[...]... National Research Council 2003 Factors Affecting the Utilization of the International Space Station for Research in the Biological and Physical Sciences The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., in press 12 ASSESSMENT OF DIRECTIONS IN MICROGRAVITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH AT NASA 1 Introduction and Overview Performing experiments in low Earth orbit has been the primary focus of much of. .. designing industrially relevant materials because the materials will be created with a minimum of costly, time-consuming experiments This approach can have a significant impact on NASA as it ensures that the desired materials properties of interest to NASA will be attained, and in a greatly reduced time and at lower cost • Thermophysical data of the liquid state in microgravity Accurate thermophysical data... established in its own right following the 1991 NASA Research Announcement (NRA) Until then, fluids research had played only a secondary role in that most of it was motivated by or directly related to materials research Research in thermocapillarity, however, has been dominated by NASA- sponsored investigations for 20 ASSESSMENT OF DIRECTIONS IN MICROGRAVITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH AT NASA the last... papers, the citation rates for publications of research results, the prominence of the journals in which results were published, the changes to standard textbooks that resulted from research findings, documented influence on industry or NASA applications, and the fraction of principal investigators selected as fellows of various societies, elected as members of the National Academies of Engineering or Science,... NASA has led to the development of ground-based and flight research programs that have enabled growth and advancement of research in such fields as thermocapillary flow, and it has attracted leading investigators to the program, including members of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, as well as numerous fellows of professional societies • The combustion research. .. results, such as coarsening during crystallization (Cheng et al., 2002) Ground-based research has included the 18 ASSESSMENT OF DIRECTIONS IN MICROGRAVITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH AT NASA examination of fractal colloidal aggregation and the behavior of colloid polymer gels This research has been productive, yielding the first detailed information about the consequences of scale-invariant structure... MICROGRAVITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH AT NASA research areas, which also contain many subdiscplines, will continue this tradition of science-driven discoveries of great importance to both the nation and NASA: • Nucleation process within, and properties of, undercooled liquids The nucleation process plays a prominent role in setting materials properties Currently the conditions governing the nucleation of. .. materials and processes, biomolecular physics and chemistry, cellular biophysics and chemistry, and integrated systems for HEDS Detailed descriptions of research in these areas are provided in this report Establishing priorities between the existing microgravity programs and research in the new areas requires assessing the impact of the research and the quality of the investigators in the existing microgravity. .. D.C National Research Council (NRC), Space Studies Board 2000 Future Biotechnology Research on the International Space Station National Academy Press, Washington, D.C National Research Council, Space Studies Board 2001 The Mission of Microgravity and Physical Sciences Research at NASA National Research Council, Washington, D.C National Research Council 2003 Factors Affecting the Utilization of the International... disposition and transport of liquids under weightless conditions The dynamics of moving contact lines is an important but poorly understood aspect of wetting that is the subject of investigation in ground and flight experiments (Decker and Garoff, 1997; Weislogel and Lichter, 1998) and is associated with thin films, coating flows, and drying processes such as the removal of rinse water from the surface of a . Mission of Microgravity and Physical Sciences Research at NASA (2001) The Quarantine and Certification of Martian Samples (2001) Readiness Issues Related to Research. Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated