as we all know this morning we're
gathered here primarily for the purpose
of
the crew being briefed by the students
on the two experiments slated to fly on
sts-26
and here with us this morning is lord
bruce a student
and he's from
mcdonald or mcdonald douglas is
sponsoring him and he's from st louis
okay well basically the experiment is
very simple
um what we're trying to observe is the
effects of weightlessness
on the grain formation and molecular
uh reorganization
of the titanium
filaments there
um
the experiment itself is uh again i say
it's very simple what the
astronauts will be doing is
they'll observe for any
discrepancies such as a broken tube or
loose wiring or anything like that
and
flip up the master switch control
activate it and you'll see uh the light
goes on
this will
confirm the continuity of the circuit
and what you'll do is
flick the master switch and
you'll hit the master switch and
complete the circuit and if you observe
the wire there it will deform
and you will maintain this for
approximately
20 seconds and that will raise the
temperature of the of the wire up to 882
degrees centigrade
okay so we just need to get it above
800 and right whatever that is
that's where the wires are the length
they are they were calculated to carry
the current and create that
temperature
okay
and basically that's it
again i'd like to thank all the
mcdonald douglas and nasa personnel for
all the support they've given me
and
just to say to
if this goes out to any students to
try and get involved in it and it's not
too hard to make them an experiment and
it's really fun and interesting and you
meet a lot of people
well let me say something to you why you
know this
this isn't going to be free for you
either we
you know
in the astronaut office we enjoy doing
this type of experiment because
not because a lot of the times it's a
nobel prize winning type science but but
mostly because it involves young people
like yourself getting involved very
early in the space program and getting a
chance to
to work uh in the system and and getting
us a chance to work with folks like you
and we're always impressed with the
with the caliber of students that we get
to work with but we also want you to
understand that you have a
responsibility now to
go back just like you said i like the
works that you use
to share your enthusiasm with the rest
of your students and your
faculty and people you work with to
try and uh interest more
young bright students to get involved in
the in this program because we need all
the good folks we can get all right we
appreciate all the work you're doing too
thank you
charlie here will represent our student
who unfortunately cannot be here
as john indicated the
purpose is to
try to grow crystals in this case of
lead iodide
along a
membrane
which will be mounted
at the
edge where the
inner o ring is
on that middle bulkhead
the membrane is actually a copolymer of
polyethylene and polypropylene
and it's simply there as a kind of a an
orienter on which crystals can grow
otherwise they would just grow
throughout the solution and probably not
get to any significant size and we're
hoping to orient the growth on that
membrane
specifically
it's an apparatus then with four
chambers
membrane in the center deionized water
in these two inner chambers
two valves
and then the
silver end will contain a lead acetate
solution primarily the source of lead
ion lead to plus ion and the right hand
compartment is you see it the blue
handle end if you like will contain
a potassium iodide solution source of
the iodide ions
just before the 51 l flight rich was off
on an internship in new york city
at the time they needed to be loaded
and now
he's being in medical school
i've tried to supervise the construction
of the apparatus and
he tells me when i'm wrong and things of
that sort
i guess that outlines it
for you
are these crystals any
color are they clear they are a fairly
bright yellow color yes they'll be
easily distinguishable to
in their formation yeah thanks a lot
sure
don't forget this gun for a long time
we'll get this done soon anymore
what has changed is they've got larger
pure silver bromide crystals in that gel
and that's how they increase their film
sensitivity how they grew them i cannot
for one find out
but that's that's what happened now
we're playing that same game not with
visible film but with x-ray or gamma-ray
film
san francisco that is those elements
that are near the bottom of the human's
periodic table if that means anything to
you
and this should actually be so that's
the first thing pick an element near the
bottom of the periodic table both of
which is lead and mercury are
don't pick boron or carbon or something
up near the top of the table all right
that's a gross
judgment
now once having done that you can you
can pick those ones at the bottom and
some are a little bit more efficient at
diffracting x-rays than