The HabForum

We were talking over on the team size thread and the question of making the space station shift, particularly during long sims, more rewarding came up.

When I was planning the Adult Level II pilot in 1990 I proposed having the teams design their experiments during the week and implement them during the long sim. I came up with a list of about a dozen "starter" ideas that I thought would appeal to adults (there was liquid nitrogen involved in several ), but I hoped that the teams themselves would come up with even better ones.

Unfortunately, this was one part of the pilot we didn't get to implement.

How would you make space station more interesting?

• Experiment ideas?
  
  Better EVAs?
  
  More time flying and maintaining the vehicle?
  
  Why do we need a space station shift anyway?

Okay, here are a few ideas off the top of my head:
EVAs to plance on and retrieve materials from the outside of the station to study the effects of space on different materials.
EVAs to repair, retract, extend solar arrays as necessary
EVAs to examine, repair damage to docked orbiter or micro-asteroid damage to station.
Medical experiments on exercise and vital signs in "Weightless" environment.
Experiments on crystal formation.
Possibly bring in small live animals/insects for experiments on adaptation to "Weightless" environment.
On a 24-hour EDM you cold experiment on sleep/wake cycles and REM sleep of space station inhabitants.
Extending satellites temporary on long booms/tethers and bringing them back in after collecting data.

Obviously there is scope for many more experiments which would make the Space Station a most interesting assignment and possible anomalies with them that would keep the participants hopping!!! (especially with the insects!!)
Conan