National Aeronautics and Space Administration

A publication of NASA Research Park

NRP POST The

Spring 2012

CEO Bruno Kajiyama founded 

Photozig, Inc. in March 2002 with 

a vision to empower users through 

great products that save, organize 

and share lifetime memories. One 

of the earliest industry partners in 

NASA Research Park, Photozig has 

been doing research and development in Bldg. 19 since 2002.

Photozig’s projects include developing products inspired by NASA 

missions, like the new PepBlast 

Galaxy gaming app with space 

themes, and Pepcast web site 

(www.pepcast.com), a unique photo 

sharing service open to the public 

in 2009, after initially hosting pictures for Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2008. 

In 2008 Pepcast provided a virtual 

community for thousands of attendees celebrating our space heritage 

at NASA Ames Research Center and 

around the world. Pepcast photo 

sharing allows personalized skins, 

easy album organization, community 

capabilities and elegant slideshows.

Bruno Kajiyama, 

Founder and CEO, Photozig, Inc.

Photozig cont’d on page 3

Photozig–New Apps, Training 

Programs and a Webnovela

by NRP Staff 

N-CITE cont’d on page 3

The NASA Ames Center for 

Innovation and Technology 

Enhancement (N-CITE) has 

been established to facilitate 

communication and enable 

more collaboration between 

NASA Ames Research Center 

(ARC) and residents of NASA 

Research Park (NRP). One 

reason companies locate in 

the NRP is that they want the 

opportunity to collaborate 

with one of Silicon Valley’s 

innovation engines, NASA’s 

energetic, most out-of-the-box 

center.  Ames, in turn, welcomes 

the proximity of companies 

who are doing interesting, 

cutting-edge R&D. Many NRP 

N-CITE Set to Enhance NASA-NRP Collaborations

by Ingrid Desilvestre

Program Executive

Offi ce of the Center Chief Technologist

U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren Visits NASA Research Park

John Hines, Chief Technologist at NASA Ames 

Research Center: “We hope that N-CITE will 

provide a forum to facilitate these potential 

teamings, and maximize the potential and 

effi ciencies of all involved.” 

U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren with NASA Ames Center Director Pete Worden and Bloom 

Energy’s Josh Richman, Vice President of Business Development, toured Bloom Energy’s 

facility at NASA Research Park March 13, 2012. Lofgren represents California's 16th district 

which encompasses most of San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley. 
2 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

CONTENTS

All One Quantum Energy Research, Inc. 

Bldg. 19, Room 2025

Commencement 2/1/12

All One Quantum Energy Research, Inc. performs research 

and development in the fi eld of Quantum Medicine. Their 

mainline product, QRS (Quantum Resonance Spectrometer), is a device to automatically gather information from cells in the human body and 

determine environmental changes before diseases strike. Their concept is to combine 

research in quantum physics and medical fi elds to develop preventive medicine. This technology has been extensively used in hospitals in Japan, Taiwan and China to study the 

predetermination of cardiovascular, cancer, heart and other diseases.

Neerim Corporation

Bldg. 19, Rm. 2089

Commencement 4/1/12

Neerim Corporation relocated their Mountain View headquarters to NRP for collaboration 

with NASA. Neerim provides systems engineering services for numerous NASA projects, including support for Lockheed Martin’s prime contract to build the Orion spacecraft, 

a crewed vehicle for exploration beyond Earth orbit. Neerim is involved in the design and 

manufacture of Orion’s thermal protection system. Neerim also supports GSFC and Ames 

in a study to reconstruct the ViTAL mission, requiring an end-to-end mission design. This study 

is partly funded by Center Innovation Funds under Ames Offi ce of Chief Technologist. 

CMU Expands into Building 19

NRPWelcomes

CMU-SV continues their campus expansion in NASA Research Park, adding 6,406 s.f. in Bldg. 19 on 

March 1, 2012. Over the last 6 months they have acquired 12,418 total s.f. in Bldg. 19.

N-CITE to Enhance NASA NRP

Collaborations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Photozig–New Apps, 

Programs, & Webnovela. . . . . 1

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

CMUSV Tenth Anniversary . . . 3

Singularity University Brings in 

Gabriel Baldinucci . . . . . . . . . . 4

NASA Awards Moon Express 

New Task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Moon Express: A New Breed of 

Space Explorers . . . . . . . . . . . 6

AAC Microtec & Ames’ First 

Plug-and-Play Compatible 

Spacecraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Ray Kurzweil Talks About 

‘Singularity’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

GaryAir Participates in Technical 

Interchange Meeting . . . . . . . 8

NASA and CMUSV Host 

“Big Data Management” . . . . 9

Is Vasper Really the Exercise of 

the Future? . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

NRP Lecture Series Hosts

Disaster Resiliency Panel . . . 14

STC Sponsors First Journal of 

Small Satellites . . . . . . . . . 17

STC’s Science and Technology 

International Education 

Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Taksha University Courses . . 17

In Memoriam: Rich Davies . . . 18
3 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Photozig cont’d from page 1

N-CITE cont’d from page 1

Photozig cont’d on page 4

PepBlast Galaxy App, developed by Photozig, has been released to Apple 

App Store and Android Market/Google Play.

PepBlast Galaxy is an educational casual gaming app, featuring 

videos created by NASA about galaxies and space exploration, 

music games and cool songs. Featured NASA videos have educational information on galaxies, research and space exploration. The app combines short easy games with space themes 

and music, where users hit objects following song beats. PepBlast Galaxy App is available at Apple App Store (for iPhone and 

iPad) and Google Play (for Android smartphones and tablets).

2012 Marks the 10th Anniversary of CMUSV!

Join us on Saturday, June 9, 2012 to celebrate the rich 

history of CMU and its impact on the west coast! We will 

host the 10th anniversary event on the campus at Moffett 

Field beginning at 3:30 PM.

All attendees are welcome to participate in the festivities:

3:30-4:15 Looking Back and Moving Ahead with CMU 

 President Dr. Jared L. Cohon and 

 Provost Dr. Mark Kamlet

4:15-4:30 Time Capsule Ceremony

4:30-5:30 Technology Showcase

5:30-7:00 Reception

Register at http://goo.gl/Hx608

Silicon Valley Campus Celebrates Ten Years 

of Developing Software Leaders

collaborations have already led to technology acceleration 

for a number of companies, bringing their products to market 

sooner and creating new jobs for the American people.  In fact, 

five companies that started in the NRP with a piece of paper 

and some IP are now employing thousands in Silicon Valley. 

N-CITE, by physically locating in the NRP (Bldg. 19 Room 

2069), aims to make it easier to increase mutually beneficial 

collaborations between NASA ARC researchers and the NRP 

partners, both academic and commercial sectors. The result 

will both contribute substantively to the NASA mission and 

foster increased private sector innovation. N-CITE will pursue 

multidisciplinary, product-oriented technology development 

and applications through collaborations. Areas of interest 

include but are not limited to space biology and life sciences 

research and associated technologies, green technologies, 

small spacecraft and science instruments for small missions, 

high-confidence software and systems, and cyber-physical 

systems modeling and analysis.

Led by Ames Chief Technology Officer John Hines, N-CITE 

will explicitly attempt to break down organizational barriers 

and encourage multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary 

collaboration.  This will be done via technology interchanges 

and invited seminars to gauge the suitability and interest of 

selected parties for a particular collaboration or simply to boost 

the visibility of certain technology activities. Where specific 

areas of mutual interest are identified, N-CITE plans to translate 

these into concrete, practical collaborations allowing for the 

focused transfer of technology and the joint development of 

new technologies.  In some cases, interested parties can partner 

on proposals in response to NASA and other opportunities. 

