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Report of the Committee on a Commercially Developed Space Facility (1989) / Chapter Skim
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RESEARCH IN THE MICROGRAVITY ENVIRONMENT
Pages 9-14

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 9...
... An important aspect of microgravity research to be considered is its inherent breadth and interdisciplinary nature. The field of microgravity science encompasses a number of subfields including: fluid, thermal, and transport sciences; condensed matter and gravitational physics; materials science and materials processing; combustion science; biotechnology and separation science; and life sciences.
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From page 10...
... This spectrum will make use of facilities ranging from drop towers to suborbital and orbiting spacecraft. The complexity of research in the transport, materials, and life sciences disciplines usually requires, in the terrestrial laboratory, human interaction with experiments in order to observe nuances and unexpected phenomena and to adjust experimental parameters in real time.
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From page 11...
... , but the true influence of the full spectrum remains uncertain, as do such critical issues as the effect of the orientation of the net acceleration vector with respect to the thermal and solutal gradients developed during processing. Recent results by the Soviets seem to indicate that there is a strong correlation between increased crew activity and degraded crystal quality obtained from orbital processing.
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From page 12...
... Components of the gravity vector orthogonal to the crystal growth axis are an order of magnitude more effective than the axially aligned component in inducing fluid flow and causing dopant inhomogeneities in the resulting crystal. Similar studies 12
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From page 13...
... are needed for other high-priority microgravity experiments such as protein crystal growth, float zone growth, solution crystal growth, and vapor-phase crystal growth.
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Key Terms

  • crystal growth
  • gravitational acceleration
  • microgravity experiments
  • microgravity science
  • microgravity environment

  • acceleration power
  • power spectrum
  • energy intensiveness
  • energy requirements
  • gravity vector

  • orbital processing
  • acceleration environment
  • human interaction
  • experimenter understanding
  • timelined microgravity

  • microgravity measurements
  • microgravity accelerometer
  • microgravity sciences
  • microgravity investigators
  • advance microgravity

  • developing microgravity
  • microgravity platform
  • bridgman crystal
  • degraded crystal
  • resulting crystal

  • fluid resulting
  • inducing fluid
  • acceleration vector
  • fluid medium
  • computational fluid


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