The Polaris Dawn crew Jared Isaacman, Scott "Kidd" Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon explain the experiments conducted during the mission. Also, see a time-lapse of Isaacman's spacewalk.
Credit: Polaris Dawn / edited by Space.com
Credit: Polaris Dawn / edited by Space.com
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TechTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to the Dragon spacecraft. You are here with the Polaris Dawn crew.
00:10My name is Anna Menon. I am one of the mission specialists and the medical officer for our mission.
00:16This is Kid Poteet. He is our pilot. Jared Isaacman is our mission commander,
00:22and Sarah Gillis is our mission specialist. And we are so excited to talk to you today
00:28about some of the science and research we are doing on board here.
00:31We have had a full complement of research, an action-packed schedule for this mission.
00:37We have had about 40 science and research experiments that we have been tackling,
00:41and they span all sorts of genres, and we are really excited to talk to you about a few of them today.
00:48So, to kick us off, I will start telling you about some of the ones that I love.
00:54So, right here what you see, this is a butterfly ultrasound device.
01:00And it is really neat because it can work with like an iPhone or an iPad or just any sort of like tablet device.
01:06And so, it is really portable and you can take it anywhere, even to space.
01:10And you get to, you are able to actually image all sorts of different pieces of the body
01:16and get really good diagnostics through it.
01:19So, we have been using it for a whole bunch of different experiments,
01:22measuring our different veins.
01:25We have been measuring our bladder.
01:27We have been measuring our like kidneys and liver and a lot of different pieces of the body.
01:35So, it has been really interesting and we are excited to see what we learn from all the data.
01:39And this right here is another type of ultrasound device.
01:42This is a novel three-dimensional ultrasound or the optic nerve sheath.
01:48That is a portion of the eye.
01:50And what is really interesting about this is it gives us insight into the fluid shifts
01:55and the eye issues that plague astronauts when they go to microgravity.
01:59And so, scientists are really interested in the changes that happen to this optic nerve sheath.
02:04And this three-dimensional ultrasound is a brand-new technology.
02:08You can use it and it gets you really efficient, good images of that sheath.
02:12So, hopefully, we will learn a lot more about those vision changes.
02:15And I will hand it over to Kit to take it from here.
02:20Hi, everybody.
02:21So, the two experiments that I really enjoyed participating in.
02:25First off, the Leo plant.
02:28These are, this was created by the U.S. Air Force Academy,
02:32which is near and dear to my heart.
02:34I was assigned there many moons ago as one of the commanders of the cadets.
02:39And what these cadets have created is a casing that holds different plants.
02:46And we've been imaging these plants on a daily basis to see what the impact of zero gravity is on this plant.
02:54And then one other experiment that we completed today is an airway assessment.
03:03So, one of the big concerns is the fluid shift up here at zero gravity.
03:08We can really feel the effect as soon as we were on orbit.
03:11And you can kind of see it in our faces.
03:13So, one of the concerns with long-duration space flight is to be able to triage in case of an emergency.
03:19And one of the first basic steps is airway assessment.
03:23So, we volunteered to do some imaging of our airway.
03:28We did this experiment before flight, during flight, and then we'll do it post flight.
03:34And what this requires is us to numb up the nasal passage and then insert this endoscopic camera all the way through the nasal passage
03:44and in the back of the throat to take these different images.
03:49And then post flight we'll be able to assess what happened to the airway passage as that fluid shifts.
03:59So, those are two of the experiments I participated in.
04:02And I'll pass it off to our commander.
04:07Hey, everyone.
04:12So, I'm pretty excited about this experiment right here.
04:16This is a Tempest Pro, also called our Ambulance in a Box.
04:22So, you know, if you believe in SpaceX's vision of making life multi-planetary,
04:27that we're going to have thousands of starships in space someday, tens of thousands of people,
04:31we're on Mars and we're exploring our solar system.
04:34It's pretty cool.
04:35But those are some pretty long journeys.
04:37And hospitals aren't very close by.
04:39So, we have to be able to bring diagnostic tools into space with us
04:44and then be able to beam that information back home to the flight surgeons.
04:48So, just yesterday, we hooked up all sorts of cables to this.
04:52So, blood pressure, SpO2, respiration, EKG leads.
04:56And basically, we're able to capture a number of vital signs and test it out.
05:02And then today, we actually did a full-blown medical simulation
05:05of what could be a very likely medical, you know, situation that could develop after an EVA.
05:11And then was able to beam a lot of this information home via Starlink
05:15to the flight surgeons in mission control.
05:17So, I really am excited about it because it's this kind of technology that's going to be needed, you know,
05:22to kind of further humankind's ambitions to explore among the stars.
05:26And I'll turn it over to Sarah, our mission specialist.
05:31Hey, everyone.
05:32So, we've been doing also, as Anna mentioned, a lot of research into space flight-associated neural ocular syndrome.
05:38And so, I've got a couple of devices here, Quixi, and, oh, floating away from me.
05:53And a pupilometer here.
05:55But we've been collecting data kind of every day looking at the changes in our vision over time and space.
06:00We also have an experiment from CU Boulder that we did shortly after arriving on orbit,
06:07where you actually put a contact lens into your eye to monitor the pressure change over time.
06:13And there's a picture of Jared.
06:15He has the contact lens in his eye that's sending pressure data over 24, 12, 24 hours to a sensor.
06:23But he really looked like a rogue space pirate with his eye patch kind of covering it so he didn't have to have some vision changes from that lens.
06:32But it was quite a look up here for the space pirate.
06:39Awesome.
06:40Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
06:42That is just a brief insight into the wealth of science and research that we've been doing up here.
06:51We are so excited to gather as much data as we can for these scientists back on Earth so that we can learn together
06:58and contribute to our collective future for the future of human space exploration and on Earth as well.
07:04So, we'll talk to you soon.
07:07Thanks.
07:08Bye.
07:13Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do.
07:16But from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world.
07:21Where is it?
07:22When I say that, ¡Easy 1, I'm going to step into Test Matrix 1.
07:32Single-handed mobility demonstration.
07:34Wow.
07:35Commander Jared Isaacman now emerging from…
07:38Copyware with you in Test Matrix 1.
07:40Watching from the nose cone.
07:41Up, down, left, and right are threes, pitch and roll are three, yaw is a two, switching
08:03single-handed operation.