Informal meetings (drop by) are encouraged by CTO Hines and 

the co-location in NRP Building 19, home to many start ups, 

was selected for that opportunity. 

CTO Hines perceives the NRP as a key enabler of NASA’s 

new technology focus, that continues to disseminate NASA 

technology and ideas, while welcoming the best ideas from 

industry and universities through collaborations in the NRP. 

Ultimately, N-CITE will create enabling technologies that 

advance NASA’s bold new missions, infuse aeronautics and 

space technologies into the commercial sector, and help drive 

the next wave of aerospace innovation.
4 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Singularity University (SU) has announced the appointment of 

Gabriel Baldinucci, an experienced entrepreneur, investor, and 

former Virgin Group executive, as Vice President of Strategy and 

New Venture Development.

Mr. Baldinucci will be responsible for the development and 

leadership of a new venture, SU Labs, while also working closely 

with CEO Rob Nail to direct overall strategy for Singularity 

University. SU Labs will be the center for SU’s work “after the 

classroom” and will encompass faculty and alumni research, 

new company generation and incubation, and innovation 

services for larger companies around the world.

“We are very excited to have Gabriel as a senior member of the 

Singularity University team. His experience developing new 

ventures is a perfect fit for SU as we expand our offerings beyond 

education and into the realm of catalyzing and mentoring 

projects and companies around the globe to tackle the grand 

challenges that face humanity,” said Singularity University CEO 

Rob Nail. “Gabriel also brings a passionate, entrepreneurial 

spirit that is great to addition to the SU community.”

Singularity University Brings in Gabriel Baldinucci, Former Virgin Group Executive and Entrepreneur, 

to Lead Overall Strategy and New Venture Development, Including SU Labs

Mountain View, CA 

February 7, 2012

“Creating, incubating and financing companies able to 

positively affect the lives of a billion people is a central element 

of SU’s vision. We call this 10^9+ impact,” said Dr. Peter H. 

Diamandis, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder. “This will be 

Gabriel’s key focus at SU Labs. His previous experience at Virgin 

is perfect to expand our successes during the past three years 

and help take this University to scale.”

“This is not going to be a typical incubator,” said Baldinucci. 

“We are building an innovative platform that will put our new 

SU companies alongside leading R&D teams from around the 

world, along with our incredible faculty. We will work across a 

company’s full life cycle in a way that helps people at different 

stages bring unique value to each other.”

Baldinucci was most recently a Managing Director at Palm 

Ventures in Greenwich, CT, where he focused on a broad range 

of industries with an emphasis on consumer services.

Previously, Mr. Baldinucci was a Vice President of Corporate 

Development at Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, where 

new Virgin companies are developed and launched. During 

his five years with Virgin, Baldinucci often worked directly 

with Mr. Branson and conceived and developed new business 

opportunities in health & wellness, travel, retail, IT services, 

and media. Prior to joining Virgin, Mr. Baldinucci consulted 

for several startup companies and also spent two years with 

Goldman Sachs’ Investment Management Division in New York.

Baldinucci started his entrepreneurial career in high school 

by founding and successfully selling a local pizza restaurant 

chain. He has been quoted in Forbes Magazine and his work 

on entrepreneurship has been published by the Family Office 

Association. He is personally an investor or advisor for several 

startup companies and he holds a BA in Economics from Duke 

University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School 

of Business.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this April, Mr. Kajiyama shares 

a few exciting projects and products from the company: 

“We began developing digital image systems to organize 

photos back in 2002, and saw the potential for applying digital pictures and videos to many areas. We have completed 

projects in special education, training programs, consumer 

software and online systems. We are fond of NASA themes, 

such as space exploration, Kepler’s extrasolar planet discoveries and other missions. Recently, we have been doing 

more media production, online services and mobile apps.”

Photozig cont’d from page 3

Photozig cont’d on page 13

“Photozig has also worked on healthcare-related products

/services with the goal of helping families around the country. 

With Stanford University and the Alzheimer’s Association, we 

are developing more applications for Alzheimer’s care. Some 

of our research projects on healthcare applications have been 

funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), such as LifeZig 

and iCare. LifeZig was our first NIH-funded project, which 

allowed us to determine appropriate technologies, user interfaces and design factors to develop programs for Alzheimer’s 
5 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

by Bob Richards

Mountain View, CA 

March 5, 2012

Moon Express, a Google Lunar X PRIZE 

contender, announced March 5 that 

it has won an additional task order 

from NASA under its Innovative Lunar 

Demonstration Data (ILDD) Program 

contract. The newest task order in the 

$10M ILDD contract calls for Moon 

Express to provide NASA with data 

about the company’s progress through 

a Preliminary Design Checkpoint Technical Package that documents details of 

mission operations, spacecraft development, payload accommodations and 

Planetary Protection Plans.

Silicon Valley-based Moon Express was 

one of only three U.S. companies 

awarded the first $500K Task Order under NASA’s ILDD program. Successful 

completion of the newest task order 

will bring the company’s ILDD awards to 

$610,000. Although an important substantiation of NASA’s interest in commercial lunar providers, the ILDD contract 

represents a fraction of the investment 

needed to execute a commercial lunar 

mission. The majority of Moon Express 

funding is coming from private investors 

and is supplemented by revenues from 

payload customers.

“We are very pleased to receive another 

ILDD contract award from NASA,” said 

Bob Richards, co-founder and CEO of 

Moon Express. “NASA is an important 

partner in our reach for the Moon.”

Moon Express is the first company to 

flight test a prototype lunar lander system designed for the Moon, developed 

in partnership with NASA. The company 

plans to send a series of robotic spacecraft to the Moon for ongoing exploration 

and commercial development focused 

on benefits to Earth. In the near future, 

Moon Express will not only be delivering important payloads to the Moon, but 

will also be exploring the Moon for the 

potential mining of precious elements 

we need here on Earth like platinum 

group metals, rare earth elements and 

Helium-3 (used to create a second generation fusion fuel for electrical generation).

Moon Express is adapting NASA’s 

Common Spacecraft Bus for use in 

small, low cost spacecraft designed to 

deliver payloads to a variety of locations, 

including lunar orbit and the lunar 

surface, Low Earth Orbit (LEO), EarthMoon Lagrange points, and Near Earth 

Objects (NEOs). The Common Spacecraft 

Bus allows the company to design lowcost missions, launch on a variety of 

commercial rockets and deliver flexible 

payloads to the lunar surface and 

various orbits. Moon Express signed a 

Reimbursable Space Act Agreement 

with NASA in 2010 to invest over 

$500K into the commercialization of 

the agency’s technology in return for 

technical assistance.

NASA Awards Moon Express New Task in $10M Commercial Lunar Data Contract

The Moon Express team

Lunar Landar Vehicle (LTV)
6 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) and 

the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB), 

with NRP Partner AAC Microtec, presented 

the outcomes of the first bilateral 

nanosatellite cooperation between the 

two entities at the 9th Annual Spring 

CubeSat Workshop held April 18-20 at San 

Lois Obispo, CA. 

The collaboration resulted in ARC’s first 

plug-and-play compatible spacecraft, an 

1U CubeSat called TechEdSat which is built 

around AAC Microtec’s Rapid Integration 

ArchitectureTM (RIA) framework. The RIA 

framework is compatible with the AFRL 

developed Space Plug-and-Play Avionics 

(SPA) standard. AAC Microtec developed 

and supplied the spacecraft avionics and 

supported the software development 

throughout the execution. 

