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welcome to mission control houston and

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we have a special guest as mentioned

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earlier mario runco a veteran of three

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space shuttle missions to

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orbit and he has a lot of experience in

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earth observations as a matter of fact

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he was one of the principals in

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designing and getting the window

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observational research facility up to

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the international space station which

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uses a special optical quality window to

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allow

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the very best photography of the earth

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below by astronauts aboard the orbiting

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outpost welcome mario well thank you

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kyle appreciate it glad to be here great

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to have you here too and uh tell us a

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little bit about yourself and your space

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flights

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well

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as you mentioned i did three uh back in

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the 90s 91 through 96

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on the space shuttle

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and that was uh when i was involved with

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the space flights there that was the

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start of my passion for

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earth observation and utilizing the

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space platform for

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studying the earth

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and we had a picture of you and it was a

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little hard to find pictures of you all

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by yourself because apparently you were

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the guy behind the camera most of the

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time yes sir i was uh i i was a

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shutterbug on board trying to document

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not only uh what we did on board but

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also

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uh

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the out the window views which were

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spectacular to to say the least

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well so tell us i know you brought some

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of the your favorite beauty shots tell

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us a little bit about earth observations

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from on orbit well uh a pleasure well

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first firstly that when you get up on

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orbit it and you get your first view

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outside the window it is

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strikingly beautiful breathtaking the

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adjectives and the superlatives could

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not describe the the feeling and sense

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of uh beauty that you get i have one

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image of of what we

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what we see very very commonly on orbit

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and that's a of a sunset

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and one of the things about sunsets and

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you may not think of astronauts uh being

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in the space business and and being very

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technical is being romantic but on board

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uh whenever there's a sunrise or a

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sunset the the the call goes out on

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board and uh somebody yells sunrise or

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sunset and everybody kind of when they

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have the opportunity drops what they're

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doing and for the few moments uh

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runs up to the window or floats up to

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the window and uh and watches uh

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the sunset and and it is spectacularly

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beautiful what the good news is we can

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see that uh

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16 times every day as we orbit the earth

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uh every 90 minutes so that's and and it

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is really really spectacular as you

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might have seen in the image there and

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and there's some other places on the

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planet that that also jump out at you if

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you if you go to a google earth map or

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something like that and and just kind of

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look at the western hemisphere you'll

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see in the eastern western atlantic east

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off the east coast of the us and the in

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the bahamas you'll see this bright

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turquoise spot and and if you get in a

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close-up at which we have here uh for

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the viewers here uh there's a place

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called tongue of the ocean and my uh

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being an oceanographer uh this is a very

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uh not only strikingly beautiful place

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but it's a place to study and and

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has

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interesting features you can see the the

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dark blue area it looks it looks

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obviously like a giant tongue and hence

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the name but that is very very deep

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water and just to the to the south below

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uh the bottom of the tongue you see some

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sand dunes there uh and that's very

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shallow water and and you can see the

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ripples caused by the waves in the sand

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at the bottom of the ocean even from

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space and that's andros islands off to

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the west it again just the the deep

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blues and the turquoises there are are

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and then so tell us a little bit about

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uh the uh activities that go on aboard

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the space station okay uh well on the

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space station uh you know we do have the

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cupola windows and we have the uh

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destiny module laboratory window uh

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their their optical quality the the lab

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window has the scratch pane removed so

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we can do science and remote sensing and

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uh there is the as you mentioned earlier

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the window observational research

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facility uh into which we put remote

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sensing and photographic equipment that

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can be operated either by the crew or

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from the ground in the case like uh we

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see here chris hadfield installing our

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latest payload called iserv

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uh which is uh

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payload designed to

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monitor

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disaster areas around the planet whether

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they be from tornadoes as it happened in

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moore oklahoma or

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tsunamis hurricanes whatever the case

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may be and and and the ability of the

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camera to to frequently overfly the same

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place many times is an advantage that

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the space station has that many of our

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earth observation satellites do not have

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because most of them are sun synchronous

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orbit and they pass over once every 16

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days so as things change we can indeed

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get uh

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many many updates and imagery provided

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the cloud cover uh is available

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and that's a joint activity between nasa

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and the usaid right or you said agency

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that tracks these kinds of disasters

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around the world and they put in

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requests uh to the the the uh payload uh

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folks and then they they train the

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camera to take the in uh the the image

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in this case uh uh the iserv instrument

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is a nine inch telescope and it's a

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little unusual and it's about as large

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as we can put into the uh the wharf rack

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the uh the abbreviation for window

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observational research facility

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and but we had to do something a little

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bit different and most telescopes are

