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By USH
The world is full of mysterious places, and Vottovaara Mountain in Russia's Republic of Karelia is one of them. This site has been revered for thousands of years by ancient Saami tribes and shamans, who considered it a sacred place surrounded with powerful energy.
Image credit: Universe Inside You
Vottovaara is home to numerous strange megalithic structures and ruins that many believe couldn't have formed naturally. Among these are around 1,600 sacred stones, known as "seids," arranged in a puzzling pattern. These stones, often unusually shaped, are precariously balanced on small rocks in ways that defy simple explanations. While scientists suggest that this was the result of natural processes during the Ice Age, the sheer number and precision of these balanced stones challenge the idea that they occurred by chance.
Another intriguing feature of Vottovaara is a structure referred to as "the well," which locals believe to be an ancient, man-made water reservoir.
As you climb Vottovaara, you'll notice an eerie transformation in the trees. None of the trees on the summit are older than a few decades, and while young pines and firs start growing normally, they soon begin to twist and deform in bizarre ways. This phenomenon is thought to be caused by some unknown energy affecting the trees.
Known as Death Mountain, Vottovaara also is believed to be connected to ancient spirits that are said to inhabit the area, adding to its aura of mystery.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The LZR Racer reduces skin friction drag by covering more skin than traditional swimsuits. Multiple pieces of the water-resistant and extremely lightweight LZR Pulse fabric connect at ultrasonically welded seams and incorporate extremely low-profile zippers to keep viscous drag to a minimum.Credit: SpeedoUSA A supersonic airplane and a competitive swimmer have much more in common than people might realize; both have to contend with the slowing influence of drag. NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate focuses primarily on improving flight efficiency and fluid dynamics, especially the forces of pressure and drag, which are the same for bodies moving through air as for bodies moving through water. Shortly after the 2004 Olympics, Los Angeles-based SpeedoUSA, also known as Speedo, asked NASA’s Langley Research Center to help design a swimsuit with reduced surface drag. The manufacturer sought a partnership with NASA because of the agency’s expertise in fluid dynamics.
In competitive swimming, where every hundredth of a second counts, achieving the best possible drag reduction is crucially important. Researchers at NASA began flat plate testing of fabrics, using a small wind tunnel developed for earlier research on low-speed viscous drag reduction and collaborated over the next few years with Speedo to design the LZR Racer swimsuit.
Researcher Corey Diebler inspects a model of the supersonic X-59 after a test in Langley Research Center’s 12 foot wind tunnel. Wind tunnel testing at Langley enabled Speedo’s LZR Racer to achieve its excellent underwater performance.NASA/David C. Bowman. NASA and Speedo performed tests on traditionally sewn seams, ultrasonically welded seams, and the fabric alone, which gave Speedo a baseline for reducing drag caused by seams and helped identify problem areas. NASA wind tunnel results helped Speedo create a bonding system that eliminates seams and reduces drag. The results also showed that a low-profile zipper ultrasonically bonded into the fabric inside the suit generated eight percent less drag in wind tunnel tests than a standard zipper. Low-profile seams and zippers were a crucial component in the LZR Racer, because the suit consists of multiple connecting fabric pieces—instead of just a few sewn pieces such as found in traditional suits—that provide extra compression for maximum efficiency.
In March 2008, the LZR Racer made its mark on the world of competitive swimming. Athletes donning this innovative swimsuit shattered 13 world records, a testament to the power of collaboration between NASA and Speedo. While the original LZR Racer is no longer used in competition because of the advantage it gave wearers, its legacy lives on in today’s swimsuits approved by World Aquatics, the governing body for international competitive swimming.
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Last Updated Jul 25, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
5 Min Read Eileen Collins Broke Barriers as America’s First Female Space Shuttle Commander
Astronauts Eileen M. Collins, mission commander and Jeffrey S. Ashby, pilot, peruse checklists on Columbia's middeck during the STS-93 mission. Credits: NASA At the end of February 1998, Johnson Space Center Deputy Director James D. Wetherbee called Astronaut Eileen Collins to his office in Building 1. He told her she had been assigned to command STS-93 and went with her to speak with Center Director George W.S. Abbey who informed her that she would be going to the White House the following week.
Selecting a female commander to fly in space was a monumental decision, something the space agency recognized when they alerted the president of the United States. First Lady Hillary Clinton wanted to publicly announce the flight to the American people along with her husband President William J. Clinton and NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin.