AAC Microtec North America is now established at NASA Research Park and is 

gearing up to bring state-of-the-art, radiaAmes’ First Plug-and-Play Compatible Spacecraft built on NRP’s AAC Microtec Framework

by AAC Microtec Staff

Jorge Freyer, CEO of AAC Microtec 

North America Inc., provided strategic guidance on expanding businesses globally through alliances 

and product expansion. He has been 

an executive of several companies; 

amongst them GE and Sony, as well 

as co-founder of startup companies 

that debut in the public markets in 

the US and in Europe. He headed 

several M&A activities as a partner at 

Hultquist Capital. He holds a graduate degree in Engineering from Stanford University.

tion tolerant, and affordable small space 

systems to the global market based on 

successful collaboration with ARC, the US 

Air Force Research Laboratory, and a fast 

growing customer base.

In addition, AAC has delivered many 

Rapid Integration ArchitectureTM (RIA) 

plug-and-play compatible subsystems 

to the Tohoku University built microsatellite RISESAT, including onboard 

computers (OBC LiteTM 52X), 8 payload 

interfaces (DPCU-221X, μRTUTM 31X), 16 

GB non-volatile mass memory (M16E1), 

and the main payload power system 

(MPDU 151X).

“AAC Microtec North America is in getting 

many requests on our space systems 

capabilities and unique products. We 

expect to see a significant growth of 

the company in the coming year,” says 

Jorge Freyer, CEO of AAC Microtec North 

America Inc.

Moon Express cont’d on page 10

Mountain View’s Moon Express Introduces a New Breed of Space Explorers

Mountain View’s Moon Express is a new breed of space explorers. 

They are sending a craft to the Moon because they think they can.

by Rod Bastanmehr

Metroactive

February 15, 2012 

At 22, Brandon Plaster finds himself part of a project that could, 

in theory, redefine how we view not only lunar research and 

space travel. And where the buttoned-up Houston control 

engineer of yesteryear, with his black-framed, horn-rimmed 

Moon Express CEO Bob Richards

glasses and pocket protector firmly in place, pulled off one 

of the greatest human accomplishments of the 20th century, 

the next great American hero may look nothing like them. 

They may just look like Brandon. 

If successful, Brandon and his cohorts wouldn’t just be 

revitalizing America’s lunar relationship; they could also help 

make the dream of clean energy an actual reality. They could 

finally bring about the seemingly eons-touted concept of 

commercial flights to the nether regions of space. And in 

doing so could make America a dominant presence in space 

exploration and innovation—again. 

The company that Brandon finds himself in (or, more accurately, 

that found Brandon) is Moon Express, located in Building 19 in 

the NASA Research Park. MoonEx, as it is often called, is one 

of 26 companies currently vying to win the Google Lunar X 

PRIZE (GLXP). 
7 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Ray Kurzweil believes computers will 

soon think like humans and ultimately 

merge with us, a notion he has dubbed 

“the singularity.”

That idea persuaded the former inventor 

in 2007 to form Singularity University, an 

institution housed at the NASA Research 

Park on Moffett Field in Mountain View, 

which teaches students about artificial 

intelligence and other topics straight out 

of science fiction.

While the institution isn’t accredited 

and offers short programs rather than 

a four-year degree, it has attracted 

lecturers and advisers such as Autodesk 

Inc. Chief Executive Carl Bass and Google 

Inc. Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf. 

The notion of the singularity previously 

spawned the Singularity Institute, an 

artificial-intelligence research group in 

San Francisco.

Mr. Kurzweil’s artificial-intelligence 

theories have made him something of 

a lightning rod among Silicon Valley 

technologists. He draws praise and 

funding from the likes of Google cofounder and CEO Larry Page and investor 

Peter Thiel. But others such as Microsoft 

Corp. co-founder Paul Allen and Lotus 

1-2-3 designer Mitch Kapor dismiss Mr. 

Kurzweil’s ideas, arguing, in part, that the 

way humans process information may 

not be analogous to how computers do 

so, which means human consciousness 

can’t necessarily be reproduced digitally.

Mr. Kurzweil, 64 years old, who lives in 

the suburbs of Boston and regularly 

travels to the Bay Area for his work at the 

university and institute, discussed his 

predictions and his status as a polarizing 

figure in a recent interview:

WSJ: There are plenty of universities in 

the Bay Area that teach computer science, neuroscience, all the fields you’re 

exploring at Singularit y University. 

What kind of gap does Singularity University fill?

Mr. Kurzweil: There are lots of universities that teach this subject matter in a 

traditional way, basically looking at the 

current state of knowledge. Singularity

University is really devoted to underRay Kurzweil Talks About ‘Singularity’ and Theory’s Critics

by Vauhini Vara

The Wall Street Journal

February 22, 2012

standing the phenomenon of exponential growth and how that is transforming 

one field after another. Computation and 

communication are obvious ones, but 

biology, health and medicine are others. 

The point is that health and medicine are 

now information technologies, and once 

an area becomes an information technology it progresses exponentially and 

not linearly.

The other key difference is that the students learn primarily through learning: 

The students self-organize into teams 

and take on some world challenge and 

start a project intended to last a long 

time. One project is to provide inexpensive housing for the developing world by 

building houses Lego-style using threedimensional printing.

WSJ: What do you expect the most 

prominent companies in Silicon Valley to 

be making in 20 years?

Mr. Kurzweil: There are several different 

fields that are quite revolutionary. One 

area is biotechnology technologies to 

really change the information processes 

underlying our bodies to program our 

bodies away from diseases and aging. 

You and I are walking around with outdated technology in our bodies. Twenty 

years from now, we’ll really have a way to 

radically change those processes.

Another area is artificial intelligence. 

Twenty years from now you won’t have 

to ask computers for help. The computer 

will be listening in on you and determining what you need. And we’ll have virtual 

reality you and I could have sat together 

in a virtual living room or taken a virtual 

walk on a Mediterranean beach.

WSJ: You have some famous proponents 

in the Bay Area, but you also have some 

vocal critics like Mitch Kapor and Paul

Allen. Can you respond to the idea that 

the brain’s workings are so different 

Singularity cont’d on page 8

Dr. Ray Kurzweil, Chancellor and co-founder with Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, of Singularity University. Kurzweil is an American author, scientist, inventor and futurist involved in fields such as optical 

character recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology and electronic keyboard instruments. 
8 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Carnegie Mellon University alumni and NASA HQ Chief of Staff David 

Radzanowski, visited CMU-Silicon Valley on February 9, 2012. (L-R) 

Steven Rosenberg, Associate Director, CMUSV; David Radzanowski, 

NASA Chief of Staff; Ole Mengshoel, Associate Research Professor, 

Director of the Intelligent and High-Performing Systems Lab, CMU-SV; 

Sylvia Leong, CMU-SV; Director of External Relations and Admissions, 

CMU-SV; Hector Rastrullo, Director Business and Finance.

from that of a computer that they would be impossible 

to simulate? 

Mr. Kurzweil: My critics are thinking linearly and imagining 

continued linear progress, but that’s not true. [Progress will 

be] exponential: It makes an enormous difference. People 

also say the brain is too complex. Well, it’s a complicated 

area, but there’s a tremendous amount of redundancy—

the complexity is more apparent than real. It’s a level of 

complexity that we can handle.

