Boron Nitride Nanotubes for Space Radiation Shielding

Active optical (Laser/Lidar) measurement techniques are critical for the future National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth, Planetary Science, Exploration, and Aeronautics measurements. The latest science decadal surveys recommend a number of missions requiring active optical systems to meet the science measurement objectives and the aeronautics community continues to use Laser/Lidar technologies to meet the aeronautics measurement objectives. This presentation will provide an overview of NASA efforts in developing and maturing state-of-the-art advanced solid-state flight laser/lidar systems for airborne and space-borne remote sensing measurements. The presentation will also provide details of a strategic approach for active optical technologies and techniques to meet the NASA’s future Earth and Space Science measurements/missions needs and requirements for space-based applications.

Performing a surgical procedure in weightlessness, also called 0-gravity (0-g), has been shown to be no more difficult than in a 1-g environment if the requirements for the restraint of the patient, operator, surgical hardware, are observed. The performance of laparoscopic and thorascopic procedures in weightlessness, if feasible, would offer several advantages over the performance of an open operation. Concerns about the feasibility of performing minimally invasive procedures in weightlessness have included impaired visualization from the absence of gravitational retraction of the bowel (laparoscopy) or thoracic organs (thoracoscopy) as well as obstruction and interference from floating debris such as blood, pus, and irrigation fluid. The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of performing laparoscopic and thorascopic procedures and the degree of impaired surgical endoscopic visualization in weightlessness. From 1993 to 2000, laparoscopic and thorascopic procedures were performed on 10 anesthetized adult pigs weighing approximately 50 kg in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Microgravity Program using a modified KC-135 airplane. The parabolic simulation system for advanced life support was used in this project, and 20 to 40 parabolas were used for laparoscopic or thorascopic investigation, each containing approximately 30 s of 0-g alternating with 2-g pullouts. The animal model was restrained in the supine position on a floor-level Crew Medical Restraint System, and the abdominal cavity was insufflated with carbon dioxide. The intraabdominal and intrathoracic anatomy was visualized in the 1-g, 0-g, and 2-g periods of parabolic flight. Bleeding was created in the animals, and the behavior of the blood in the abdominal and thoracic cavities was observed. In the thoracic cavity, gas insufflation and mechanical retraction was used at times unilaterally to decrease pulmonary ventilation enough to increase the thoracic domain. Visualization was improved in laparoscopy, from tethering of the bowel by the elastic mesentery, and from the strong tendency for debris and blood to adhere to the abdominal wall because of surface tension forces. The lack of adequate thoracic domain made thorascopy more difficult. Fluid in the thoracic cavity did not impair visualization because the fluid at 0-g does not loculate posteriorly, but disperses along the thoracic wall and mediastinal reflections. Performing minimally invasive procedures instead of open surgical procedures in a weightless environment has theoretical advantages, especially in the ability to prevent cabin atmosphere contamination from surgical fluids (blood, pus, irrigation). Visualization will become more important and practical as the endoscopic hardware is miniaturized from its current form, as endoscopic technology becomes more advanced, and as more surgically capable medical crew officers are present in future long-duration space exploration missions.

The US ‘vision for space exploration’ articulated at the beginning of 2004 encompasses a broad range of human and robotic space missions, including missions to the Moon, Mars and destinations beyond. It establishes clear goals and objectives, yet sets equally clear budgetary ‘boundaries’ by stating firm priorities, including ‘tough choices’ regarding current major NASA programs. The new vision establishes as policy the goals of pursuing commercial and international collaboration in realizing future space exploration missions. Also, the policy envisions that advances in human and robotic mission technologies will play a key role—both as enabling and as a major public benefit that will result from implementing that vision. In pursuing future international space exploration goals, the exploration of the Moon during the coming decades represents a particularly appealing objective. The Moon provides a unique venue for exploration and discovery—including the science of the Moon (e.g., geological studies), science from the Moon (e.g., astronomical observatories), and science on the Moon (including both basic research, such as biological laboratory science, and applied research and development, such as the use of the Moon as a test bed for later exploration). The Moon may also offer long-term opportunties for utilization—including Earth observing applications and commercial developments. During the coming decade, robotic lunar exploration missions will play a particularly important role, both in their own right and as precursors to later, more ambitious human and robotic exploration and development efforts. The following paper discusses some of the issues and opportunities that may arise in establishing plans for future robotic lunar exploration. Particular emphasis is placed on four specific elements of future robotic infrastructure: Earth–Moon in-space transportation systems; lunar orbiters; lunar descent and landing systems; and systems for long-range transport on the Moon.

Galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles (SEPs) present formidable radiation hazards [e.g., Cucinotta et al., 2010] for human and robotic operations beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). As new plans are conceived for human exploration beyond LEO, these space radiation hazards create critical needs for accurate situational awareness. A new near-real-time tool called PREDICCS (Predictions of Radiation From REleASE, EMMREM, and Data Incorporating the CRaTER, COSTEP, and Other SEP Measurements, http://prediccs.sr.unh.edu) provides the first online system for predicting and forecasting the radiation environment in near-Earth, lunar, and Martian space environments. PREDICCS integrates a host of near-real-time measurements being made by satellites currently in space with numerical models (e.g., EMMREM [Schwadron et al., 2010]) to determine radiation doses and dose equivalents that characterize biological impacts and energetic particle propagation codes that can accurately project radiation levels through the inner solar system and out to Mars. PREDICCS provides updates of the radiation environment on an hourly basis and archives the data weekly, monthly, and yearly to provide a clear historical record of the space radiation environment. The PREDICCS tool provides in-depth data to characterize how hazardous SEP events are throughout the solar cycle, provides detailed information on how often large events that have significant risk associated with them are likely to be observed, and facilitates comparison of the near-Earth and lunar radiation environments to that near Mars. As an example, Table 1 shows the lens doses (in centigrays; 1 centigray = 1 rad) and dose equivalents (in centisieverts; 1 centisievert = 1 rem) for full-sphere radiation exposure from PREDICCS over the last 12 months. The PREDICCS lens dose quantifies the energy per mass deposited in 1 gram per square centimeter of water, which is a proxy for the biological impact to the human eye. Large SEP events on 23 January 2012, on 27 March 2012, and in the summer of 2012 contributed significantly to the hazards of the space environment over this interval. We observe that the dose rate limit of 200 centigrays for the lens dose [Cucinotta et al., 2010] is exceeded for nominal spacecraft shielding. Among the satellite measurements used by PREDICCS are data from the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [Spence et al., 2010]. For the SEP events of 23 January (Figure 1) and 27 March 2012, PREDICCS results are typically within 20%-30% of what CRaTER observed. These highly accurate comparisons have never before been available over such long periods of time. CRaTER not only provides validation that PREDICCS models are accurate but also directly measures the biological impacts of radiation by observing linear energy transfer spectra behind different thicknesses of tissue-equivalent plastic [Spence et al., 2010]. Accurate assessment of the biological impacts of space radiation is vital to fully characterizing the radiation hazards of the space environment. The near-real-time situational awareness provided by PREDICCs will help to enable future human space exploration endeavors, including a return to the Moon and possible missions to Mars. Nathan Schwadron is an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire and the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space. His email is n.schwadron@unh.edu.

<div class="htmlview paragraph">The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is working towards future long duration manned space flights beyond low earth orbit. During these missions, vegetable crops may be grown on the transit vehicle as well as the lunar or planetary surface. The vegetable crops will provide the crew with added nutrition and variety. The vegetable crops, unlike the prepackaged foods, will add bright colors, fresh textures (e.g., crispiness), and fresh aromas to the crew’s menu. Ten vegetable crops have been identified for possible use in long duration missions. They are lettuce, spinach, carrot, tomato, green onion, radish, bell pepper, strawberries, fresh herbs, and cabbage. Since these crops do not require any cooking or food processing prior to consumption, careful sanitation procedures need to be performed.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Whether these crops are grown on a transit vehicle (e.g., International Space Station) or on the lunar or planetary surface, it will be necessary to determine how to safely handle the vegetables while maintaining acceptability. Since hydrogen peroxide degrades into water and oxygen and is generally recognized as safe (GRAS), hydrogen peroxide has been recommended as the sanitizer.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The objective of this research was to determine the required effective concentration of hydrogen peroxide without adversely affecting the quality of the vegetables. Store bought vegetables were dipped in deionized distilled water, 1% hydrogen peroxide, 3% hydrogen peroxide, or 5% hydrogen peroxide. Treated produce and controls were stored in plastic bags at 5°C for up to 14 days. Sensory, color, texture, and total plate count were measured.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Although each vegetable reacts to hydrogen peroxide differently, the data suggest that with the exception of green onions, which may require a 5% dip, the other vegetables will only require a 0% or 1% hydrogen peroxide dip to reduce the microbial total count while not adversely affecting the quality of the vegetable. More testing still needs to be done on actual chamber grown vegetables. It is expected that chamber grown vegetables will have a lower microbial count and may not need as strong a treatment of hydrogen peroxide.</div>

