MicroG -- Background Information

In a microgravity environment, such as the International Space Station (ISS), where the effects of gravity are greatly reduced, scientists can conduct research that achives results not possible in ground-based laboratories. Computer simulation can help understand the basic fluid physics, as well as help design the experiments or systems for the microgravity situation. Marshall Space Flight Center is the lead center for NASA's Microgravity Research and Space Product Development programs. The microgravity research in fluid physics is implemented at the John H. Glenn Research Center in Cleveland (formerly known as the Lewis Research Center), Ohio and is managed from the Marshall Space Center at Huntsville, Alabama.

Importance of Fluid Physics

Fluid physics and heat transfer problems are non-linear in nature, and therefore very difficult to understand analitically. The purpose of conducting experiments in microgravity is that a whole variable (namely buoyancy). Without this variable in the equations and by comparing similar tests based on the ground and in microgravity buoyancy effects can be better understood, as well as other effects that were "hidden behind" the buoyancy effects on ground-based tests.

In the past few years humans have been tending to conduct experiments in microgravity, and in the near future (when the ISS is functional) long term experiments will be able to be conducted in a microgravity environment. There are other important aspects of microgravity, such as the potential possibility to grow very large and pure crystals, which usually under the effect of gravity cannot be created.

NASA's Glenn Research Center has a lot of different facilities to make microgravity research effective. These facilities range from drop towers to the Computational Microgravity Laboratory (CML). NASA Glenn is also responsible for the Space Station Fluids & Combustion Facility (FCF), which will be part of the US Laboratory Module in the ISS. The division at Glenn that deals with the Microgravity experiments and related issues is the Microgravity Science Division (MSD), which implements the sponsored activities of the Microgravity Research Division (MRD) at NASA Headquarters. Under the MSD there are hundreds of research projects sponsored by the MRD, for example under Fluid Physics the projects could be divided into the following subgroups: Complex Fluids, Dynamics & Instabilities, Interfacial Phenomena, Multiphase & Phase Change.

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