WSJ: Where is the most interesting artificial-intelligence 

research taking place?

Mr. Kurzweil: This type of research is being done all 

over the world. The most sophisticated is being done 

in the United States, most significantly in Silicon Valley. 

Larry Page has a strong personal interest in AI. Search 

engines are going to understand what you mean 

and not just look at words. Look at Watson [the IBM 

computer that won Jeopardy]. It dealt with questions 

that were extremely subtle, dealt with puns, innuendo 

and metaphors. 

Printed with permission of The Wall Street Journal

Singularity cont’d from page 7

GaryAir in Single Pilot Operations 

Technical Interchange Meeting 

By Dave Guerrieri, 

V.P. Business Development, GaryAir

Break Out Group 3 at Ames' Flight Deck Display Research Lab 

Technical Interchange Meeting including (L-R) Josh Kraut, San 

Jose State University; Greg Potter, Cessna Aircraft Company; 

Leigh-lu Prasse, ARINC; Dave Guerrieri, GaryAir; Mike Feary, 

NASA Ames; Fred Rudolph, Rockwell Collins; Joel Lachter, San 

Jose State University; and Sergio Pizziol, SUPAERO.

Ames’ Flight Deck Display Research Lab hosted a Technical 

Interchange Meeting April 10th–12th to ask industry, 

academic, and research experts how best to improve the 

safety of aircraft operated with one pilot. Attendees also 

considered when, if ever, further advances might permit 

additional operations of this type in other categories of 

aircraft. Large air transport passenger aircraft might never 

be flown with less than two pilots. Cargo aircraft might 

have a reduced number of aircrew sooner than passenger 

planes. Some believe cargo planes might someday 

fly without a pilot at all. Today many small aircraft are 

flown with only one pilot. Therefore research in this area 

will improve the safety of those operations right away. 

Many military aircraft are also flown with only one pilot. 

System improvements to help single pilot operations, as 

they are called, will likely improve the systems for multi 

pilot crews too, because automation for one pilot must 

be very easy to use. Dave Guerrieri of GaryAir Air Taxi, a 

NASA Research Park Partner, contributed to the meeting 

as an industry participant and subject matter expert. 
9 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post NRP Post

On April 5, 2012, NASA Research Park 

(NRP) hosted a NRP partner Carnegie 

Mellon University-Silicon Valley (CMU-SV) 

led event in NRP Building 152 Conference 

Center. Over 300 guests attended the 

“Big Data Management for Energy and 

Smart Grid—Creating the Real-Time Utility Enterprise” evening presentations. The 

organizers’ goal was to encourage collaboration between companies, Ivy League 

engineering and business schools to 

explore opportunities to build relationships and companies to address 

challenges faced by energy and smart 

grid sectors.

According to event organizer Krishna 

Bheemanadham, California’s electric 

grid is getting a 21st century facelift. The 

three biggest utilities, PG&E, SDG&E and 

SCE (with more than 11 million customer 

accounts) released smart grid deployment plans outlining roughly between 

$2.4 and $3.6 billion of new investments 

to make the smart grid a reality by 2020.

With storage, analytics, virtualization and 

security on the cusp of a big data boom 

in the energy sector, CMU-SV and CMU 

Alumni association organized the evening focused on big data management 

in the energy sector. Presenters discussed 

the rapid changes and opportunities in 

the domestic and international energy 

data market, gathering leaders in software technology as well as energy. These 

leaders are dedicated to creating the big 

data management solutions needed to 

convert smart grid into success stories 

around the world.

Through presentations and panels the 

audience was informed about regulation, economics, technology and innovation, investments, business, markets 

and players in energy-related big data 

management today; and the expected 

development within the next decades. 

Dr. Steven Zornetzer, NASA Ames 

Associate Center Director, briefed the 

guests on NASA Ames’ new “smart building” named Sustainability Base, which 

recently received its official Platinum 

LEEDS designation. Dr. Nancy Ryan, 

Deputy Executive Director, California 

Public Utilities Commission and Bradley 

Williams, VP Industrial Strategy, Oracle 

Utilities gave keynote presentations, 

and an expert panel led by CMU-SV 

Distinguished Research Fellow Dr. Steven 

Ray, discussed wide-ranging potential 

impacts. Dr. Martin Griss also briefed 

attendees on the overall CMU-SV 

program and NRP Director Michael 

Marlaire presented the NRP partnerships 

and purposes.

Speakers and attendees discussed the 

role of policies and incentives in building the big data management market 

for the energy sector, the definition and 

advancement of best practices in smart 

grid data management operations and 

R&D, and what is needed to truly deliver 

valuable big data management solutions 

to the stakeholders from power generation via transmission and distribution 

to power consumption. According to 

Bheemanadham, “NASA and CMU-SV received great respect from all attendees 

for having organized such a great event. 

Participants gave good feedback, formed 

new friendships, and most stayed well 

after the event discussing details and exchanging information.”

NASA and CMUSV Host “Big Data Management for Energy and Smart Grid”

by Michael Marlaire

(L-R) Krishna Bheemanadham, VP CMU Alumni Association and Arvind Jain, Director, Oracle Corporation, organizers of the event, with guest speakers Drs. Martin Griss, Director CMU-SV and Steve 

Zornetzer, NASA Ames Associate Center Director.

NASA’s Dr. Steve Zornetzer 

presents Ames’ new smart 

building, Sustainability Base. 
10 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Bob McDonnell, the Governor of Virginia, speaks with Bloom Energy’s 

Josh Richman, Vice President of Business Development, while 

touring NASA Research Park on March 26, 2012. 

Moon Express cont’d from page 6

Moon Express cont’d on page 13

(R-L) NRP's Tim Collins, KleenSpeed President/Founder and Chairman, 

briefs VA Governor Bob McDonnell and Ames Center Director Pete 

Worden March 28, 2012 on KleenSpeed's all electric Miata, dubbed 

the EIATA.

The GLXP is organized by the X PRIZE Foundation and 

sponsored by Google, and carries with it a secondary 

moniker—”Moon 2.0”—which speaks volumes about 

the intention of both its participants and the project. 

The competition itself comes with a fairly specific set of 

rules: Teams win $20 million if they are the first to land 

a robot on the Moon and have it travel 500 meters and 

transmit data and high-definition images back to Earth. 

Second-place teams win $5 million, and all teams have 

the chance to win additional prizes by completing tasks 

beyond the competition’s basic requirements—tasks 

such as photographing the hardware remains of prior 

Apollo missions and other man-made objects currently 

residing on the Moon, or surviving a lunar night. 

The contest will award $1 million to teams that display 

purposeful ethnic diversity, and an additional $2 

million to teams that launch the mission from the 

state of Florida. These incentives give every startup 

team a chance to nab a cool $30 million if it meets the 

competition’s 2015 deadline. 

The journey started for Brandon when he was a 

student at the University of Rochester. His chance 

knowledge of the Open Scenes Graph software 

nabbed him a summer internship with NASA at the 

Langley Research Center in Virginia. The internship 

led to a NASA-prompted iPhone app-making contest, 

which he won, which led to an internship spot at 

Ames Research Center in Mountain View. It was at 

Ames that Brandon would first begin to work with 

the Moon in mind. “The basic idea of the summer 

program was to make a Moon rover that went along 

with this landing system that NASA was working 

towards a while ago, that they stopped working on 

and was eventually taken over by a private company,” 

he explains. 