A methodology to support strategic decisions in future human space exploration: From scenario definition to building blocks assessment

The continuous development of ionizing radiation in medical imaging and treatment, nuclear reactors, food irradiation, and other fields is accompanied by potential risks. It protects related equipment and personnel by adopting radiation shielding materials to reduce irradiation. Due to the advancement of science and technology, many high‐performance radiation protection materials have been reported. Ionizing radiation is a complex environment involving X‐ray imaging, radiation therapy, nuclear power operation, and space radiation. Irradiation energy, irradiation type, and the measurement of shielding material have essential effects on shielding efficiency. However, there has not been a general review of the preparations and properties of ionizing radiation shielding materials in the light of different matrixes in recent years. Herein, a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in radiation shielding materials, categorized into alloys, concretes, glasses and ceramics, and polymer composites, is presented. Furthermore, the synthesis methods employed for these materials and their respective radiation shielding properties are discussed. Finally, the current research gap and possible future scope of radiation shielding materials are proposed.

With the hindsight of more than 40 years of human space exploration experience, public support for space is essential to sustaining government funding for space endeavors. Poll after poll shows that the public is generally supportive of space exploration, but that support is passive and shallow. Although space is integrated into many facets of daily life, the general public’s knowledge of space activities is not commensurate with the benefits derived from them. The public’s concept of the cost of space endeavors or the extent of taxpayer investment in space is generally erroneous. Space agencies, the aerospace industry, and space-related entities need to communicate better the contributions of space to society and the excitement of space exploration and discovery.In March 2001, a Working Group of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) considered ways to promote public awareness of the benefits and excitement of space activities; its findings and recommendations are presented in this paper. Without significant improvements in public outreach coordination, the future of human spaceflight beyond the International Space Station (ISS) will be hard to sell to the legislators who must underwrite the major share of the initial costs of humanity’s sustained progression beyond low Earth orbit. The AIAA Working Group recognized that it will take time and effort to coordinate a long-term commitment to an international outreach and communication strategy. International discussions should begin without delay to enhance efforts to garner public support for human spaceflight activities aboard the ISS, and to map out a broad plan with national and international elements to educate the public and harness support for the potential of human spaceflight beyond the ISS.KeywordsSpace ActivitySpace ExplorationInternational Space StationSpace CommunityWorkforce DevelopmentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Feasibility Study for a Commercial Space Station in Low Earth Orbit

Projecting a vision for space radiobiological research necessitates understanding the nature of the space radiation environment and how radiation risks influence mission planning, timelines and operational decisions. Exposure to space radiation increases the risks of astronauts developing cancer, experiencing central nervous system (CNS) decrements, exhibiting degenerative tissue effects or developing acute radiation syndrome. One or more of these deleterious health effects could develop during future multi-year space exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Shielding is an effective countermeasure against solar particle events (SPEs), but is ineffective in protecting crew members from the biological impacts of fast moving, highly-charged galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) nuclei. Astronauts traveling on a protracted voyage to Mars may be exposed to SPE radiation events, overlaid on a more predictable flux of GCR. Therefore, ground-based research studies employing model organisms seeking to accurately mimic the biological effects of the space radiation environment must concatenate exposures to both proton and heavy ion sources. New techniques in genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and other “omics” areas should also be intelligently employed and correlated with phenotypic observations. This approach will more precisely elucidate the effects of space radiation on human physiology and aid in developing personalized radiological countermeasures for astronauts.

