Nano-Technology Space Lab

SPACE LAB: LAB TECH FUTURE

The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas started developing a prototype space station in 1987.  The space station was deployed and became the home to astronauts for months.  Part of the space station is the Health Maintenance Facility (HMF).  The clinic includes a fully operational lab such as hematology, chemistry, blood gases and urinalysis, operating room, diagnostic imaging device and an EKG machine.  The automated machines are modified for zero gravity and tested.   The stability of the equipments during take-off and re-entry into the earth's atmosphere has been considered.

  

Space motion sickness, despite their training, is one of the biggest problems for astronauts.  One method used to test medical equipment and astronauts' physical endurance is a ride on the KC-135 airplane.  The plane earned the nickname Vomit Comet because of the many people who had stomach upset while in it.  The aircraft try to simulate zero gravity by flying at 500 mph at about 25,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico.  When it reaches a designated height, the airplane noses over and gives the occupants the feeling of weightlessness and float inside the plane's padded cavity for about 10 to 40 seconds.  The plane reaches the zero gravity state about 50 times over the course of two hours.  During this time, the crew tests new equipments, new research for growing tissue, cancer research for general market, and physiological aspects of the human body.  In addition, astronauts have to learn how to put on their suits at zero gravity.  Underneath the suit, astronauts wear a liquid-cooling garment that resembles long johns.   Tiny tubes run through the liquid-cooling garment to circulate cold water.  Cold oxygen also blows over the astronaut's face and a temperature control is installed in the suit.

Equipment for space exploration is tested in the center's centrifuge, the world's largest man-made centrifuge ever.  Researchers have developed a centrifuge and machines for hematology analysis of RBCs, WBCs, chemistry and urinalysis.

 It's a long way and many light years of travel in building a lab on Mars.  John Carter and SyFy films are a pseudo-reality at the moment - products of space cadet's wild imagination.  Lab tech astronauts today won't be there but Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity are already there leading the way into the future for new generations of lab techs.


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Original Publication 02/16/2006  ALT MSN Groups
Web Page: Space Lab
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Previously Published on October 30, 2004   alt msngroups website

Nano blue dots of a woman's brain:

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NANO-TECHNOLOGY IS THE NEW TECHNOLOGY OF THE FUTURE...The word
NANO started and became a popular alien expression in an 80's TV show
starring comedian Robin Williams and he'd say "Nano Nano."  Nano means
one billionth attachment to, from or of  something - in this
case, the something is technology.  In the field of technological
research, scientists define it as the science that deals with structures the
size of individual molecules.   The structures are 50,000 times
smaller than the width of a human hair.   It can not be seen or felt
but it is useful by playing with them.  Nanotubes can be assembled to any
shapes or size and can handle extremely high temperature.  They exist at
the ultimate design scale at which nature works.  Creation of
Nano-materials will greatly help in dealing with natural as well as man-made
disasters. 

The discovery of
Nano-science and Nano-technology will have a tremendous effect on issues
of:

• Solving civic, societal
  problems and in areas of urban planning.
• Providing war science
  knowledge for national security and
  defense.
• Developing computer software
  security.
• Energy, water and minerals are
  becoming scarce on earth and Nano-space technology has a lot of potential to
  offer.  The cost of space exploration to the Moon and Mars will be
  greatly reduced by making billionth times lightweight material inside
  spaceships; the development of reusable and
  infinite launching capabilities.  A space rocket made of
  nanotubes would be the size and strength of the current space shuttle but will
  have the weight of a conventional car.  Zoom Zoom.
• Establishing human habitat on Mars when
  the day of destruction on Earth comes due to environmental disaster and
  constant global warming scare by environmental activists.  Manufacturing
  mining industrial units in space.
• Using Nano-technology device  in
  diverting or destroying asteroids approaching the Earth.
• Moving faster in the upgrading of
  telecommunication engineering and integrating with application of space
  technology, biotechnology and information technology.
• Providing building
  materials for tiny machines, medical instruments and human body organs built
  on an atomic scale and the hexagonal patterns of carbon atoms for extremely
  strong and durable materials.
• Cars made of nanotubes 
  would be more stronger and more stable than a car made of steel.  It
  would only weigh 50 pounds.  The dumb but good question is what about a
  tornado blowing your 50-pound car away from Kansas to Motor City?  Nature
  versus machine.

The American President Bush,
ambitious and visionary, has envisioned a synergistic human journey to Mars
by 2050 using Nano-science and Nano-technology.  It's all futuristic but
born at the dawn of the new millennium.  In the next decades, it's
necessary for space scientists to be involved in the revolution and march and
act in the field of nanoinstruments and  nanostructured satellites. 
Last October 27th, Wednesday, millions of stargazers all over the world watched
and admired the umbra penumbra of the Moon shadow and total eclipse.  Half
a century from now (maybe), new generation will be witness to the
astounding success of many Nanos  floating and operating in the solar
systems.  Is that a Nano-technological wonder or what?  To quote John
F. Kennedy:

"Change is the law of
life.  And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss
the future."

                                             
NANO! NANO!

For A.L.T. Publication -
Health & Lab Technology web page

Original Publication  ALT MSN Groups 2006
Link: ALT Groups Multiply 2/2/10

Published 12/7/12  lib's labyrinth