President William Jefferson Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton with Eileen Collins in the Oval Office.Sharon Farmer and White House Photograph Office At that event, on March 5, 1998, the First Lady noted what a change it would be to have a female in the commander’s seat. Referencing Neil A. Armstrong’s first words on the Moon, Clinton proclaimed, “Collins will take one big step forward for women and one giant leap for humanity.” Collins, a military test pilot and shuttle astronaut, was about to break one of the last remaining barriers for women at NASA by being assigned a position previously filled by men only. Clinton went on to reflect on her own experience with the space agency when she explained how in 1962, at the age of 14, she had written to NASA and asked about the qualifications to become an astronaut. NASA responded that women were not being considered to fly space missions. “Well, times have certainly changed,” she said wryly.
Eileen Collins’ assignment as the first female shuttle commander was front page news in the March 13, 1998 issue of Johnson Space Center’s Space News Roundup.NASA The same year Hillary Clinton inquired about the astronaut corps, a special subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Astronautics held hearings on the issue of sexual discrimination in the selection of astronauts. Astronaut John H. Glenn, who had flown that February in 1962, justified women’s exclusion from the corps. “I think this gets back to the way our social order is organized really. It is just a fact. The men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes and come back and help design and build and test them. The fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order. It may be undesirable.” Attitudes about women’s place in society, not just at NASA, were stubbornly hard to break. It would be 16 years before the agency selected its first class of astronauts that included women.
Astronaut Eileen M. Collins looks over a checklist at the commander’s station on the forward flight deck of the space shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, the first day of the mission. The most important event of this day was the deployment of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.NASA By 1998, views about women’s roles had changed substantially, as demonstrated by the naming of the first female shuttle commander. The agency even commissioned a song for the occasion: “Beyond the Sky,” by singer-songwriter Judy Collins. NASA dedicated the historic mission’s launch to America’s female aviation pioneers from the Ninety-Nines—an international organization of women pilots—to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), women who ferried aircraft for the military during World War II. Collins also extended an invitation to the women who had participated in Randy Lovelace’s Woman in Space Program, where women went through the same medical and psychological tests as the Mercury 7 astronauts; the press commonly refers to these women as the Mercury 13. (Commander Collins had thanked both the WASPs and the Mercury 13 for paving the way and inspiring her career in aviation and spaceflight in her White House speech.)
In a way, it's like my dream come true.
Betty Skelton Frankman
Pioneering Woman Aviator
In a group interview with several of the WASPs in Florida, just before launch, Mary Anna “Marty” Martin Wyall explained why they came. “Eileen Collins was one of those women that has always looked at us as being her mentors, and we just think she’s great. That’s why we want to come see her blast off.” Betty Skelton Frankman expressed just how proud she was of Collins, and how NASA’s first female commander would be fulfilling her dream to fly in space. “In a way,” she said, “it’s like my dream come true.” In the ‘60s it was not possible for a woman to fly in space because none met the requirements as laid out by NASA. But by the end of the twentieth century, women had been in the Astronaut Office for 20 years, and opportunities for women had grown as women were selected as pilot astronauts. NASA named its second and only other female space shuttle commander, Pamela A. Melroy, to STS-120, and Peggy A. Whitson went on to command the International Space Station. Melroy and Whitson shook hands in space, when their missions coincided, for another historic first—two women commanding space missions at the same time.
Twenty-five years ago, Eileen Collins’ command broke down barriers in human spaceflight. As the First Lady predicted, her selection led to other opportunities for women astronauts. More women continue to command spaceflight missions, including Expedition 65 Commander Shannon Walker and Expedition 68 Commander Samantha Cristoforetti. More importantly, Collins became a role model for young people interested in aviation, engineering, math, science, and technology. Her career demonstrated that there were no limits if you worked hard and pursued your passion.
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Last Updated Jul 22, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
The latest crew chosen by NASA to venture on a simulated trip to Mars inside the agency’s Human Exploration Research Analog. From left are Sergii Iakymov, Erin Anderson, Brandon Kent, and Sarah Elizabeth McCandless.Credit: C7M3 Crew NASA selected a new team of four research volunteers to participate in a simulated mission to Mars within HERA (Human Exploration Research Analog) at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Erin Anderson, Sergii Iakymov, Brandon Kent, and Sarah Elizabeth McCandless will begin their simulated trek to Mars on Friday, Aug. 9. The volunteer crew members will stay inside the 650-square-foot habitat for 45 days, exiting Monday, Sept. 23 after a simulated “return” to Earth. Jason Staggs and Anderson Wilder will serve as alternate crew members.
The HERA missions offer scientific insights into how people react to the type of isolation, confinement, work and life demands, and remote conditions astronauts might experience during deep space missions.
The facility supports more frequent, shorter-duration simulations in the same building as CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Analog). This crew is the third group of volunteers to participate in a simulated Mars mission in HERA this year. The most recent crew completed its HERA mission on June 24. In total, there will be four analog missions in this series.