Still, even Brandon wasn’t entirely confident that the 

seemingly regular folks (which is to say, anyone who 

isn’t, quite literally, a rocket scientist) would be able 

to craft anything on par with Apollo. “We were just 

developing this rover for that project, and that was 

honestly it. It never occurred to me, nor anyone else on 

the project, that it would make it to the Moon.” 

Moon Express arrived on Aug. 17 [2011]. “We had 

this demo for this company, and it was the first time 

I’d ever heard of them,” Brandon says. “And they loved 

[the rover], and what we were doing with it, with 

the project.”

“Within two days, they had come to us and offered every 

member of the project a job.” Brandon is one of around 

20 employees currently stationed at Moon Express, and 

US-Russia Bilateral Commission Innovation Working Group visited NRP 

on March 26, 2012.
11 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

by Chris O’Brien

Mercury News Columnist

Get 2 hours of exercise in just 20 minutes.

It sounds like a dream come true for 

anyone who has struggled with weight 

loss, churned through countless diets, 

and spent hour after hour at the gym. It 

also, no doubt, sounds like something 

you'd hear a cheesy pitchman claiming 

on an informercial at 2:30 a.m. as you 

nibble another Oreo cookie.

But wait: There's more! A lot more. 

Because this claim is being made by 

the founder of a company called Vasper, 

based at Moffett Field. And it's taken 

seriously enough that it's being used 

by a range of Bay Area professional 

athletes, and is even under consideration 

by NASA for use on the International 

Space Station.

Intrigued? I was the moment I heard 

about it. So, for the sake of serving the 

noble causes of science and journalism 

(and to satisfy my curiosity), I decided 

to offer up myself as a human exercise 

guinea pig.

Before I describe my experience, let's 

meet the founder of Vasper, Peter 

Wasowski, a serial entrepreneur who 

gave me a history of the company 

and explained the science behind it. 

Wasowski had previously been founder 

and CEO of a company called Cool 

Systems, which made a cooling panel 

that athletes could use instead of ice 

packs, and which he sold in the late '90s.

After that, Wasowski decided to retire 

to his home in Hawaii. But he found 

himself haunted by a notion he had 

for a new fitness product. The idea was 

based on a couple of exercise concepts 

that had been kicking around medical 

and scientific circles for decades but had 

never found their way to the mainstream.

"I just kept thinking it would be a shame 

to have this technology in my head and 

not do anything with it," Wasowski said. 

"So I decided to go for it."

Vasper—from "vascular performance" 

—combines three elements: blood 

flow restriction; compression exercise; 

and grounding.

When you exercise, your muscles generate a kind of waste product called "lactic 

acid." Vasper cools and compresses your 

muscles during the workout to keep 

the lactic acid building, which tricks the 

body into releasing extra doses of natural growth hormones that build muscle 

and bone. At the same time, Vasper 

reduces your core body temperature, 

which allows you to work harder without sweating or getting winded, which 

increases the metabolic and fat burning rate. Finally, Vasper has a grounding 

system to reduce static electricity in your 

body, which increases the release of serotonin, allowing for a deeper sleep and 

the release of more growth hormones.

And so, if that works as advertised, your 

body experiences the impact you'd normally get from a two-hour workout in 

just 20 minutes.

Wasowski has spent eight years developing his system. And a couple of years 

ago, he shipped the prototypes to San 

Jose, where he began testing with the 

San Jose Sharks. The results were apparently impressive enough that Patrick Marleau, the team's all-time leading scorer, invested and appears on the 

Vasper website's home page offering his 

endorsement.

"Within 20 minutes of my first use, I had 

the endorphin rush that you can usually only achieve after a much longer 

workout," Marleau is quoted as saying. "It helps with my recoveries after 

strenuous workouts on and off the ice 

during training."

Last August, NASA signed a three-year 

agreement with Vasper to evaluate the 

system for possible use on the International Space Station. Astronauts have to 

exercise at least four hours a day in space 

to keep their muscles from atrophying, 

so anything that dramatically cuts that 

time would obviously be useful for longterm space missions.

"Vasper has a unique exercise technology and protocol that is now being 

developed for maintaining top physical 

Vasper cont’d on page 12

NASA Astronaut Richard Linnehan tries the Vasper system in Bldg. 566, NASA Research Park

Is Vasper Really the Exercise 

of the Future?
12 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

fitness of athletes and for improved rehabilitation after injury," 

reads the agreement NASA signed with Vasper.

And so, with some trepidation, I recently visited Vasper's modest 

offices at the NASA Research Park at Moffett. Dressed in gym 

shorts and sneakers, I greeted Wasowski's son, Sebastian, who 

would take me through the Vasper regimen.

Sebastian began by strapping a blue vest around my chest, 

followed by four cuffs around my thighs and upper arms. 

Each of these had tubes running out of them attached to a 

control unit. I then sat on something that basically resembled 

a typical elliptical trainer. Sebastian turned some knobs on the 

control panel, and the cuffs and vest began to lightly squeeze 

my body, sort of like a blood pressure cuff, as they filled with 

a cold liquid. I placed my bare feet on the pedals, which were 

covered with copper plating to create the "grounding" effect.

When I began pedaling, the bike was set with minimal resistance, 

and yet within a minute my thighs felt like I had been climbing 

a mountain for two hours. That was the feeling of the lactic acid 

building up, Sebastian explained.

But even stranger: During the ensuing 20 minutes, my heartbeat 

never elevated, and I didn't sweat, even toward the end when 

Sebastian increased the resistance and I was pumping my arms 

and legs as fast as I could.

After the session, I didn't feel winded or tired, and not a drop 

of sweat.

At the Vasper offices that night, I met Erica McLain, 26, a 

Stanford graduate who competed in the triple jump at the 

Beijing Olympics in 2008. Last March, during a practice, McLain 

overshot the landing pit and hit the pavement, which caused 

her foot to flip 180 degrees backward, leaving leg bones 

sticking out.

"When it first happened, I thought my foot would have to be 

amputated," she told me. "I felt like a cartoon character. There 

was no way my foot should be able to flip upside down. I 

thought my career was done."

Two surgeries later, her doctors said she'd be lucky to walk 

normally, and to forget jumping. Two months after the accident, 

one of her coaches put McLain in touch with Wasowski.

McLain began doing the Vasper regimen five days a week, and 

says within a few months, her doctors were astonished at her 

recovery. Last fall, she began running and training again. In 

January, she competed in her first triple jump event and is on 

track for the U.S. Olympic trials in June.

While miraculous sounding, such stories are still anecdotal. 

Wasowski, Vasper, and a team from NASA are gathering more 

rigorous data to confirm the effects. In the short term, Vasper 

serves limited clients in its offices, though anyone can book a 

session for $35.

Wasowski is hoping to begin selling some machines to corporate 

clients and is in the process of raising his first round of venture 

capital after primarily funding development by himself and a 

handful of angel investors.

As for me, can I attest that I truly got a two-hour workout in 20 

minutes? No, not after one session. But it was truly unlike any 

exercise sensation I've ever had. That night I sleep soundly, woke 

up feeling refreshed and hoping that if this was the future of 

exercise, it couldn't get here fast enough.

Printed with permission of Chris O’Brien

Congresswoman Lofgren, with Ames Director Pete Worden, is briefed by Peter 

Wasowski, CEO, Vasper Systems, LLC.

