Space Station Celebrates Five Years in Orbit
The International Space Station reached the historic five years in space milestone on Nov. 20, 2003. The unique orbiting laboratory complex has grown from
a lone, uninhabited module into a permanently staffed, house-sized research
facility.
The station remains the largest, most complex international space research project in history. The station will eventually triple its scientific capacity when new
components arrive when the space shuttle returns to flight.
Crew Changes and Onboard Experiments Continue
In October after 185 days in space, the Expedition 7 crew departed for
Kazakhstan and the Expedition 8 crew assumed command of the International
Space Station. Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko, NASA ISS Science
Officer Ed Lu, and European Space Agency astronaut Pedro Duque departed as
Expedition 8 Commander Michael Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri
began a six-month stay on the ISS.
The International Space Station with
the docking of the Progress module
at left.
Foale and Kaleri immediately settled into life aboard the ISS, getting comfortable in their new home in orbit and beginning
work with several experiments. Among the topics are an Italian scientific investigation into how hand and arm muscles are
used differently for reaching and grasping in microgravity and the risk of a renal (kidney) stone during space flight. Previous
onboard experiments have shown an increased risk in the development of kidney stones during and immediately after
space flight.
Foale set up the Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle Schools digital camera in Destiny’s optical-quality window so that
students in grades 6-8 could take photos of the Earth and downlink them for analysis by the student science team.
NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe noted that the five-year anniversary and recent crew change are milestones that “remind
us how fundamentally important it is to ensure continued safe space station operations.” He encouraged all NASA employees to remain vigilant when it comes to mission safety for the ISS and in all aspects of NASA operations.
You can follow the crew’s activities aboard the space station and learn how to view the space station from anywhere on
earth at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov.
Images from web pages used courtesy of NASA.
All photographs used courtesy of NASA. Illustrations copyright © 2003 www.arttoday.com.
Privacy Statement and Copyright © 2003 by Wheeling Jesuit University/NASA Classroom of the Future™. All rights reserved.
Hands-on Physics Helps Students Grasp Concepts
Orbital mechanics explains how objects move in space. Hands-on activities are the best way to help kids understand this complicated subject. The
International Space Station Challenge team at the Center for Educational
Technologies® at Wheeling Jesuit University has designed some compelling
activities. They’re part of a new educational web site to help middle school
students grasp the complex ideas.
“The main focus in developing this new web site is to teach students physics,” said James Coffield, Ph.D., one of the ISS Challenge team members.
“We are teaching children about the real problems that astronauts deal with
while they are on missions.” The web site will feature authentic data and
problems for students to ponder. In addition, there will be eight computerbased simulators, challenging children to try to navigate through space.
Screen shot from the ISS Challenge Orbital
Mechanics Simulator.
“We want the children to visualize these problems,” said Coffield. “By investigating the research problems presented on the web site, they get a better
understanding of physics, Newton’s laws of motion, and space travel.” The team hopes that this interactive approach to
learning will generate interest in science. “We believe that we can interest the students by giving them a problem to solve
for themselves,” said Coffield. “This is a far cry from taking notes.”
Trading Cards Teach Engineering Design
Most of us have collected trading cards at some point in our lives. Now an innovative professional at Arizona State
University is using them to teach fundamental principles of engineering design. Keith Watt, assistant director of the university’s Mars Education Program, designed the trading cards as part of a Marsbound activity. The cards contain pictures and
descriptions of most of the common systems found on board an interplanetary spacecraft.
Each system has a mass, power requirement, and a monetary cost. The
students are assigned to design a spacecraft that achieves their science
goals (determined in an earlier activity) yet satisfies the mass and power
constraints and stays under budget.
What do the students learn? “First,” said Watt, “there is no ‘perfect’ design.
Very often a design that does well with one constraint does poorly with
another. Part of the design process is balancing constraints and goals.”
Astronaut Chris A. Hadfield, mission
specialist representing the Canadian Space
Agency, is seen near the Canadarm2 as
the new robotics tool for the International
Space Station grasps the Spacelab pallet.
Parazynski participated in two days of extravehicular activity on the STS-100 mission.