During this summer’s simulation, participants will perform a mix of science and operational tasks, including harvesting plants from a hydroponic garden, growing shrimp, deploying a small, cube-shaped satellite (CubeSat) to simulate gathering virtual data for analysis, “walking” on the surface of Mars using virtual reality goggles, and flying simulated drones on the simulated Mars surface. The team members also will encounter increasingly longer communication delays with Mission Control throughout their mission, culminating in five-minute lags as they “near” Mars. Astronauts traveling to Mars may experience communications delays of up to 20 minutes.
NASA’s Human Research Program will conduct 18 human health experiments during each of the 2024 HERA missions. Collectively, the studies explore how a Mars-like journey may affect the crew members’ mental and physical health. The work also will allow scientists to test certain procedures and equipment designed to keep astronauts safe and healthy on deep space missions.
Primary Crew
Erin Anderson
Erin Anderson is a structural engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. Her work focuses on manufacturing and building composite structures — using materials engineered to optimize strength, stiffness, and density — that fly in air and space.
Anderson earned a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013. After graduating, she worked as a structural engineer for Boeing on NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) in Huntsville, Alabama. She moved to New Orleans to support the assembly of the first core stage of the SLS at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility. Anderson received a master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, in 2020. She started her current job in 2021, continuing her research on carbon fiber composites.
In her free time, Anderson enjoys playing rugby, doting on her dog, Sesame, and learning how to ride paddleboard at local beaches.
Sergii Iakymov
Sergii Iakymov is an aerospace engineer with more than 15 years of experience in research and design, manufacturing, quality control, and project management. Iakymov currently serves as the director of the Mars Desert Research Station, a private, Utah-based research facility that serves as an operational and geological Mars analog.
Iakymov received a bachelor’s degree in Aviation and Cosmonautics and a master’s in Aircraft Control Systems from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in Ukraine. His graduate research focused on the motion of satellites equipped with pitch flywheels and magnetic coils.
Iakymov was born in Germany, raised in Ukraine, and currently splits his time between southern Utah and Chino Hills, California. His hobbies include traveling, running, hiking, scuba diving, photography, and reading.
Brandon Kent
Brandon Kent is a medical director in the pharmaceutical industry, supporting ongoing global efforts to develop new therapies across cancer types.
Kent received a bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry and Biology from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He earned his doctorate in Biomedicine from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, where his work primarily focused on how genetic factors regulate early embryonic development and cancer development.
Following graduate school, Kent moved into scientific and medical communications consulting in oncology, primarily focusing on clinical trial data disclosures, scientific exchange, and medical education initiatives.
Kent and his wife have two daughters. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his daughters, flying private aircraft, hiking, staying physically fit, and reading. He lives in Kinnelon, New Jersey.
Sarah Elizabeth McCandless
Sarah Elizabeth McCandless is a navigation engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. McCandless’ job involves tracking the location and predicting the future trajectory of spacecraft, including the Mars Perseverance rover, Artemis I, Psyche, and Europa Clipper.
McCandless received a bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, and a master’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, focused on orbital mechanics.
McCandless is originally from Fairway, Kansas, and remains an avid fan of sports teams from her alma mater and hometown. She is active in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) outreach and education and enjoys camping, running, traveling with friends and family, and piloting Cessna 172s. She lives in Pasadena, California.
Alternate Crew
Jason Staggs
Jason Staggs is a cybersecurity researcher and adjunct professor of computer science at the University of Tulsa. His research focuses on systems security engineering, infrastructure protection, and resilient autonomous systems. Staggs is an editor for the International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection and the Critical Infrastructure Protection book series.
Staggs supported scientific research expeditions with the National Science Foundation at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. He also previously served as a space engineer and medical officer while working as an analog astronaut in the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) atop the Mauna Loa volcano.
Staggs received his bachelor’s degree in Information Assurance and Forensics at Oklahoma State University and master’s and doctorate degrees in Computer Science from the University of Tulsa. During his postdoctoral studies at Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, he investigated electric vehicle charging station vulnerabilities.
In his spare time, Staggs enjoys hiking, building radio systems, communicating with ham radio operators in remote locations, and volunteering as a solar system ambassador for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory — sharing his passion for astronomy, oceanography, and space exploration with his community.
Anderson Wilder
Anderson Wilder is a Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne graduate student working on his doctorate in psychology. His research focuses on team resiliency and human-machine interactions. Wilder also works in the campus neuroscience lab, investigating how spaceflight contributes to astronaut neurobehavioral changes.
Wilder previously served as an executive officer and engineer for an analog mission at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. There, he performed studies related to crew social dynamics, plant growth, and geology.
Wilder received bachelor’s degrees in Linguistics and Psychology from Ohio State University in Columbus. He also received a master’s degree in Space Studies from International Space University in Strasbourg, France, and is completing a second master’s in Cognitive Experimental Psychology from Cleveland State University in Ohio.