Vasper cont’d from page 11
13 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

patients and their families. The LifeZig system designed by 

Photozig enables caregivers to create personalized videos for 

individuals with dementia based on their personal life stories, 

which may contribute to reducing their agitation, increasing relaxation, and enhancing quality of life,” Mr.Kajiyama said.

iCare is an online video training and collaborative web site for 

family caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. The iCare program is designed to help families 

cope with the difficulties of dementia caregiving, alleviate related stress and enhance quality of life. This informative program 

was developed by Photozig, Inc. in collaboration with Stanford 

University and the Alzheimer’s Association, and funding from 

the National Institute on Aging.

Photozig is now completing field tests of the iCare program 

involving 150 caregivers in Spring 2012. Preliminary results 

suggest that the iCare program can effectively reduce stress 

and improve quality of life for caregivers, among other positive 

outcomes. The complete set of materials including DVD, workbooks and website is expected to be available to the public in 

Summer 2012, when users will have full access to the online 

video training at www.icarefamily.com (informative stress management program for dementia caregivers).

Mr. Kajiyama received a research grant award in April 2012 to 

develop and evaluate a new online behavioral intervention for 

dementia caregivers specifically for Latino families. The new 

project will create a novel Webnovela, a short online Telenovela, 

blending typical drama plots of Telenovelas (a very popular video programming for Latino communities) and a training program on dementia caregiving. The new Webnovela production 

in Spanish will implement a culturally appropriate intervention 

to show coping skills, decrease stress and alleviate related depression. It is expected to attract and engage Latino caregivers 

belonging to the fastest growing ethnic group in US (16% of US 

population, corresponding to 50 million people).

“We are very excited about bring new products to the market, 

such as the iCare program, which has the potential to help millions of families struggling with Alzheimer’s and related dementia,” said Mr. Kajiyama. “At the same time, we are looking 

into new strategies to create great products, e.g. gaming techniques in PepBlast Galaxy app. We are blessed to be in NASA 

Research Park, an exceptional environment for research and 

development of new ideas in Silicon Valley, which inspires our 

creative R&D team to implement many cool projects. We look 

forward to developing new exciting applications, such as our 

Webnovela production and upcoming mobile apps.”

Besides doing large special projects, the company launched 

Photozig Albums (a software to organize digital pictures 

with over 500,000 downloads), developed the Photozig Digital 

Photo Station (a dedicated box to visualize, organize, and share 

pictures on a television set), created Photozig Web Albums 

with communities and special themes, and released the PepBlast Galaxy app in the Apple App Store and Android Market/

Google Play.

More information about Photozig digital photo projects and 

products can be found at www.photozig.com.

Photozig free mobile app “PepBlast Galaxy” can be downloaded at 

http://goo.gl/uElrY (Apple App Store) or 

http://goo.gl/KQ8Pw (Google Play).

Photozig cont’d from page 4

Moon Express cont’d from page 10

Moon Express cont’d on page 16

one of many science-crazed dreamers the company shipped 

from the East Coast and beyond to a post-bubble-burst Silicon 

Valley. “It wasn’t the best financial offer,” Brandon says of Moon 

Express, “but, I mean, I couldn’t believe it. The idea is that by 

2013 we’re sending something to the Moon. How do you say 

no to that?” 

Bob Richards would have been the man to say no to. The 

Canadian-born space entrepreneur has been orbiting a 

company like Moon Express for some time, having founded and 

served as CEO of Odyssey Moon Limited, a commercial lunar 

enterprise that was also the first team to join the Google Lunar 

X PRIZE as an official competitor. 

In 1986, Richards was one of the co-founders of the International Space University in France, as well as the Singularity University located in the NRP in 2008. For Richards, looking forward is a 

simple matter of looking upward. “The health of our home planet and the survival of our species will only be secured through 

the use of space resources and the expansion of Earth’s economic sphere to the Moon and beyond,” says Richards, speaking like a true big-picture thinker, which is just another way of 

saying he sounds like a walking press release. 

What Richards is doing is aiding in the not-so-silent shift that 

the space industry has seen take place in the last five years. 

While murmurings of a commercial and private form of space 

travel have circulated for years now, never before have we seen 

such a massive shift to the privatization of aerospace itself. 

Bob Richards, Brandon Plaster and the entire Moon Express 

operation stand at the forefront of this change. And the fear, 

of course, is that nothing is more dangerous than the 

unexpected, and trying to get somewhere far away often proves 
14 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

On January 31, the NRP held its 14th Lecture Series event, a 

Disaster Resiliency Panel in Bldg. 3, with five experts from 

the U.S. and European public and private sectors and a 

Moderator from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 

San Francisco.

The Disaster Resilency Panel Discussion is the fourteenth in the 

NRP Exploration Lecture Series, which has hosted Nobel Prize 

Laureates, astronauts, scientists and authors. The Disaster Panel 

is one example of the many R&D and education collaborations 

ongoing between many of the 80+ NRP partners from industry, 

universities, non-profits and NASA Ames Research Center. 

The panelists presented their individual disaster-related themes, 

while highlighting joint collaborative activities and how their 

NRP location and relationships have enhanced their ability to 

provide critical assistance before, during and after disasters. 

Panelists topics ranged from providing more resilient communities to platforms of opportunity for collaboration and harnessing disaster mitigation technologies.

An enthusiastic audience of students, citizen disaster mitigation 

teams, military personnel and representatives from city and 

county governments attended the one hour presentation.

“Disaster resiliency is measured by the amount of time required 

for a community to return to a sense of normalcy following a 

disaster,” said panelist Steve Jordan, CEO of the National Disaster 

Resiliency Center (NDRC) at the NRP, defining the core concept.

“The NRP is the best location for the NDRC”, said Jordan, citing 

the 38 populous counties which surround Moffett Field, the 

Moffett Federal Airfield, which allows relief flights in and out 

during disasters and the NDRC’s partnership with CMU, which 

provides the Silicon Valley community with state-of-the-art 

technical disaster monitoring and surveillance tools.

A major challenge faced by the NDRC he noted, is widespread 

public complacency. According to a recent Red Cross preparedness survey, in the 1200+ densely populated square miles 

surrounding the NRP, only 5% of the population have stockpiled disaster basics, such as enough water to last for 3 days. 

“People shouldn’t wait for a disaster to be the wake-up call,” 

he said. 

While just gaining traction in the U.S., in countries like 

Switzerland, Chile and Israel, disaster resiliency training and 

operations are built into their national service obligations, 

something the U.S. might consider to popularize the concept 

among the general public, Jordan noted.

To improve the public’s “don’t think about it” mentality, said 

panelist Martin Griss, Director of Carnegie Mellon University, 

Silicon Valley, “Research shows that social pressure can change 

behavior. But, the question is”, he said, “how to get people to 

work together and bring government and the community 

together to solve disaster-resiliency problems.”

One major goal ahead, Griss noted, is to move toward more 

tightly coordinating multiple participants in a disaster— including neighborhood Community Emergency Response Teams 

(CERTS), non-government organizations (NGO’s), ordinary citizens, 911 dispatchers and Emergency Operations Centers.

Griss outlined a futuristic vision for a “next-generation 

emergency operations Center”, (to be located at NASA or the 

NRP) that would include wifi, UAVs that would be deployed 

as surveyor scouts during disaster recovery efforts, a shared 

“Situational Awareness Hyperwall” to display real-time data 

during a disaster, and a delay-tolerant “smart-phone mesh”, 

that would kick in when everyday telecommunications 

equipment and cellphone cells are down. Something people 

can do now, he said, is to register for Santa Clara County’s 

Emergency Alerts and to sign up to join a neighborhood CERT.