In addition, the process involves building a prototype, testing and evaluating it,
and redesigning and repeating until the “optimal” solution is found. “The failing
of the classic ‘egg drop experiment,’ in which students build a carrier for an egg
that gets dropped from a great height, is that it focuses only on the prototype
stage,” Watt said. “Real engineers can’t simply build a bridge and hope it works!”
(continued on the next page)
Images from web pages used courtesy of NASA.
All photographs used courtesy of NASA. Illustrations copyright © 2003 www.arttoday.com.
Privacy Statement and Copyright © 2003 by Wheeling Jesuit University/NASA Classroom of the Future™. All rights reserved.
Reaction to the trading cards and the entire Marsbound activity has been overwhelmingly positive. “The kids like it because
they are familiar with the collectible card game format, like Yu-gi-oh and Pokemon,” Watt said. “The teachers like it because
it does a very good job of encapsulating all of the steps of the design process in a simple and manageable activity. We’ve
beta-tested the activity with over a hundred teachers nationwide.”
Visit the Marsbound activity site and download the cards: http://marsbound.asu.edu.
NASA Feature: Explore Mars
NASA has launched two powerful new Mars rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity. With far
greater mobility than the 1997 Mars Pathfinder rover, these robotic explorers will be able to
trek up to about 40 meters across the surface in a martian day. Each Mars Exploration rover
carries a sophisticated set of instruments to search for evidence about whether past environments at selected sites were wet enough to be hospitable to life. The two rovers
are identical but were scheduled to land at different regions of Mars.
You can stay up to date on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission online at
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov.
This is the first color image
of Mars taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars
Exploration Rover Spirit.
Get Students Involved in Mars Exploration
Ancient stargazers thought the red glow of Mars came from
blood-drenched soil, so they named the planet in honor of Mars,
the god of war.
We know today that the planet’s reddish tint comes from the iron
oxide in its soil—but scientists expect to learn much more when
NASA’s twin Spirit and Opportunity spacecraft explore Mars this
winter.
Both Mars Exploration rovers have Pancam color cameras to
provide panoramic views. Spectrometers on each rover will
identify minerals from a distance. Two other spectrometers—an
alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and a Mössbauer spectrometer—are mounted on an extendable arm for close-up examination of the composition of rocks and soil.
As the rovers begin their mission, scientists will publish their
daily journals online for educators. Check NASA’s Mars
Exploration Rover web site, http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/, for
access to journals of the “Big Dig.”
Image of Mars taken by the Mars Exploration
Rover Spirit.
Images from web pages used courtesy of NASA.
All photographs used courtesy of NASA. Illustrations copyright © 2003 www.arttoday.com.
Privacy Statement and Copyright © 2003 by Wheeling Jesuit University/NASA Classroom of the Future™. All rights reserved.
Mars Student Imaging Project
The Arizona State University Mars Education Program works in partnership with the Mars Exploration Mission team to
design educational activities. The Mars Student Imaging Project developed there gives students the chance to conduct their
own Mars investigation, which parallels NASA space science research. This web site, http://marsed.asu.edu/, also includes
a calendar of teacher events and lesson plan ideas.
Bouncing to Mars Video Gets a Big “Thumbs Up”
If you show only one video this year, get your class excited about space
exploration in general and the 2004 Mars landing in particular with Bouncing
to Mars. This 60-minute video gives the inside story of NASA’s quest to land
twin robotic geologists on the red planet.
Recent reviewers gave the tape a big thumbs up for students of all ages.
It does a great job of giving viewers a sense of the drama behind a space
launch. Since fully two-thirds of all U.S. and Russian attempts to explore
Mars have failed, NASA’s reputation is clearly on the line with this landing.
The tape shows graphically how thousands of scientists at Cal Tech Jet
Propulsion Lab and five other NASA centers along with 20 universities and
30 private companies had to battle time and operations to get the project off
the ground. For a copy of the documentary, visit the NASA-TV Education File
at http://spacelink.nasa.gov/education.file. View the “Extra” page at
http://spacelink.nasa.gov/extra for more information.
