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material sciences are one of the major

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areas of laboratory research that the

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international space station supports and

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a new instrument from the european space

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agency is just being put into operation

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in that area the electromagnetic

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levitator was delivered to the station

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last year on the last automated transfer

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vehicle and set up in the columbus

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laboratory module and is being prepared

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for its first operations i spoke with dr

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douglas matson an associate professor of

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mechanical engineering at tufts

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university who serves as the eml's u.s

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facility scientist and as a speaker of

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the international working group

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representing all scientists doing

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research with eml i asked them to start

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by describing this new facility and tell

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me what it's capable of doing

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the electromagnetic levitator

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involves passing a high frequency

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current through copper cooled coils

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this current generates a magnetic field

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which

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causes the sample to levitate without

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touching anything therefore we can

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process samples of

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metallic substances in a very clean

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environment

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with

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chamber so what we look at is

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we look at how metals solidify

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how what the thermophysical properties

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are of those metals so that we can do

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process modeling here on earth and we

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look at the kinetics of the process you

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know how do you change from

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one uh

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crystalline structure to another

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so tell me why is it valuable for

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scientists to study the behavior of

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metals in the weightlessness

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the weightless environment allows us to

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do things that we can't do here on earth

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specifically

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the since the sample is levitated here

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on earth that means it's the sample

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itself is pulled down into the sample

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coils

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now

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therefore that creates a lot of stirring

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within the sample which is not what we'd

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like to have we'd like to have a

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quiescent sample so that we understand

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what is happening to the liquid itself

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so therefore in microgravity since the

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sample's not its weight doesn't have to

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be overcome you can use a lot less

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magnetic force and therefore a lot less

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stirring occurs so you can look at a

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quiescent drop

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take a look at its properties and get

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much better thermophysical properties or

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much better understanding of how the

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droplet solidifies the other thing we

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can do is we can look at how does

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stirring influence

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how solidification occurs

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so this is uh something that's both the

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thermophysical properties and the

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influence of convection

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are extremely important for process

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modeling for processes here on earth so

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it's not that we're solidifying a sample

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in zero gravity it's more that we have

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better experimental control

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in order to provide better properties

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and the better ability for people to

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model earthbound processes

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uh and therefore uh create

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much better process control

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with higher quality products here on

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earth

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what is the role of the astronauts on

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the station during the experiments

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using the electromagnetic levitator

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the astronauts role is to act as our

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hands and our eyes

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they do a lot of the equipment

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monitoring they install the facility

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when

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we take our samples from ground and

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bring them to our facility it comes in a

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big giant box called a sample carousel

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it's a carousel because the samples spin

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on this inside this box

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and so there's 18 samples that are going

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to be processed at any one time

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we have multiple times that we're going

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to be bringing different carousels up so

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the astronauts install our samples on

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our facility and then

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safely pack up the samples so that they

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can be brought back here to earth so we

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can study how the samples solidified and

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what kind of structures we have formed

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during their solidification on orbit the

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other thing that the astronauts do is

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they go in and they will

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change out equipment that we need for a

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specific experiment

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for instance we have two different

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camera systems

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one that has very high spatial

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resolution so we can see fine details

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and one that goes extremely fast so that

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we can look at processes that occur

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quickly

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in order to change out these cameras we

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need to have the astronauts go in and as

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a matter of fact during a past shuttle

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mission during my experiment

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the cameras stopped working and the

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astronauts had to go in

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check the system out they found that one

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of the cables was malfunctioning and

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they were able to change that cable out

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and allow me to do my experiments so the

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astronauts do a lot for us can you give

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me some examples of some of the science

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experiment runs that you have planned

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for the astronauts on station

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all right we have uh

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many different international

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collaborations on our using our facility

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where one of the projects is looking at

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thermophysical properties and

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how we could use those properties than

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in ma in process modeling here on earth

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we have a project on sedimentation

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looking at demixing and interfacial

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tension

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one on development of composite

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structures one on magnetic materials

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and development of turbine blade

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materials

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finally we have one looking at

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icosahedral order and quasi-crystal

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formation so we have a multiple array of

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many different projects there involved

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looking at

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how metals solidify

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differently depending on what their

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composition is how many researchers

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around the world are actually using this

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hardware that you have

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currently we have 14 european teams

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four u.s teams collaborating with them

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one canadian team and i believe three

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asian teams

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so

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that involves about 50 scientists

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worldwide we also have a rather large

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support structure and from esa

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and from

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nasa and the japanese space agency jaxa

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and the german space agency

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and uh airbus a uh a

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those are the people who actually build

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the facility so it's over 100 people who

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are involved with this project

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thank you for your time today and uh

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explaining all of the science that's

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going on and all the work that you're