Disaster Lecture cont’d on pg 15

NRP LECTURE SERIES HOSTS DISASTER RESILIENCY PANEL 

by Kathleen Burton

(L-R): Robert Dolci, Steve Jordan, Dr. Martin Griss, Tore Andre Nilsen, Paul Callahan 
15 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Panelist Bob Dolci, Director of NASA Ames Center Operations 

(now retired), outlined the history and life-saving deployments 

nationwide of the NASA DART (Disaster Assistance Recovery 

Team), whose tasks include search and rescue, emergency 

communications and medical assistance, structural assessments, and deployment of their search and rescue dogs. The 

DART team, which trains at Ames at the collapsed structure and 

“debris pile” on the perimeter road, played a major role in disaster recovery following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the 

Oklahoma City bombing, Hurricane Katrina, and September 

11th. The DART team is supported by NASA technologies such 

as remote sensors, astro-bionics (to read vital signs), air monitoring systems, UAVs, and micro-power impulse radar. 

Tore Andre Nilsen, Founder and Vice President of Research and 

Innovation at IntraPoint, an NRP tenant who focuses on crisis 

management platforms and solutions, outlined IntraPoint’s 

disaster resiliency mission and technologies, which are aimed 

at today’s global marketplace. “The key to crisis management is 

to try and prevent or minimize the crisis and to handle it locally 

whenever possible,” he said. One key challenge, from Nilsen’s 

international perspective (IntraPoint is based in Norway), 

is “keeping control of information and maintaining (global) 

information security in a crisis.” 

IntraPoint’s central mission, Nilsen said, is to devise resilient 

solutions for government agencies and global clients in the 

steel, oil and gas, airline and security industries. According 

to Nilsen, current research areas for IntraPoint include early 

warning signals, information security, rapid communications 

and developing global standards and best practices for the 

disaster resilience industry. 

Panelist Paul Callahan, director of Homeland Security Programs 

at SRI International, focused on the theme of “doing more with 

less,” and harnessing new technologies for Homeland Security. 

Callahan noted that the Department of Homeland Security is 

uniquely positioned for this purpose, as it gathers the science 

directorates of 18 different agencies under one DHS umbrella. 

After the formal presentations by the five panelists, panel 

moderator Daniel Meer fielded questions from the audience 

during the Q&A. After a slow start, long lines formed at the 

microphones with questions from disaster amateurs and ‘the 

pro’s’ about how to form a neighborhood CERT, about getting 

elementary and middle school students involved in disaster resilience early and about forging a tighter bond between military and civilian disaster entities. MC Meer is Assistant Director 

of the Superfund Division, Emergency Response and Preparedness, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 9. 

Useful Websites:

For information about the NASA Research Park and past 

lectures, visit:

http://researchpark.arc.nasa.gov/ 

For information about the NDRC, call 800-941-0986

or email info@The NDRC.org

For information about Homeland Security 

Programs at SRI International:

http://www.sri.com/focus_areas/defense.html

For information about CMU Silicon Valley:

http://www.cmu.edu/silicon-valley/

For information IntraPoint:

https://www.intrapoint.com/index

For information about EPA Pacific Southwest Region 9:

Robert J. Dolci, Director of NASA Ames Center Operations (now retired)

Disaster Lecture cont’d from page 14

http://goo.gl/0F3Eq
16 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

Moon Express cont’d from page 13

more dangerous than one can predict. Says Michael Vergalla, 

one of the company’s Projects and Aerospace Engineers, 

“One of the key things [we’re interested in] is Space Policy, and 

we plan to use the precedent laws of international waters. If you 

use your own personal resources to obtain something like oil, 

fish or minerals, they are yours—but you can’t claim the land as 

your land.” 

MoonEx sees the Moon not just as a grandiose political 

statement or a fledgling symbol of faded Americana but also 

as an untapped resource with the ability to fundamentally 

drive innovation forward—namely the push for clean energy. 

“One of our biggest limitations for having clean energy is that 

there is only 30 kilograms of Helium-3 on Earth,” Vergalla says. 

“The Moon has a lot of it, and that would be able to facilitate all 

of this research on clean energy. And suddenly, clean energy 

pockets start popping up everywhere because the resources 

have arrived.” 

Vergalla says that every last mineral we could ever need is 

available in mass up on the Moon, just waiting to be mined. 

“There is just no reason to destroy our planet,” he explains. 

“We can figure out how to go get it elsewhere and have 

machines do it. We have the technology.” 

In order to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE (and a healthy dose 

of bragging rights), the rover has to land successfully, drive 500 

meters and send back high-definition photos and video footage 

back to the MoonEx headquarters. There are challenges, as one 

should expect, in hurtling through the sky and getting to the 

Moon. Vergalla insists that the journey is the least of MoonEx’s 

concerns. “Getting to the Moon is not as difficult as you may 

think—it’s landing that’s tricky. You need to know how high you 

are, you need to be able to look out for rocks, and you need to 

be able to do that all without someone driving.” 

Luckily, NASA has proven quite the passenger, serving as 

mentors from a distance and aiding Moon Express as it works 

toward its steadily nearing launch date. Because NASA had a 

bevy of projects underway before funding was cut and the 

lunar missions all but permanently cancelled, Moon Express 

has managed to find use of all the disregarded, half-projects that 

almost never were. 

“[NASA] had a plan to go to the Moon, with a lot of projects 

and satellites to go and support that plan. They’d collected 

data and everything,” Vergalla says, citing NASA’s leftovers as a 

great starting point for MoonEx. “They have a lot of expertise; 

a lot of good standards,” Vergalla adds. “They’ve been with us 

for a long time, and they’ll review or comment on what we’re 

doing, but they won’t give us answers.” Brandon agrees: “It’s 

a helpful process, because at the same time Moon Express is 

learning, and the facilities that NASA has should be utilized.” For 

example, MoonEx’s partnership with NASA Ames, and aided by 

the Reimbursable Space Act Agreement, has given the company 

access to a fantastic test bed that NASA had built.

But even though Moon Express is aiming to help bring America 

back to the forefront of the space industry, it’s the more 

immediate setting that speaks most loudly about not just where 

the project is going, but perhaps what it means. 

Its headquarters are more than just a place to get started, more 

than just a setting close to NASA. Silicon Valley, the starting 

point of the tech boom, is now helping foster a new lens with 

which to view a previously government-specific project. And this 

defining symbol of old America—the Moon as a grand statement 

of hope, possibility and, perhaps, an overly utopian vision of a 

brighter immediate future—is now being revisited through the 

parameters of new America. 

A new entrepreneurial and individualistically focused generation 

sees progress as being dependent on the works of the collective, 

no longer weighed down by vague notions of nationalism, 

competition and one-upmanship. Here, in the valley, the future 

involves everyone. 

“History will show that Silicon Valley was the springboard for the 

privatization and industrialization of space necessary for the 

long-term perpetuation of the species,” Richards foresees. “This 

is not an accident. The power and wealth of visionaries who 

transformed our mainframe world into the personal computing 

world are now working to transform and democratize the space 

frontier and open up its infinite wealth and opportunity to 

change the world.” 

Brandon sees it a similar way. “It’s going to have an enormous 

impact on everybody. Even if there is no gain immediately, the 

concept of it happening is going to change everything.” For him, 

the journey to Moon Express has been so vastly interconnected 

with a seemingly endless series of events that viewing the 

possibility of actually succeeding is now simply a matter of faith. 

“What do you imagine it changing?” I ask. 

“Possibility.” 

