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joining me now is the chief scientist

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for the international space station

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julie robinson and julie you're here in

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town with us in huntsville at the

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payload operations center and there's a

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working group going on and this is the

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chance for you guys to go face to face

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with those payload developers and

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researchers yeah so twice a year all the

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investigators come from the inter that

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are working on the international space

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station all around the country all

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around the world and the payload

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developers those are especially the

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people the engineers and operators that

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help the scientists get their work done

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they all come here to huntsville to talk

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to all of the people who are sitting

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right here in the control center and

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talk to them about their research what

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they're going to be doing on orbit all

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of the different challenges ahead so

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they can really get that plan together

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and be ready to operate

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they all want a piece of your time they

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you're the key to getting them onto

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space station sometimes right tell us

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tell us how that works when they come to

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you and say hey we have this great idea

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yeah you know things start from an idea

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but they go from an idea the next thing

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the scientist has to do is get funding

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for that idea and they go they've got to

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pitch it they send proposals to

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different organizations

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for the iss they can send them to nasa

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organizations but they also send them to

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our national lab manager the center for

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the advancement of science in space even

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other government agencies like the nih

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and nsf sometimes fund research on the

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space station once they get that funding

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then the job really begins because they

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are

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putting all the plans together trying to

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figure out how what they need to launch

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how much they need to launch what are

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the procedures going to be and then as

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they get planned in once they get to

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that time when they're really ready to

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fly they come here to make those final

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plans

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so i've been here since expedition

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6. uh you've been here how long

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uh since

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re well i i started working on iss

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before it launched um but i came to the

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space station program in expedition 9.

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so

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what do you see when you look at the

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space station now

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what do you see yeah the biggest thing

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that struck me today especially with all

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the payload developers in town was the

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first meeting of this type that i went

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to back in 2004 and it was in a small

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conference room with about 40 people

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because we only had 15 payloads 15 to 20

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payloads or experiments that we were

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going to do on orbit at that time

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and

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today it's amazing there are over 300

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attendees it's really a sign of one

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principle that a lot of people haven't

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heard about which is that the space

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station is full it's very competitive to

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get up there to get going

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scientists always have to keep looking

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for money and the competition among

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those payloads is a really good thing

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because it means that we're having the

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best of the best go into space

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a lot of commercial partners up there

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now let's talk about their research and

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and how that's making a difference now

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yeah one of the interesting things that

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we see is nasa research is more focused

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on future exploration you know what do

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we need to know so that humans will be

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healthy when they go to mars

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right now if we set humans to mars they

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would not be in great shape when they

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got there there'd be a number of

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problems we haven't solved yet

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nasa also focuses on better spacecraft

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materials other kinds of things new

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technologies

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on the other hand the space station can

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do so much more because there's research

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there that can help in improving health

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on earth that can provide better

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materials that make better products and

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really help our economy be strong that

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kind of research sometimes it comes out

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of the nasa work anyway but a lot of

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times it comes in through the iss

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national laboratory congress declared

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iss and national lab clear back in 2005

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for just this reason so that people

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could do that research and be sure that

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we got the maximum benefit back here on

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earth for the american people

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and probably one of the most exciting

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things coming up is that scott kelly is

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going to return after being there a year

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tell us about that research and what

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that's going to mean to to the whole

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science community yeah well you know the

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last time we had crew members on orbit

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for that long it was russian cosmonauts

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and it was at a time when we just didn't

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have the medical technologies that we

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have today so we've been able to do some

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amazing things with the one year

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increment with both scott kelly and

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mikhail kornyenko or misha we call him

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and both of them are participating in a

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set of joint research studies that were

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developed between the u.s and the

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russian side working together one of the

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most exciting one of the ones of those

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is fluid shifts where we're actually

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using a russian device called chibus to

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draw the fluid out of the upper body and

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then measuring if that helps with some

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of the vision loss troubles that some

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astronauts have in space and so these

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are our first two subjects the other

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thing that's of course amazing is to see

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that whole year because most of our

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expeditions to the space station are

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about six months or even shorter and we

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know that a transit to mars is between

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six months and a year so knowing that

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longer period of time helps us know if

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there's some exploration research that

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we're missing out on today that we

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really need to do so that we'll be sure

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that we're go for mars when the vehicles

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go from ours

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some news coming out hopefully this week

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you've had the hard job of looking at

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and picking the top four

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most important research uh results from

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last year yeah well i have a blog called

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a lab aloft and

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we

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that are crossing our desks that are

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interesting what's the latest and

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greatest and someone asked me to please

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tell them what the top three results

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were of the year and i sat down with

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some of my science staff and we

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brainstormed and we threw out different

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ideas and we wrote them on the white

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board and we settled on four we couldn't

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we couldn't we could not cut it to three

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and the reason we had to settle on four

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is because there's so many different

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disciplines doing work on the space

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station so you can pick you know what's

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the most exciting thing that happened in

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life science but you're leaving out all

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the physical scientists and all the

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earth scientists so we did get it down

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to four so can you give us a sneak peek

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of what that sneak peek okay well one of

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them is is actually based on research

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that happened a while back on the space

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station and that was some protein

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crystal growth research

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where japanese investigators got better

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structure on a protein that helped them

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design a drug to treat duchenne's

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muscular dystrophy it's a form of

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muscular dystrophy it's genetic it

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affects boys and it's really pretty

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common like one in ten thousand boys so

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they got as far as testing this

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potential drug in animal models because

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there are some animals that also have a

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genetic disorder that looks like

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muscular dystrophy but um that's as far

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as got as it had gotten and this year uh

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through a new partnership they are

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starting clinical trials in humans so

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you never know

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a lot of clinical trials end in stepping

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away and deciding that's not a good

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treatment but in my mind

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once we've gotten to that point then it

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means

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if it doesn't go on to become a

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treatment it's because it wasn't a good

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treatment it's not because somebody

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couldn't raise the funding and so in my

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mind once we get to this point and judge

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it on its merits that's the that's a

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real goal for all of our space station

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research that's helpful to health here

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on earth it's a success

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finally before you go we won't we won't

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give away the other three we'll make

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people go to your blog

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aloft you're here also tonight they're

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opening a new science exhibit science on

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orbit at the u.s space and rocket center

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here in huntsville you're going to be

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there for that what what's that like to

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see see it really just being an exhibit

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people can really learn more about the

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space station well one of the great

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things on the space station today is

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that we have so many stories of the

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different outstanding research

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discoveries research impacts people that

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are live today because of research on

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the space station and those stories are

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now becoming parts of the major exhibits

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and so this exhibit at the space and

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rocket center

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my scientific team and other specialists

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from around the agency had their inputs

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into that so that we could be sure to

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tell the whole story of the space

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station not just the engineering story

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of how did we build the most amazing

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spacecraft ever built

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and not just the story of living and

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working in space and what it's like to

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be an astronaut but also the story of

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how it makes our lives better right here

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on earth and so it's really exciting to

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be here for that opening and for that

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story to be told right here in

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huntsville where the people who do that

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research live and work as well and the

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folks right right behind us that are

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working right now julie thank you so