Telescience Space Life Sciences Test Bed

The goals of the Life Sciences Test Bed (LSTB) project are to evaluate the methodology for conducting an actual life sciences experiment over real physical distance with voice, video, and data interaction between the experiment and the remotely located investigators, and to identify SSIS (Space Station Information System) requirements for life sciences experiments requiring real-time voice, video, and data interaction between investigators, station crewmembers, and US Space Station operations personnel. The LSTB consists of two vestibular-sled experiments conducted by experiment payload specialists on a human subject. Two basic types of experiments were performed: a study of ocular torsion produced by Y-axis linear acceleration and an optokinetic nystagmus (OKN)/linear acceleration interaction experiment. Experiment design and telescience operations are described in detail. The telescience links included dedicated signals for video, data (at 19.2 Kbaud), and voice (two channels), all of which can be fed into a workstation; this workstation is based on the MIT Athena workstation