Personal computers of the past were limited to running computational fluid dynamics codes in serial mode. With the advent of multicore technology and suitable compilers, personal computers nowadays can execute codes in a parallel fashion similar to that of supercomputers and cluster computer systems. This article investigated what performance can be achieved when executing an aerodynamic code on an Intel quad core based personal computer with an OpenMP compiler in a Windows environment. The code solved the Euler equations to find the flowfield around a NACA0012 aerofoil on an O-type boundary fitted structured grid system. A speedup of up to 350% was obtainable in double precision accuracy. The reduced computation time means that, for small scale problems, more accurate Euler codes can replace commonly used transonic small disturbance codes. For larger problems, this information serves as a reference for developers of hybrid MPI/OpenMP algorithms for cluster computer systems. References Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), AMD FireStream 9170: Industry's First GPU with Double-Precision Floating Point, 2007, http://ati.amd.com/products/streamprocessor/specs.html Allmaras, S. R., Venkatakrishnan, V., and Johnson, F. T., Farfield Boundary Conditions for 2-D Airfoils, AIAA Paper 2005-4711, AIAA, 2005. Bailey, D., Barszcz, E., Barton, J., Browning, D., Carter, R., Dagum, L., Fatoohi, R., Fineberg, S., Frederickson, P., Lasinski, T., Schreiber, R., Simon, H., Venkatakrishnan, V., and Weeratunga, S., The NAS Parallel Benchmarks, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Contractor Report 203186, USA, 1994, http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19970014936_1997021577.pdf Dong, S., and Karniadakis, G. E., Dual-Level Parallelism for High-Order CFD Methods, Parallel Computing, 30, Jan. 2004, pp. 1--20. Hirsch, C., Numerical Computation of Internal and External Flows (Volume 2): Computational Methods for Inviscid and Viscous Flows, John Wiley and Sons, Great Britain, 1992. Hoffmann, K. A., Computational Fluid Dynamics for Engineers, Engineering Educational System, Texas, USA, 1989. Intel, Tera-scale Computing Research Program, c.2007, http://www.intel.com/research/platform/terascale/ Jin, H., Frumkin, M., and Yan, J., The OpenMP Implementation of NAS Parallel Benchmarks and its Performance, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Technical Report NAS-99-011, Moffett Field, USA, 1999. Liu, Y., and Vinokur, M., Nonequilibrium Flow Computations 1: An Analysis of Numerical Formulations of Conservation Laws, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Contractor Report 177489, California, USA, 1988, http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19880021000_1988021000.pdf Lock, R. C., Test Cases for Numerical Methods in Two-Dimensional Transonic Flows, Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD), Report Number 575, 1970. Ly, E., Improved Approximate Factorisation Algorithm for the Steady Subsonic and Transonic Flow over an Aircraft Wing, Proceedings of the 21st Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS98), ICAS and AIAA, Melbourne, Australia, 1998, Paper A98-31699. Ly, E., and Gear, J. A., Time-Linearized Transonic Computations Including Shock Wave Motion Effects, Journal of Aircraft, 39, 6, Nov/Dec. 2002, pp. 964--972. Ly, E., and Nakamichi, J., Time-Linearised Transonic Computations Including Entropy, Vorticity and Shock Wave Motion Effects, The Aeronautical Journal, Nov. 2003, pp. 687--695. Ly, E., and Norrison, D., Automatic Elliptic Grid Generation by an Approximate Factorisation Algorithm, ANZIAM Journal, 48 (CTAC2006), pp. C188--C202, July 2007, http://anziamj.austms.org.au/ojs/index.php/ANZIAMJ/article/view/48. Ly, E., and Norrison, D., Generating Elliptic Grids in Three Dimensions by a Method of False Transients, ANZIAM Journal, 49 (EMAC2007), pp. C170--C183, Nov. 2007, http://anziamj.austms.org.au/ojs/index.php/ANZIAMJ/article/view/313. Nvidia, The Era of the Personal Supercomputer, 2007, http://www.nvidia.com/content/events/siggraph_2007/supercomputing.html Pope, S. B., A Perspective on Turbulence Modeling, Modeling Complex Turbulent Flows, Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, 1999. Pulliam, T., Kutler, P., and Rossow, V., Harvard Lomax: His Quiet Legacy to Computational Fluid Dynamics, 14th AIAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, Norfolk, VA, 28 June-1 July, 1999, http://people.nas.nasa.gov/ pulliam/mypapers/lomax_la.ps Steger, J. L., and Warming, R. F., Flux Vector Splitting of the Inviscid Gasdynamic Equations with Application to Finite Difference Methods, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Technical Memorandum 78605, California, USA, 1979, http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790020779_1979020779.pdf Thompson, J. R., Warsi, Z. U. A., and Mastin, C. W., Numerical Grid Generation: Foundations and Applications, Elsevier Science Publishing Co. Inc., New York, USA, 1985. Van Leer, B., Flux-Vector Splitting for the Euler Equations, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Numerical Methods in Fluid Dynamics, Aachen, West Germany, 1982.

