Past research efforts have focused on the energy difference between altered locomotion methods in reduced gravity at different speeds, suggesting that skipping is energetically more efficient than walking and running in these environments. While skipping may be more beneficial from an energy standpoint, the full range of reasons behind the gait transition and locomotion selection have not been researched. This includes damage to the leg muscles, which is partially prevented by a transition from walking to running locomotion methods known as the walk-run transition. In a space environment, these factors will play a role in astronaut health and injury prevention. Participants walked, ran, and skipped on a treadmill for this study while being supported by an analog for activity on other planets called the Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS). These intervals were performed under 1g, then under simulated 0.38g, and 0.17g conditions to simulate gravity conditions on Mars and the Moon. Electromyography was used to monitor muscle activation, along with the Vicon motion capture system for 3D motion analysis. Results show that there are significant changes (p < 0.05) in activation of the TA and MG under simulated Martian and Lunar gravity conditions, as well as significant changes (p < 0.05) in dorsiflexion and plantar flexion under several conditions. These findings suggest that there are fundamental changes in the way humans move in these reduced gravity environments and that the effect these changes have on the body should be included in the development of astronaut training regimen and equipment development. These changes may affect safety issues associated with locomotion, including increased trip and fall risks. Additionally, the reduction of energy expenditure demonstrated in this study, as well as detrimental effects from gait asymmetry on muscle growth, may prove to be counterproductive to efforts meant to reduce muscle and bone degradation in reduced gravity environments. The efficacy of running or skipping as preferred methods of locomotion in reduced gravity environments are yet to be sufficiently supported by gait analysis.

Living and working in outer space introduces unique physiological, psychological, and psychosocial stressors to the human body. While most stressors are known and well researched, Long Duration Spaceflight creates additional and more worrisome stressors. This paper describes preparation and research plans for a 30-month repeated-measures, cognitive decay, and memory recall study utilizing ten practical space mission tasks performed by 32 astronaut-like subjects in an Isolation, Confined and Extreme (ICE) analogous environment.

As more missions to Mars require greater autonomy of both rovers and humans, more sophisticated computer technology in close proximity will be necessary to sustain operations. On Earth, cloud technology has provided significant cost-saving benefits to companies that require heavy compute resources due to the pay-per-use pricing model. The same could be true on Mars, assuming that there is enough demand for high-capacity, on-demand compute and data storage resources. The concept of a compute cloud about Mars (“Dust Storm”) was developed to determine a basic pricing model for compute, and other Platform as a Service (PaaS) features. Existing mission concepts were re-evaluated under the assumption of using Dust Storm versus developing and deploying an in-house solution. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to control for inaccurate assumptions and estimates. It was determined that five-year multi-agent missions would cost significantly less (48.6%) when renting time from Dust Storm. It was also determined that the greatest effects on cost savings are the cost of building and deploying Dust Storm, the maximum data transfer rate between Earth and Mars, and the length of time expected to recoup initial investments. Future research will be required to reduce hardware costs, and increase data transfer rates.

Graphene oxide (GO) membranes have demonstrated desirable performance for purifying water, matching or exceeding the ion rejection and water flux properties of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. Though previous methods (e.g., surface decoration and d-space tuning) have been investigated to improve GO membranes, thermal treatment can induce the formation of holes in GO nanosheets in a controlled manner. The resulting holey-GO (hGO) membranes are hypothesized to have improved water permeability via decreasing the path length that water molecules must travel through the membrane; specifically, through cross-sheet junctions, which is currently one of the main bottlenecks in other GO membranes. GO and hGO membranes with varying thicknesses were fabricated on polycarbonate supports and evaluated with ion transport tests in a diffusion cell via permeate conductivity. Permeability tests were conducted using a dead-end filtration cell (0.27 MPa-0.48 MPa). Produced hGO membranes demonstrated up to 3.8 times higher permeability relative to GO membranes, despite being up to 4 times thicker. Additionally, the empirical upper bound for a modified Robeson plot measuring permeability and selectivity was exceeded by both GO and hGO membranes demonstrated in this work.