Outside of school, Wilder works as a parabolic flight coach, teaching people how to experience reduced-gravity environments. He also enjoys chess, reading, video games, skydiving, and scuba diving. On a recent dive, he explored a submerged section of the Great Wall of China.
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NASA’s Human Research Program
NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP) pursues the best methods and technologies to support safe, productive human space travel. Through science conducted in laboratories, ground-based analogs, and the International Space Station, HRP scrutinizes how spaceflight affects human bodies and behaviors. Such research drives HRP’s quest to innovate ways to keep astronauts healthy and mission-ready as space travel expands to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Despite some years with significant snowfalls, long-term drought conditions in the Great Basin region of Nevada, California, Arizona, and Utah, along with increasing water demands, have strained water reserves in the western U.S. As a result, inland bodies of water, including the Great Salt Lake pictured here, have shrunk dramatically, exposing lakebeds that may release toxic dust when dried.Dorothy Hall/University of Maryland Record snowfall in recent years has not been enough to offset long-term drying conditions and increasing groundwater demands in the U.S. Southwest, according to a new analysis of NASA satellite data.
Declining water levels in the Great Salt Lake and Lake Mead have been testaments to a megadrought afflicting western North America since 2000. But surface water only accounts for a fraction of the Great Basin watershed that covers most of Nevada and large portions of California, Utah, and Oregon. Far more of the region’s water is underground. That has historically made it difficult to track the impact of droughts on the overall water content of the Great Basin.
A new look at 20 years of data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) series of satellites shows that the decline in groundwater in the Great Basin far exceeds stark surface water losses. Over about the past two decades, the underground water supply in the basin has fallen by 16.5 cubic miles (68.7 cubic kilometers). That’s roughly two-thirds as much water as the entire state of California uses in a year and about six times the total volume of water that was left in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, at the end of 2023.
While new maps show a seasonal rise in water each spring due to melting snow from higher elevations, University of Maryland earth scientist Dorothy Hall said occasional snowy winters are unlikely to stop the dramatic water level decline that’s been underway in the U.S. Southwest.
The finding came about as Hall and colleagues studied the contribution of annual snowmelt to Great Basin water levels. “In years like the 2022-23 winter, I expected that the record amount of snowfall would really help to replenish the groundwater supply,” Hall said. “But overall, the decline continued.” The research was published in March 2024 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“A major reason for the decline is the upstream water diversion for agriculture and households,” Hall said. Populations in the states that rely on Great Basin water supplies have grown by 6% to 18% since 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. “As the population increases, so does water use.”
Runoff, increased evaporation, and water needs of plants suffering hot, dry conditions in the region are amplifying the problem. “With the ongoing threat of drought,” Hall said, “farmers downstream often can’t get enough water.”
Gravity measurements from the GRACE series of satellites show that the decline in water levels in the Great Basin region from April 2002 to September 2023 has most severely affected portions of southern California (indicated in red).D.K. Hall et al./Geophysical Research Letters 2024 While measurements of the water table in the Great Basin — including the depths required to connect wells to depleted aquifers — have hinted at declining groundwater, data from the joint German DLR-NASA GRACE missions provide a clearer picture of the total loss of water supply in the region. The original GRACE satellites, which flew from March 2002 to October 2017, and the successor GRACE–Follow On (GRACE–FO) satellites, which launched in May 2018 and are still active, track changes in Earth’s gravity due primarily to shifting water mass.
GRACE-based maps of fluctuating water levels have improved recently as the team has learned to parse more and finer details from the dataset. “Improved spatial resolution helped in this study to distinguish the location of the mass trends in the Western U.S. roughly ten times better than prior analyses,” said Bryant Loomis, who leads GRACE data analysis at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The diminishing water supplies of the U.S. Southwest could have consequences for both humans and wildlife, Hall said. In addition to affecting municipal water supplies and limiting agricultural irrigation, “It exposes the lake beds, which often harbor toxic minerals from agricultural runoff, waste, and anything else that ends up in the lakes.”
In Utah, a century of industrial chemicals accumulated in the Great Salt Lake, along with airborne pollutants from present-day mining and oil refinement, have settled in the water. The result is a hazardous muck that is uncovered and dried as the lake shrinks. Dust blown from dry lake beds, in turn, exacerbates air pollution in the region. Meanwhile, shrinking lakes are putting a strain on bird populations that rely on the lakes as stopovers during migration.
According to the new findings, Hall said, “The ultimate solution will have to include wiser water management.”
By James R. Riordon
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Jun 17, 2024 EditorRob GarnerContactJames R. Riordonjames.r.riordon@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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