS Hope Foundation. “My dream 

has always been to take the technology 

that is available in the here and now and 

apply that to improve the quality of life for 

people living with ALS and other disabilities. The potential of the iBrain to allow for 

more effective communication, to allow for 

interfacing with environmental control and 

to provide potential biomarkers to track 

treatments brings that dream close to 

a reality. The impact will be immeasurable for people living with ALS...” said Dr. 

Heiman-Patterson.

NeuroVigil will keep its headquarters in La 

Jolla and will continue outreach efforts to 

veterans and Autism and ALS communities 

in Southern California, including work with 

Mr. Augie Nieto who was introduced to Dr. 

Low by Qualcomm’s Chairman and CEO, Dr. 

Paul Jacobs. Mr. Nieto is the Founder of Life 

Fitness, the Chief Inspirational Officer of 

Augie’s Quest, the co-chairman with his wife 

Lynne of the ALS division of the Muscular 

Dystrophy Association, having raised nearly 

$40 million for ALS research and the Chairman of the ALS Therapy Development Institute in Cambridge, a world leading ALS center with over 50 employees and nearly 40 

scientists entirely dedicated to ALS research. 

The collaboration was recently highlighted 

in the New York Times and in Through the 

Wormhole with Morgan Freeman where 

Mr. Nieto said: “The biggest fear for someone with ALS is to be not able to communicate! That is called being locked in. With the 

iBrain, I will never, never be locked in!”

Upon hearing the news of NeuroVigil’s 

NASA satellite lab, Ekso Bionics co-Founder 

and CEO, Nathan Harding, said: “At Ekso 

Bionics, we consider the brain-machine 

interface to be the eventual destination of 

human eksoskeleton interface technology. 

So, it is very exciting to see one of the major 

players in the field establishing a base in the 

Bay Area for collaboration.”

Source: NeuroVigil

a group of students (including Harper’s 

kids Chris, Casey, and Travis) who helped 

us wash down 1960’s electronics, which 

helped them to gain an understanding of 

the robustness of old technology vs the 

fragility of their smart phones. Another 

student who started with us in 2008 as a 

summer intern from San Jose State who has 

now graduated and matured into an amazingly competent engineer is Austin Epps. 

Neulyn Moss represents our new generation of students. She began with 

us when she was in high school and is now 

studying physics at Foothill College. She is 

working to develop our methods of finding 

new craters using the difference between 

LROC NAC images and our Lunar Orbiter 

high resolution images.

So where are we now with the project? 

Keeping a 47 year old tape drive operational that is older than 50% of the American 

population has been just as hard as making 

Lunar Image cont’d from page 5

Lunar Image cont’d on page 24

Dennis 

Wingo’s book, 

Moon Rush:

Improving life 

On Earth with 

the Moon’s 

Resources
NRP Post

Editor, Layout and Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carol Le

Phone: (650) 604-2NRP

Email: arc-dl-nrp-post@mail.nasa.gov

Website: www.nasa.gov/researchpark

LOIRP Copernicus Mosiac Displayed on the Ames Hyperwall 2

Dennis Wingo in front of the Ames Hyperwall 2

Lunar Image cont’d from page 23

Ken Zin, Major the Boxer Dog and student intern Jacob Gold work on 

the equipment at the Lunar Tapes Lab

it operational. Funding has also been a challenge. This was never a 

truly sanctioned NASA project though we have brought an amazing amount of positive publicity to the agency. We have persisted 

with a mix of some headquarters funding, some in kind support 

from Ames (McMoons itself), and recently we raised a total of over 

$65,000 dollars through a crowd funding effort that has kept us 

going this year.

As far as tapes go, we have completed the capture of all of the 

300+ tapes from Lunar Orbiter II, the 300+ tapes from Lunar 

Orbiter III, and we are more than half way through the 478 tapes 

from Lunar Orbiter V. We have a few tapes captured from the other 

two missions (Lunar Orbiter I, and IV). We currently are running between 5-15 tapes per day and hope to finish Lunar Orbiter V by the 

end of September, if our precious heads that read the tape hold 

out. It is our goal to have all of the tapes done by the end of the 

year and then complete the process of turning over 50 terabytes of 

raw image data into finished images, both of which will go to the 

Planetary Data System (PDS) for everyone to have access to. The 

images are also available on the NASA Lunar Science Institute’s 

(Now the SSERVI) web site. Links to everything are also on our own 

site www.moonviews.com. A quasi daily progress report is also posted.

We also have some recent “wow” images to report. Epps took 

several Lunar Orbiter V images and turned it into the largest high 

resolution mosaic of the Moon ever made, over 23 gigabytes. 

This image last week was provided to the NASA Ames Hyperwall 2 

team and it was displayed on their 8x16 monitor hyperwall. 

Austin informs us that if this image was shown at its native resolution, it would take 50 hyperwall 2 size displays. The image is of 

about 45% of the floor of the famous lunar crater Copernicus, at 2 

meter resolution! 

So if you want to see the Moon in a way that we wish we could 

have seen it almost 50 years ago visit the website and track our 

progress and see our images! This adventure in technoarcheology 

would have never been possible without the unique character of 

Ames and the characters here who have been immensely supportive of our effort. The images will be used to form the basis of 

maps of the Moon and used to document the state of the Moon in 

the 1960’s before industrial development and the cities where 50 

million people now live. Oh, wait a minute that was from Star Trek 

in the 24th century. Don’t we wish....