The national Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has in operation a Space Radiation Effects Laboratory (SREL) that is suitably designed for radiation biology research. A 600 MeV proton synchrocyclotron, capable of simulating the space radiation environment, is the facility's major machine. Space radiation simulation is achieved by degrading either of the two primary extracted proton beams having measured energies of 595 MeV and 325 MeV. The primary extracted beams are degraded to lower energies by using copper absorbers located in the magnet hall of the facility (Fig. 1). Proton beams having energies from 595 MeV to approximately 30 MeV can be obtained at the target position. Both small- and large-area beams are available over a wide energy range. The final beam configuration at the target position, however, is dependent upon the optimization of some 25 magnets located in the proton beam transport system (PBTS). Because of this, an extensive proton beam characterization study was initiated and recently completed. This paper summarizes the characteristics of approximately 30 beam configurations and includes such parameters as proton beam energy, energy spread, intensity, intensity profile, repeatability, and area. The results reported here are primarily related to large-area beams, which are of interest to experimenters studying the radiation effects of protons on animals. Uniformity of several large-area beams is discussed in terms of dose rate (rads/min.) in muscle. Experimental Methods Monitoring Technics Foil activation is considered one of the best technics for determining high-energy proton beam intensities. The 12C (p,pn) 11C reaction is widely used since the cross section is known to within ±5 per cent over an energy range of 50 MeV to the GeV region (1). The induced 11C atoms decay to 11B by positron emission with a half-life of 20.5 minutes and a maximum energy of 0.968 MeV. For the determination of absolute 11C activity induced in a polystyrene target, a gamma counting system was chosen for this experiment. The emitted positrons were stopped in an aluminum capsule surrounding the polystyrene disk. Gamma rays produced by positron annihilation were then counted with a NaI(T1) crystal. Horizontal and vertical profiles of the small-area, high-intensity beams were obtained by scanning the beams with a silicon diode (2, 3). Figure 2 is the horizontal profile of the small-area 325 MeV proton beam. Calibration of Detector System Several precision gamma standard sources with accuracies of ± 1–2 per cent were used for calibration of the 3 × 3-inch NaI(Tl) crystal detector system. Nominal source-to-detector distances of 0, 5, and 10 cm were chosen depending on the source strength of each disk. Crystal efficiency was determined for each sample size and each source-to-detector distance.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is continuously working in furthering its space and aero communications capabilities required for the successful accomplishment of its aerospace missions. With the ever present demand for higher communication data rates and larger bandwidth required by future space exploration missions, optimization of the communications systems supporting such missions is necessary to ensure that critical scientific data and high definition video and imagery of human and robotic exploration is properly transmitted back to Earth. In the aeronautics side, the envisioned increase in aircraft volumes under the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystems could benefit from communications capabilities impervious to interference and free from spectrum limitations constraints. This work discusses examples of GRC’s ongoing technology development and integration efforts relevant to the aforementioned scenarios. In particular, the ability to increase the versatility, affordability, and reliability of ground-based optical receivers for space-to-ground communications will be presented. Our current activities on the development of highly secure airborne laser communications links augmented with Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) will also be discussed, as well as scenarios in which optical communications could be beneficial to UAM/AAM. The status of efforts in quantum communications, high rate optical networks, and on the development of current efforts to demonstrate integrated Radio/optical communications (iROC) will also be addressed.

