[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 0 - 23:37:21 ]
Welcome to another "Women of NASA" QuestChat! Our special guest today is Kim Hubbard, a computer engineer at NASA's Ames Research Center, near San Francisco, California. The chat will begin at 8 am, Pacific (11 am, Eastern).

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 1 - 23:53:34 ]
Be sure to read Kim's bio AND have your questions ready BEFORE coming to the chat room-- http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/women/bios/kh.html

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 4 - 08:28:48 ]
Good Morning Stephany! Glad you could join us! Kim is here and ready to answer your questions :-)

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 6 - 08:33:32 ]
RE: [stephany] What is the Science Desk Project about?
Hi Stephany, The ScienceDesk project is about building computer based tools to help scientists work with each other even if they're not all working in the same lab or city. Some of the tools we're developing include a data repository that's especially geared to store information about a scienctist's projects. Another tool we've worked on allows remote control of scientific experiments over the web.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 9 - 08:37:02 ]
RE: [cr8vdrv-cr8vdrvr] What do you think about being on the metric system? Should we be on it for science? Aren't we yet? Why did we make costly errors lately?
Hi, I think it's a good idea to be on the metric system. Most of the rest of the world is using it; it's good to be consistent. We're not officially on it yet. I think we were supposed to be back in 1980 but it didn't happen. The confusion between using a measurement in the English system and the metric system was attributed to the cause of the destruction of a Mars orbiting spacecraft recently.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 11 - 08:41:48 ]
RE: [stephany-cr8vdrvr] what kind of experiments?
We implmented a prototype to remotely control a sensor that takes oxygen readings in a tank containing microbes. Biologists are studying these particular microbes because they have been around for millions of years when the earth was relatively young. They also might be related to any microbe that may be found someday on other planets such as Mars.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 13 - 08:46:29 ]
RE: [janice/techno_dweeb-janice/techno_dweeb] 1. What OS do you program on? Did you coose Java as a programming environment because it is more cross-platform than C or other languages? 2. Does the experiments over the web involve telerobotics? Do you use input devices (e.g. CyberGlove) that can be used locally on one host to drive a robotic arm/equipment on a remote host? Or are the "user controls" via a GUI? Thanks!
Hi Janice, I mostly program on the Unix OS. We chose Java for the microbial sensor application since it can run as an applet from a web browser. The sensing mechanism is very simple right now with user controls via a GUI. We hope to expand development to support a greenhouse of microbial mat tanks where one would position the sensor to the desired tank and take measurements.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 14 - 08:47:23 ]
RE: [stephany-cr8vdrvr] cool, do you think there are microbes on mars?
I don't know. That's what NASA scientists are trying to find out.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 16 - 08:49:36 ]
RE: [KimHubbard/ARC] We implmented a prototype to remotely control a sensor that takes oxygen readings in a tank containing microbes. Biologists are studying these particular microbes because they have been around for millions of years when the earth was relatively young. They also might be related to any microbe that may be found someday on other planets such as Mars.
I also want to add that as the sensor is taking measurements, the results are being plotted on an x-y graph. These values are also being saved to a text file so that data is available later for any futher analysis.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 18 - 08:54:19 ]
RE: [stephany-cr8vdrvr] how are they tring to find out if there are microbes on mars?
Well, NASA has sent or plans to send various spacecraft to Mars to explore the surface and to take photographs and possibly various measurments--I'm not sure of what these are; I'm not directly involved in these efforts. I think one of the things scientists are looking for is (past or present) evidence of water. Water is an indicator of the possibility of life or that life could have existed.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 19 - 08:57:24 ]
RE: [stephany-cr8vdrvr] as a young 10th grader how can i do an experiment on microbes that is simple?
I'm sorry. I don't have any ideas right now. I would have to ask a mircrobiologist for some suggestions.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 21 - 09:00:45 ]
Stephany: If you're really interested in finding out more about Mars, Quest is conducting a series of Mars Millennium chats. I just finished hosting the first 10 chats, which you can find archived at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/sso/chats. I'm busy scheduling the next 10 MM chats and should have the schedule up later this week. Check out the Quest Common Events page for it: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/common/events

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 22 - 09:04:06 ]
RE: [cr8vdrvr-cr8vdrvr] changing subjects, what do you think about theory of wormholes enabling time travel? We saw the documentary on PBS with Stephen Hawkings and Carl Sagan last night.
I haven't studied much about the theory of wormholes at all so I really don't have an opinion about them enabling time travel at this time.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 24 - 09:07:54 ]
RE: [cr8vdrvr-cr8vdrvr] Thank you so much for answering our questions. We hope to be in touch with you again.
You're welcome... I'm still here for 15 more minutes.

[ KimHubbard/ARC - 25 - 09:09:10 ]
RE: [cr8vdrvr-cr8vdrvr] Okay, what kinds of computers do you use in your experiments? How about at home? We are here in our high school computer lab with iMacs and an OS X server. Would we be able to simulate some of the experiments you are doing?
I use a Sparc Workstation from Sun Microsystems, a Power Macintosh G3, and a PC laptop. I use the Sparc for software development, the Power Mac for web development, email, and other things like word processing. I just go the Dell PC laptop. I'll probably use it as machine for testing. Our application run on the web so we need to test thing on browsers on all three platforms. I have a PowerMacG3 at home. for general use and web page development, I like Macs the best. Hopefully at some point the microbial oxygen sensor applet will be able to be used for educational outreach. That was a plan at some point but it's up the the biologist in charge of the experiment. But it would be something you could run via a browser on your iMacs.

[ Sandy/NASAChatHost - 27 - 09:18:57 ]
EVERYONE: Thank you very much for participating in our QuestChat with Kim Hubbard today! Please let us know how we did with our chat by filling out a short questionnaire at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/qchats/qchat-surveys. Join us again tomorrow at 8 am, PST for another Women of NASA chat! Goodbye everyone!