The NASA-TV Education File features programming for educators and students highlighting topics related to science, mathematics, geography, and
technology. Viewers are encouraged to tape these programs. The NASA-TV
Education File follows a monthly schedule and theme.
After several delays, the second Mars
Exploration Rover finally sees liftoff at
11:18:15 p.m. EDT July 7, 2003.
“Out of This World” Images of Mars
You probably heard lots of stories last summer about Mars, when the red planet came
closer to Earth than at any time in the past 60,000 years. On Aug. 27, 2003, Mars was
only 35 million miles away from Earth.
As a result, scientists were able to observe Mars more closely than ever. The Hubble
Space Telescope snapped amazing photos late last summer and early fall. Visit the
Space Telescope Science Institute web site (http://oposite.stsci.edu/) to see these
incredible Mars images. The Hubble web site is also a great place to find Mars photos:
http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/category/solar%20system/Mars
A distant look at The Red Planet.
Images from web pages used courtesy of NASA.
All photographs used courtesy of NASA. Illustrations copyright © 2003 www.arttoday.com.
Privacy Statement and Copyright © 2003 by Wheeling Jesuit University/NASA Classroom of the Future™. All rights reserved.
Want to Know More About Mars Missions?
Another good place to visit for Mars information is the NASA web site. Check out http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/ for information
on current, past, and future missions; awesome close-up photographs of the red planet; and very cool multimedia presentations. There’s a special kids fun zone at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/funzone_flash.html along with resources for teachers and
older students.
Looking for Mars? It’s usually orange or red. While it was one of the brightest objects in the sky last summer and fall, it may
no longer be as easy to spot.
Check out http://www.space.com/spacewatch/where_is_mars.html to learn exactly when and where to look for Mars this
winter and spring.
Mars Quiz
Go to the Mars Quiz at
http://voyager.cet.edu/iss/techcheck/techcheckv4i1/art10.htm
To find out more about the Mars exploration timeline, go to these web sites:
*
*
*
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
http://www.nasa.gov
The Mars Exploration Rover Mission
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov
An interpretative Mars historical timeline developed by the Mid-Atlantic Region Space Science Broker
http://marssb.cet.edu
Images from web pages used courtesy of NASA.
All photographs used courtesy of NASA. Illustrations copyright © 2003 www.arttoday.com.
Privacy Statement and Copyright © 2003 by Wheeling Jesuit University/NASA Classroom of the Future™. All rights reserved.
Newsletter Credits
Publisher:
ISS Challenge™ Team
NASA Classroom of the Future™ (COTF)
Center for Educational Technologies® (CET)
Wheeling Jesuit University
316 Washington Ave.
Wheeling, WV 26003-6243
(304) 243-2388
www.cet.edu
ISS Project Director: Enrique Garcia Moreno
Tech Check Editor: Laurie Ruberg, Ph.D.
Writing Services: Janet Boyle, Ghost Writers, LLC., www.ghost-writers.com
Additional Support Provided by:
Sean P. Duffy, CET intellectual property coordinator
Chris Kreger, CET webmaster
Kirsten Ruben, CET graphic designer
Janis Worklan, CET editor/curriculum writer
Contributors:
Eileen Poling, a NASA Solar System Ambassador for West Virginia
Steve Mitch, astronomer, Oglebay Resort, Wheeling, WV
To Subscribe to the ISS Tech Check:
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ISS Tech Check is a triannual newsletter of the International Space Station Challenge™ project of the NASA Classroom of
the Future program at the Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, WV.
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To submit articles:
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Telephone: 304-243-2388
FAX: 304-243-2497
Images from web pages used courtesy of NASA.
All photographs used courtesy of NASA. Illustrations copyright © 2003 www.arttoday.com.
Privacy Statement and Copyright © 2003 by Wheeling Jesuit University/NASA Classroom of the Future™. All rights reserved.
Images from web pages used courtesy of NASA.
All photographs used courtesy of NASA. Illustrations copyright © 2003 www.arttoday.com.
Privacy Statement and Copyright © 2003 by Wheeling Jesuit University/NASA Classroom of the Future™. All rights reserved.