Moon Express Robotics Lab for Innovation (MERLIN) launch team (L-R): EJ 

Sabathia Jr., Krystine Thoroughman, Matt Carberry, Marco Chacin (Lead), 

Guy Chriqui, Mike Stewart, Cory McBride (not pictured: Brandon Plaster, 

Kevin Huang)

Edited by Michael Marlaire and printed with permission of Metro Newspapers of Silicon Valley. 

For full story see Silicon Valley Metro, http://www.metroactive.com/features/moon-express.html
17 www.nasa.gov

NRP Post

STC, an innovative advanced technology support 

services provider to government, industry and 

academia since 1979, and A. Deepak Publishing (ADP), 

in cooperation with NSF-funded ASTREC, sponsored 

the first online peer-reviewed journal for the benefit 

of the international small satellite community, the 

Journal of Small Satellites (JoSS), www.jossonline.com. 

Launched January 2012, the JoSS premiere issue 

contained three scientific papers, a feature article on 

Prof. Robert (Bob) Twiggs, and other useful information 

including a Meetings Calendar, a Meetings Blog, and 

Jobs/internships portal. To maintain its high-quality 

standards of publishing peer-reviewed original research 

papers, JoSS is ably assisted by an international cadre 

of over 24 leading small-sat experts from academia, 

government and industry who have agreed to volunteer 

their valuable time and effort to submit, solicit and peer 

review the papers for JOSS.

Founding members include Editor-in-Chief Prof. Norman 

Fitz-Coy (Univ. of Florida), Associate Editor-in-Chiefs, Profs. 

Jordi Puig-Suari (CalPoly-San Luis Obispo), Marcello 

Romano (Naval Post-Graduate School), and William 

Edmonson (National Institute of Aerospace, VA), who 

are assisted by over 20 Technical Area Editors, including 

Chief Technologist John Hines (NASA ARC). They are 

supported by volunteer JoSS executive managing 

staff including Founding Publisher & Managing Editor 

(ME) Dr. Adarsh Deepak, Founding Associate ME Dr. 

Paul D Try (STC), and Founding Assistant ME Ravi 

Deepak (Taksha University). A monthly online JoSS 

Bulletin provides timely updates of international 

small-sat related news, including conference news 

and proceedings.

Taksha University (TU) has been offering Yoga Therapy classes/

workshops in the Bay Area and in Virginia. In November 2011, 

TU Professor Dr. Dilip Sarkar, MD, FACS, CAP, presented a Yoga 

Therapy short-course (6-hours) at Fremont; and, in February 

2012, TU Professor, Dr. Joan Vernikos, formerly Chief, NASA 

Health Sciences, a Stress Management and Yoga Therapy 

Seminar at NASA Research Park (NRP). Both Drs. Sarkar and 

Taksha University offers Course in Yoga Therapy, Space Health, and Space Science & Technology

by Ravi Deepak

West Coast Manager, TakshaU

Science and Technology Corporation Sponsors 

First Journal of Small Satellites

STC’s Science and Technology International 

Education Program

STC’s Science and Technology International Education 

Program (STIEP, www.stiep.org) has been working with the 

nation’s leading research facilities since 1993 to provide 

research opportunities for university students under mentor 

and manager Dr. Amar Choudry. In 2012 STIEP worked with 

NASA ARC’s Adriana Cardenas and Dr. Phil Luna to bring 

ten students from four international universities in Mexico, 

Singapore and the Netherlands. Each student is interning 

under a NASA mentor for six months, while networking 

with regional university students/faculty, attending 

Taksha University Seminars, ARC Symposia and other local 

outreach events. STC is providing support to NASA Ames’ 

Cubesat Fruit Flies Experiment (CFFE) to study the effects of 

microgravity on fruit flies flight patterns by (1) providing two 

STIEP students working under two Ames mentors from the 

Fluid Mechanics Lab and Space Biosciences Division on its 

development, and (2) by STC’s sponsorship of the American 

Society for Gravitational Space Biology (ASGSB) and 

NanoRacks LLC in arranging the conduct of the Experiment 

aboard the ISS. Other students’ research projects include 

orbital debris slot allocation and aerodynamic modeling. 

All students will complete their STIEP internships by 

presenting their research results at ARC, which are 

anticipated to be submitted for conference presentations 

and/or scientific Journal paper publishing.

STIEP 2012 students Inés Hernández, Eddie Urribe, José Manuel Cruz, José Javier Cavazos, and Eduardo Z. Flores from Universidad Autónoma 

de Nuevo León, Facultad de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica; Daniel Sánchez, Luis Otero, and Miguel Porras from Universidad Politécnica 

Metropolitana de Hidalgo; Danny Chen, National University of Singapore; and Alexander Haagsma, Technical University, Delft, with NASA Ames 

Center Director Dr. Pete Worden, Ames Chief Technologist Dr. John Hines, Astronaut Dr. Richard Linnehan, STC Executive Vice President for 

Operations Dr. Ashok Kaveeshwar, TakshaU Manager Ravi Deepak, and STIEP Program Manager Dr. Amar Choudry.

Vernikos have been doing research on Yoga Therapy for Space 

Health, see papers at http://www.yogaforspacehealth.com. 

In addition, TU’s Small Satellite and Space Systems Institute (4SI) 

is continuing to present TU Short-Courses & TU Seminars at NRP 

and Silicon Valley, including the popular courses on Launch 

Vehicle Design and System’s Engineering, Space Craft Design, 

Atmospheric Radiation Propagation, etc.

Science and Technology Corporation (STC) Innovates at NASA Research Park

by STC Staff
Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diane Farrar

Layout and Design. . . . . . . . . . . Carol Le

Phone: (650) 604-2NRP

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

Website: www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov

NRP Post

In Memoriam

NRP partner Rich Davies, 

CEO, Western Disaster 

Center, passed away in 

his Scotts Valley home 

on March 26, 2012. Rich 

graduated from Northrop 

Institute of Technology 

in 1968 with a Bachelor’s 

Degree and the California Institute of Technology with a Masters in 1972. 

An aeronautical engineer, Rich founded the 

Western Disaster Center in 1999, his true passion. WDC, a nonprofi t applied research center, 

was designed to save lives and reduce economic 

loss from natural, environmental, technological 

and man-made disasters. WDC accomplished 

these goals through applied research, the application of advanced computer, information 

and communication technologies, humanitarian projects, education and training and the development and the application of methods for 

public/private partnering.  

Through WDC’s work, Rich interacted with the 

FBI, SF Bay InfraGard, and Citizens Academy, 

of which he became an elected Board of Directors member. He spearheaded the building of a 

web presence for these organizations, and actively worked with HAZUS and the Earthquake 

Clearing House, aiding in the early detection of 

earthquakes and training for response teams.

Internationally-known 1st Special Response 

Group (1SRG), also found a home at WDC 

through Rich’s efforts. Rich contributed to 

countless search efforts that brought people 

home alive or brought closure to families. 

The 2012 Conrad Awards were held at the Moffett Field Conference Center, 

NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, CA on March 31.

Rich Davies

NASA HQ CTO Dr. Mason Peck (right) visited NRP Partner Scanadu, Inc. 

on April 17, 2012, and was briefed by Scanadu co-founder Misha David 

Chellam (middle) and Dan Sokol (left), Senior Engineer at Scanadu, Inc. 

in Bldg. 20, NASA Research Park.

Dr. Mason Peck (left), NASA CTO, being briefed by Scanadu CEO 

Dr. Walter De Brouwer (right) on April 17, 2012 at Scanadu.