We present a compendious review of the literature and state-of-art of the research into graphene oxide (GO) membranes for both terrestrial and space-born water purification applications. The performance of GO membrane is compared to polyamide composite properties broadly used in today's desalination plants as well as to other membranes composed of various polymeric materials. An in-depth comparison is also conducted between GO membranes and the water reclamation system onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Based on empirical data from the literature, GO membranes have the potential to reduce the specific energy consumption in both RO facilities and the ISS by operating at reduced pressures while keeping high ion rejection. Mass reductions can also be achieved by replacing components in the ISS's current water reclamation system with a GO membrane. Additionally, GO membranes can increase the water availability for the crew onboard the ISS, raising the count from its current 6 members to upwards of 60 members while retaining energy and mass savings.

The development of space technologies is tied to economic and national interests. Historically, space technology development has been dominated by government agencies. There are key difference between the public administration models implemented by Canada and the United States due to the vast differences in resources. Topics examined in this article include legislative acts, organizational structure, contractor relations, breadth of research, national prestige, policy setting, and the economic activity generated by public space programs. In contrast to the United States, Canada has emphasized development of industrial, rather than in-house, capabilities and has focused on developing niche expertise to achieve national objectives.

Space solar-power satellites may one day transmit large amounts of high-powered microwave beams to Earth from geostationary Earth orbit. New spacecraft can be designed to prosper from this new available source of energy by equipping future spacecraft with a rectenna array or hybrid photovoltaic/rectenna array system. This idea offers prospective benefits, such as extending the mission lifetime of the spacecraft through increasing the life of the power generation function and reducing the power generation units mass. This paper explores the integration of rectenna array and hybrid photovoltaic/rectenna array systems into future spacecraft and compares this method to the conventional photovoltaic array method, considering mission and component life, mass, area, and energy harvesting capabilities. Cost is compared between conventional photovoltaic array and the rectenna array. This paper shows that the integrated hybrid photovoltaic/rectenna array power generation unit seems a viable option in obtaining the aforementioned benefits in the case of a retrodirective beam scenario. A power irradiance map is provided, based on former space solar-power satellites reference systems, that shows what lower orbiting satellites could experience from a microwave power beam delivered to Earth if future geostationary-Earth-orbit space solar-power satellites are operational.

Heretofore, discussions of space fuel depots assumed the depots would be supplied from Earth. However, the confirmation of deposits of water ice at the lunar poles in 2009 suggests the possibility of supplying a space depot with liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen produced from lunar ice. This architecture study sought to determine the optimum architecture for a fuel depot supplied from lunar resources. Four factors - the location of propellant processing (on the Moon or on the depot), the location of the depot (on the Moon or in cislunar space), and if in cislunar space, where (LEO, GEO, or Earth-Moon L1), and the method of propellant transfer (bulk fuel or canister exchange) were combined to identify 18 potential architectures. Two design reference missions (DRMs) - a satellite servicing mission and a cargo mission to Mars - were used to create demand for propellants, while a third DRM - a propellant delivery mission - was used to examine supply issues. The architectures were depicted graphically in a network diagram with individual segments representing the movement of propellant from the Moon to the depot, and from the depot to the customer

The implementation and sustainment of High Reliability Organization (HRO) operations for large organizations, such as NASA, is problematic. Using NASA as a case study, the consistency of the intrinsic objectives of large public organizations is assessed with respect to HROs. A novel HRO model is described in terms of ten characteristic dimensions. The intrinsic public organizational objectives are found to be consistent with the HRO model only with respect to effectiveness. Additionally, NASA exhibits characteristics of a HRO only with respect to the degree of complexity and risk involved in operations.

Living and working in outer space introduces unique physiological, psychological, and psychosocial stressors to the human body. While most stressors are known and well researched, Long Duration Spaceflight creates additional and more worrisome stressors. This paper describes preparation and research plans for a 30-month repeated-measures, cognitive decay, and memory recall study utilizing ten practical space mission tasks performed by 32 astronaut-like subjects in an Isolation, Confined and Extreme (ICE) analogous environment.