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reflecting telescopes with which this

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one is has the uh secondary mirror that

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bounces the the light that comes off of

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the mirror to the eyepiece well that's

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removed and the camera is actually on

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the front end

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of

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the the the telescope it blocks a little

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bit of the field of view as does the

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secondary mirror

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but it allows for a wider footprint

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so when if you're not exactly precise on

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your pointing you can still acquire the

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the place on the ground that you're

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trying to image okay yeah you've got

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some more images tell us about these

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okay the next image up is an image from

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our isaac payload which is international

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space station agricultural camera this

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was a multi-spectral camera it had uh

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bay of three bands green red and

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infrared and you see here the image in

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the red area on the image is the area

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that the the isaac camera took and it is

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overlaid on a landsat thematic mapper uh

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visible image and what is interesting

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about

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when you do multi-spectral in this case

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the green red and near-infrared if you

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do a combination of the uh

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the the bands you get a false color

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composite as you have here and what is

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striking is it brings up the vegetation

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shows up in red rather than green but

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then it is very sensitive to differences

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in vegetation so you can monitor the

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health of forests of crops and and and

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one of the things here this is port

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charlotte

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florida and you can see some right

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toward the center of the picture you can

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see some brighter red areas of a

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different shade and that's the ability

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of the camera to discern the difference

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in vegetation and the health of the

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vegetation in that case those brighter

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red areas are actually golf courses so

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they're much more uh the wet they're

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they're greener and and so uh

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i use this image as an example to that

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that shows when a plant is either very

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healthy or stressed you can detect that

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from the space platform and so farmers

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uh around the country are able to use

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these images to help check on how their

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crops are doing if they're tied into the

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system right and and they they were

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through the uh the space operations

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center at the university of north dakota

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the the

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the where from where the uh isaac camera

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came and this camera uh actually they

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they were taking images and that and

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what where in the short growing season

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in the upper midwest is very critical

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that nothing goes wrong otherwise the

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crop is lost and and then of course

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profit and and and livelihood so uh they

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use the the images to monitor the crops

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that if they have an issue in the field

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they can go to that particular spot uh

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in their field and has the resolution to

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do that

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and what you can do is it let's say

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there's a fungal infection and a root

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crop like sugar beets they can go out

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and then

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diagnose the problem

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in the area

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by the fungicide and address the problem

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the the benefit environmentally is that

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i can target specifically the area

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rather than in the past where practices

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were that you'd have to do the entire

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field or the entire acreage rather than

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the the area that of concern so that was

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i imagine that also helps to keep that

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kind of a problem from spreading to

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other farms exact crops exactly it it's

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it's a win-win it saves the farmer money

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he doesn't have to spend as much on on

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the in this case fungicide for example

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and he doesn't have to uh spread as much

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around the environment which then once

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it's in the environment it goes into the

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water table and the streams and all of

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that so so uh again it's it it's it's an

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advance in technology that really helps

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uh day-to-day work or on the planet and

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in this case uh raising our food crop

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and theoretically lower prices at the

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grocery store if you don't spend that

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much money taking care of your crops

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exactly so it it all goes in and and

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actually the the farmers are pretty i

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mean technologically they they are

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i had learned in dealing with them uh

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that they they are

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pretty savvy technologically they stay

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at the leading edge because it behooves

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them to do so

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all right now i think we probably have

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time for one more image mario let's take

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a look at the next one that you had okay

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this one is uh from our iserv payload

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and this one is uh happens to be of the

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grand canyon uh you can see it running

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right down the the center of the

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photograph and this is the colorado

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river of course running through the

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grand canyon in arizona and this is an

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example of what sort of the iserv

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payload can do it it would narrow in and

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zoom in on a particular area and let's

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say the colorado river were flooding and

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it would overspill its banks of course

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not at the grand canyon that would be a

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big flood but yeah uh this is just an

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example but you would be able to see the

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extent of where the flooding had

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occurred and and manage and then help uh

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area responders uh with that information

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to manage and address the situation

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locally so uh it it is designed to help

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with uh uh disaster assistance

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uh primarily

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well mara renko thank you so much for

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joining us today and you know you have a

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really interesting background uh from

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the bronx and your former police officer

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yes oceanographer and all that and i

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want to let everybody know that you're

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also went to rutgers in new jersey and

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we have a distance learning network

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event coming up a little bit later on

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today at 1105 a.m central time and mario

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renko is going to be talking with

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students at a school in new jersey at

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that time so we'll look forward to

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continuing on our discussions with you

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later today mario and thanks for coming

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and talking to us about crew earth

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observations from the international