The Seventh Symposium on the Role of the Vestibular Organs in Space Exploration was held at the European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC), in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, on June 7–9, 2006. The host for this conference was the European Space Agency (ESA). The conference was co-sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). There have been six previous NASA-sponsored symposia in this series. Written proceedings of the first five symposia, held between 1965–1970 in Pensacola, Florida, are available from the NASA Technical Reports Server (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp, and enter “Role of Vestibular Organs” as the search term). The Sixth NASA Symposium was held in Portland, Oregon in 2002. The program and abstracts from this meeting were published by the Journal of Vestibular Research as part of Volume 11 (3–5); these abstracts can be accessed through the IOS Press web site (http://iospress.metapress.com/home/main.mpx). In addition, most of the papers from the Sixth Symposium were submitted to the Journal of Vestibular Research and appear as Volume 13 (4–6). Each of the seven Symposia on the Role of the Vestibular Organs in Space Exploration address the adverse physiological effects mediated by the vestibular system in humans exposed to microgravity. A European venue was particularly appropriate for the Seventh Symposium, since the space neurovestibular field has become increasingly international. Researchers from many countries have had the opportunity to conduct experiments on the Russian Mir station, the US Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station. Symposium participants included more than one hundred scientists, flight surgeons, postdoctoral fellows and students from Europe, the US, Canada, Russia and Japan. It was an exciting three day meeting: More than 50 platform presentations and 20 posters were presented, describing results from investigations in spaceflight, parabolic flight, and ground laboratories. Session topics included the vestibulo-ocular reflex, clinical assessment of vestibular disorders, neurophysiology, spatial orientation, spaceflight countermeasures, balance and locomotion, motion sickness, otolith and semicircular canal physiology, and artificial gravity. The meeting concluded with an international panel discussion on challenges and opportunities in space research. We would like to thank the Journal of Vestibular Research for this Special Issue devoted to papers presented at this Symposium. We would also like to thank the presenters who submitted full papers, which underwent peer-review, for this special issue. The web site for the Symposium (http://www.congrex.nl/06a07/) contains the full scientific program; many of the slide presentations and posters are also available at this web site.

Aloha Space Age:NASA and the Hawaiian Islands, 1957—1970 David A. Smith (bio) I have been part of that generation so inspired by the space program. Nineteen sixty-one was the year of my birth, the year that Kennedy made his announcement. And one of my earliest memories is sitting on my grandfather's shoulders, waving a flag as astronauts arrived in Hawai'i. For me, the space program has always captured an essential part of what it means to be an American: reaching for new heights, stretching beyond what previously did not seem possible. And so as President, I believe that space exploration is ... an essential part of that quest. —US President Barack Obama, 2010 1 When scholars and the general public recall the early years of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space pro-gram, from Project Mercury through Project Apollo, the Cape and Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Manned Space Flight Center in Houston are the two earthbound locales that usually first come to mind. 2 Over the years, historians have also turned their attention to other sites outside of southeast Texas and Florida's space coast that played significant roles in space exploration. 3 One region that has [End Page 1] been almost universally overlooked by academic and popular authors alike, however, has been the State of Hawai'i, which became the fiftieth state just one year after NASA was established in November 1958. While the world's premier and perhaps most controversial astronomical site at Mauna Kea on the island of Hawai'i has been the subject of several studies (including one in this journal 4 ), the stories of the Hawaiian Islands' engagement with the movement of people to and from space and the Moon, including residents' responses to the Space Age, have not been told. From NASA's formative years through the early 1970s, the Hawaiian Islands played important and colorful roles in space exploration. On the island of Kaua'i, the Kōke'e tracking station was an integral part of the agency's tracking and communications network for the early human space flights that made up the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. O'ahu was the first port of call for astronauts returning from the Moon. The island of Hawai'i became the first choice for astronaut geology training and other lunar space-related activities. There were other significant, if less tangible, connections as well. From the aftermath of the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik I through the dramatic return of the Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970, most, if not all, of Hawai'i's residents, local press, politicians, celebrities, schools, and cultural institutions consistently embraced space travel programs and related activities with a sense of enthusiasm and "great aloha" (especially in terms of greetings for returning astronauts) with a participation rate far out of proportion to Hawai'i's small population. A variety of schemes for space launch centers and facilities, related exhibition and educational programs, and spontaneous celebrations of NASA successes seemed to be everywhere in Hawai'i during the 1960s. Examining the Hawaiian Islands' engagement and welcome of these NASA initiatives fills an existing void in the literature and provides a window, from a mid-Pacific perspective, into understanding why the space program experienced the highest level of public approval of all major US federal initiatives during this era. 5 Rockets, Missiles, and Moonports Most scholars accept that the Space Age began when the Soviet Union launched the world's first man-made satellite, Sputnik, on October 4, 1957. [End Page 2] The United States quickly took notice and began focusing more attention on its own fledgling space initiatives. In the post-war period, the US Congress was alarmed by the perceived Soviet threat to America's security and to its now questionable lead in world technology. As historian Andreas Reichstein contends: "The reaction of the American people to the successful launch of Sputnik . . . has been compared to the one after Pearl Harbor." 6 Troubled O'ahu residents once again looked to the skies and, in November, reported spotting the companion rocket to the Soviet's "first artificial 'moon'" as it...