Recent Presentations and Early NASA Experiences
Gravitational Waves, Quantum Noise & Squeezed Vacuum States of Light in Terrestrial Interferometers, presented in Liliya L. R. Williams' AST 4002 class.
Fast Radio Bursts, presented in Ben Margalit's AST 8110 class.
James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, presented in Patrick Kelly's AST 5201 class.
Revisiting the Mini-Halo Hypothesis, presentation in Evan Skillman's AST 8012 class.
Dual Channel Blood Vessel Stimulator, NASA Ames Research Center
I proposed this instrument at a Friday lab meeting and returned the following Monday with a fully constructed and calibrated unit—three days later. Schematics were finalized Friday night and Saturday morning; discrete components and meters were sourced from local electronic salvage dealers Saturday afternoon; circuit boards were hand‑drawn and etched in ferric chloride obtained from RadioShack; and metal fabrication was completed Saturday night in the ARC machine shop. Painting, front‑panel labeling, soldering, and assembly were done on Sunday, followed by evening calibration. All work was performed in my one‑room apartment. The Dual Channel Blood Vessel Stimulator was made safe for operating‑room use, featured isolated battery charging, and passed full EMC and EMI testing the following week. Image courtesy of NASA.
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Neutral Hydrogen Manuscript
Apollo Command Module Simulator
Familiarization training in the Apollo Command Module simulator at the Johnson Space Center. Completion of this training was required before my spending a day in Mission Operations Control Room 1 (MOCR‑1) beside flight surgeon Dr. Arnauld Nicogossian during the Skylab 2 mission (May 25–June 22, 1973). During this period the Manned Spacecraft Center was formally renamed the Johnson Space Center, and I observed NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher escort Lady Bird Johnson and her entourage through the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center (Building 30), then home to MOCR‑1 (early Apollo and Skylab) and MOCR‑2 (lunar landing operations).
Physician-astronaut Story Musgrave
Dr. Story Musgrave visiting my office at the Johnson Space Center in 1974. At the time, Life Sciences had moved into the former Lunar Receiving Laboratory (Building 37), with much of the original LRL infrastructure still intact. Dr. Musgrave would later perform the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission and many other notable accomplishments. Dr. Joe Kerwin, the first physician‑astronaut (Skylab 2), met with me during my internship in the Bioscience Payloads Office and while I attended the Skylab Biomedical Symposium. That summer I assisted in constructing the Spacelab simulator under Dr. Musgrave’s oversight and accompanied him as he led a guided tour for JSC Director Christopher C. Kraft Jr. The previous summer I had worked with two Boeing Aerospace contractors at JSC, helping lay foundational elements for the laboratory’s eventual design.
NASA Ames Research Center
Performing surgery in the Cardiovascular Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC, Moffett Field, CA) in 1976. I am using instrumentation located at the head of the table that I designed and built during my fellowship at ARC, undertaken as part of my Mayo Medical School research experience. In partnership with Dr. Margaret Billingham (Cardiovascular Pathologist) at Stanford University, I helped the lab develop a model of atherosclerosis that could be used to predict outcomes of astronauts who may have latent coronary artery disease.
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