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YORK UNIVERSITY "ON BOARD" WHEN SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA BLASTS OFF APRIL 16 TORONTO, April 9, 1998 -- Two of the 26 experiments set to blast off with the Space Shuttle Columbia on April 16 -- and the only two Canadian experiments on board -- have been developed by research teams with strong connections to York University. Barry Fowler, a professor of Kinesiology and Health Science at York, is the lead researcher on an experiment which will probe why astronauts lose eye-hand coordination when they work in the weightless environment of space. His research team includes Deanna Comfort, a York PhD student in psychology, and Dr. Otmar Bock, formerly of the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology (CRESTech) at York and now affiliated with the Deutsche Sporthochschule Koln in Germany. Ian Howard is a Distinguished Research Professor emeritus of the Departments of Psychology and Biology at York and the Co-director of the Human Performance Laboratory in CRESTech, a provincial Centre of Excellence with its headquarters at York. Howard heads a Canadian team which includes CRESTech project scientists Jim Zacher and Heather Jenkin. Together with an American team led by Dr. Chuck Oman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they are responsible for the "Role of Visual Cues in Spatial Orientation" experiment, which will look at how astronauts orient themselves during work in space, and how they develop a sense of what is "up" and "down." "Having these two experiments on board the Shuttle is very exciting and a testament to ground-breaking research going on at York, not only into how the body reacts to space flight, but also in related areas of space science, astronomy, earth and atmospheric science, and computer science," said Bob Prince, York's Dean of Pure and Applied Science. Howard's and Fowler's experiments join 24 others aboard the 17-day STS-90 Shuttle mission, called Neurolab. Seven astronauts, including Canadian Space Agency astronaut Dave Williams, will conduct the experiments on the effects of weightlessness on the nervous system, one of the most complex and least understood parts of the human body. Made up of the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and sensory organs, the nervous system faces major challenges during space flight. The brain helps to regulate blood pressure, coordinate movement, regulate sleep and more -- and all of these functions will be investigated on board the Neurolab mission. For Fowler's experiment, astronauts on board the Shuttle will conduct a series of tests to see whether they can adapt their eye-hand coordination as they adjust to weightlessness. Fowler said his experiment will help us understand how astronauts will adapt to prolonged weightlessness on the International Space Station. Howard's experiment will be conducted using NASA's Virtual Environment Generator (VEG) to test astronauts in three different "virtual" environments. "This experiment should greatly improve our understanding of how humans orient themselves, and could be enormously helpful in combatting spatial disorientation, not just among astronauts but also among pilots and ordinary drivers here on earth," said Howard. The work these scientists do contributes to the quality of education offered by York University's Faculties of Arts and Pure and Applied Science. "York is particularly proud of the co-operative relationship we've developed with many other important actors in the space science field, such as the Canadian Space Agency and CRESTech," said Associate Vice-President (Research and Faculties) Brock Fenton. To celebrate York's involvement in the Space Shuttle mission, the York Alumni Association has organized a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida to observe final preparations for the launch and the Shuttle take-off on April 16. Joining York alumnus and Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean (York PhD '83) in Florida will be Chair of the York Board of Governors Charles Hantho, Co-Chair of York's National Campaign and Board of Governors' member John Bankes (York MBA, LLB '77), Alumni Association Director Charles Kennedy, Project Scientists Jenkin and Zacher, and approximately 50 York alumni and guests.
For more information, please contact:
Sine MacKinnon
Alison Masemann
Nicole Gignac
VISUO-MOTOR COORDINATION FACILITY EXPERIMENT (VCF) Dr. Barry Fowler's team is in charge of the Visuo-Motor Coordination Facility experiment, designed to measure the subtle loss of eye-hand coordination that occurs when astronauts work in the weightless environment of space. Astronauts show poor coordination in space because their bodies are accustomed to compensating for the earth's strong gravitational pull. In space, that force is substantially reduced, so they can easily misjudge simple distances. For example, if an astronaut tried to catch a baseball in space, he or she would get hit in the head -- because his or her "light" arm, which is not being held down by the force of gravity, reaches too high and misses the ball entirely. The study will be performed by six astronauts before, during and after the flight.The astronauts' eye-hand coordination will be measured while they point, grasp and track computer-generated targets that appear to be floating in space. During the test, the astronauts will wear a specially designed glove that allows precise tracking of hand movements and response times. Each astronaut will be tested several times over the course of the flight to determine whether humans eventually adapt their movements to weightlessness in space. If they do, all the better, but if they don't, Fowler's team will study these results to determine the best strategy for helping astronauts overcome these problems. The results of these experiments are more important as shuttle pilots depend more and more on quick and accurate coordination to manoeuvre intricately along other objects in space. To dock a space station safely, for instance, the pilot must be accurate within a few centimetres while both vehicles move through space at 30,000 km per hour. Space engineers could use such knowledge to better design cockpit instrumentation, taking into account pilots' limited coordination during sudden or ongoing weightlessness.
THE ROLE OF VISUAL CUES IN SPACE ORIENTATION (VISO) Dr. Ian Howard's team will study the process by which astronauts orient themselves during work in space. In our daily lives, gravity produces a constant anchor for us to use as a reference for orientation. But in space, astronauts lose this reference. They lose sense of what is objectively "up" and "down," and often become motion sick while subconsciously trying to figure it out. This "space motion sickness" affects nearly half of all astronauts. A contributing factor to space sickness may be a conflict between astronauts' visual cues and the absence of inner ear and somatic sensations (pressure on your feet or seat). Space motion sickness is a significant cost in terms of astronaut "down time," reduced work quality, and danger due to impaired coordination. The Visual Cues experiment will try to discover how quickly astronauts switch from using the balance organs in the inner ears to using strictly visual cues to orient themselves. It will also examine how "fake" gravity (putting pressure on the bottom of their feet) can override these visual cues, and how long it takes to re-adapt once the astronauts have returned to earth. One of the primary goals of this experiment is to uncover whether virtual reality pre-training for astronauts might be more effective than current training practises. The tests will be conducted in three different "virtual reality" environments, created by NASA's Virtual Environment Generator (VEG). These environments include a spherical room with no "up" or "down" cues and a cubic room, furnished and unfurnished. The astronauts will be tested in the real rooms before and after flight, and in the virtual reality version of the rooms while on the Space Shuttle. The VISO experiment will help improve our understanding of conditions that create spatial disorientation, which is a problem not just for in-space travel, but also for pilots and drivers here on earth. The insights into the way the nervous system establishes a balance between information it gathers from the inner ear and the eyes could also help in testing patients with neurological diseases.
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