Telescience and advanced technologies

Space Station and its associated laboratories, coupled with the availability of new computing and communications technologies, have the potential of significantly enhancing scientific research. Telescience involves the interaction of scientific researchers and equipment on earth with on-board personnel and equipment as well as with other researchers, remote ground-based resources, mission control personnel, and space station developers. To assure that this potential is met, scientists and managers associated with the Space Station project must gain significant experience with the use of these technologies for scientific research, and this experience must be fed into the development process for Space Station.

In this talk, a pilot program is described that is attempting to address this problem. University researchers are conducting rapid prototyping testbeds employing new telescience technologies and ideas. These testbeds are specific research experiments within the scientific discipline areas that will use Space Station laboratories. The experiments are being carried out in a coordinated manner to allow the critical questions to be answered by groups of scientists working with technologists in a rapid prototyping testbed environment.

The rapid prototyping testbeds are not like a typical testbed. Rather than being used to evaluate and integrate systems on the way to deployment, the rapid prototyping testbeds constitute a Technology Evaluation Environment (TEE), allowing users to interact with advanced technologies in the conduct of scientific research in order to develop the required base of experience to permit development and evaluation of requirements and specifications.