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This paper, a “Q & A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal, aims to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market.

The interviewee is Dr Robert Ambrose, Chief, Software, Robotics and Simulation Division at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. As a young child, even before he started school, Dr Ambrose knew, after seeing the Apollo 11 moonshot, that he wanted to work for NASA. Dr Ambrose describes his career journey into space robotics and shares his teams’ experiences and the importance of the development of Robonaut, a humanoid robotic project designed to work with humans both on Earth and in space.

Dr Ambrose received his MS and BS degrees in mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr Ambrose heads the flight spacecraft software, space robotics and system simulations for human spaceflight missions. He oversees on-orbit robotic systems for the International Space Station (ISS), the development of software for the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and future human spaceflight systems, simulations for engineering development and training, hardware in the loop facilities for anomaly resolution and crew training and the technology branch for development of new robotic systems. Dr Ambrose also serves as a Principal Investigator for NASA’s Space Technologies Mission Directorate, overseeing research and formulating new starts in the domains of robotics and autonomous systems. He co-chairs the Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) Robotics, Tele-Robotics and Autonomous Systems roadmap team for the agency’s technology program, and is the robotics lead for the agency’s human spaceflight architecture study teams. Working with the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Dr Ambrose is the Technical Point of Contact for NASA’s collaboration in the National Robotics Initiative (NRI).

Dr Ambrose not only realized his own childhood dream by pursuing a career at NASA, but he also fulfilled a 15-year national dream by putting the first humanoid robot into space. After seeking a graduate university that would allow him to do research at NASA, it didn’t take long for Dr Ambrose to foresee that the importance of NASA’s future would be in robots and humans working side-by-side. Through the leadership of Dr Ambrose, NASA formed a strategic partnership with General Motors (GM) and together they built Robonaut, a highly dexterous, anthropomorphic robot. The latest Robonaut version, R2, has nearly 50 patents available for licensing. One of the many technology spinoffs from R2 is the innovative Human Grasp Assist device, or Robo-Glove, designed to increase the strength of a human’s grasp.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight state-of-the-art digital human modeling applications in aviation and aerospace industry, generate research interest and promote application of digital human modeling technology among audience of diverse background including researchers, students, trainees, etc. in academia and industry; designers; engineers; and ergonomists associated with aviation and aerospace sectors.

Comprehensive literature search was performed and, subsequently, all publications identified were studied thoroughly at least by abstracts. Available information has been segregated under different headings and depicted systematically for easy understanding by readers.

Virtual human modeling technology has been used in assessing reach and accessibility in aircraft cockpits, creating accurate posture libraries, performing vision analysis for pilots, determining design modifications to accommodate female users, predicting probable pilot behavior in proposed cockpit design, simulating air flow and heat transfer in fighter plane’s cockpit, assessing comfort of airplane passenger seats, maintenance studies, human spaceflight training, verifying component accessibility, investigating impact of space suit parts and harnesses, etc. Traditional approach for ergonomic investigations (involving costly physical mockups and trials with real humans) can be effectively replaced by evaluations facilitated by digital mockups and digital humans.

Being a review paper, the present manuscript is purely academic in nature.

The present paper represents critical review (with up to date references), leading to a comprehensive knowledge body about application of digital human modeling in aviation and aerospace industry. Avenues still to be explored have been identified and future research directions have been given aiming at aviation and aerospace completely human centric.

On shield tunnel construction (STC) site, human error is widely recognized as essential to accident. It is necessary to explain which factors lead to human error and how these factors can influence human performance. Human reliability analysis supports such necessity through modeling the performance shaping factors (PSFs). The purpose of this paper is to establish and validate a PSF taxonomy for the STC context.

The approach taken in this study mainly consists of three steps. First, a description of the STC context is proposed through the analysis of the STC context. Second, the literature which stretch across the PSF methodologies, cognitive psychology and human factors of STC and other construction industries are reviewed to develop an initial set of PSFs. Finally, a final PSF set is modified and validated based on STC task analysis and STC accidents cases.

The PSF taxonomy constituted by 4 main components, 4 hierarchies and 85 PSFs is established for human behavior modeling and simulation under the STC context. Furthermore, by comparing and evaluating the performance of STC PSF and existing PSF studies, the proposed PSF taxonomy meets the requirement for qualitative and quantitative analysis.

The PSF taxonomy can provide a basis and support for human behavior modeling and simulation under the STC context. Integrating PSFs into a behavior simulation model provides a more realistic and integrated assessment of human error by manifesting the influence of each PSFs on the cognitive processes. The simulation results can suggest concrete points for the improvement of STC safety management.

This paper develops a taxonomy of PSFs that addresses the various unique influences of the STC context on human behaviors. The harsh underground working conditions and diverse resources of system information are identified as key characteristics of the STC context. Furthermore, the PSF taxonomy can be integrated into a human cognitive behavior model to predict the worker’s behavior on STC site in future work.

This paper aims to briefly review the history and future expectations for space tourism.

Historical review.

After a series of successes in space travel, culminating by the Apollo 11 Moon landings in 1969, governmental efforts at space travel stalled. In the early twenty-first century, private entrepreneurs inspired new life into space travel and tourism, offering commercial suborbital trips, but none have as yet actually taken place. However, despite impediments, a significant expansion of space travel and tourism is expected to occur in the course of the twenty-first century.

The paper offers a synoptic view of past and projected future developments in space travel and tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of past experience in managing risk and technical innovation in NASA space programs with lessons learned for new unmanned space missions.

The paper examines past performance of space missions and abstracts the lessons learned for the efficient development of cost‐effective space missions.

The paper finds that large organizations build and internalize a culture at odds with risk taking and the rapid deployment of innovative solutions. Actualized management goals are often at odds with the issues that determine or insure the long‐term survival of an organization. A key issue is the management of knowledge within that system: the extrinsic knowledge of the technologies as well as the intrinsic knowledge associated with the perception and acceptance of risk.

Innovation can be seen as being dangerous to the organization. That perception must be managed. The NASA culture that is applicable to human spaceflight may not serve the community or the organization as well when applied to unmanned missions.

The paper provides a simplified and brief perspective on the issues inherent in managing a change in culture in an organization that has a highly public mission.

While the NASA “faster, better, cheaper” program has been considered elsewhere, this paper focuses on the lessons that are applicable to the management of space missions and the development of new, cost‐effective programs. These lessons retain their value, as the new administrator Michael D. Griffin attempts to manage the transition of NASA from an organization that has been in maintenance mode to one that must embrace innovation and stay within a highly constrained funding profile.

Technology assessment is a difficult task at the Mission Control Center (MCC). The difficulty is inherent in the unavailability of structured information and exacerbated by the lack of a systematic assessment process. New technology deployment to the MCC requires testing and certification in three labs: Quest 1, 2, and 3. The Mission Control Center Systems (MCCS) architecture team, a multidisciplinary group of MCC experts and scientists is chartered to redefine the next generation of MCCS by developing a systematic process to assess and certify new technologies. Quest 123 is a benchmarking tool that was successfully implemented at the Johnson Space Center to assess and certify new technology initiatives for each lab before final deployment to the MCC. Quest 123 integrates the analytic hierarchy process with an additive multi‐criteria decision‐making model into a dynamic benchmarking framework.

The emerging and rapidly growing space economy warrants initial analysis from an accounting lens. This article explores accounting's role in entity transactions involving outer space activities by addressing two questions: (1) What accounting challenges exist within a developing space economy? (2) What accounting research opportunities exist to address these challenges?

Background context introduces accounting scholars to the modern space economy and its economic infrastructure, providing insight on entity transactions involving activities in outer space. Detailed discussion and analysis of space accounting challenges and research opportunities reveal potential for a robust, interdisciplinary field in the accounting domain relevant for both practitioner and academic spheres. The article concludes with a summary investigation of the future exploration of accounting for space commerce.

Many accounting challenges and opportunities exist now and in the near future for accounting practitioners and scholars to contribute towards humanity's ambitious plans to achieve a sustained presence on the moon sometime during the 2020s and on Mars in the 2030s. All of accounting's traditional subject-matter domain, as well as sustainability accounting matters, will be relied upon in these efforts. Interdisciplinary inquiries and problem solving will be critical for success, with particular collaboration needs existing between accounting and operations management scholars.

This is the first paper to explore accounting for the burgeoning space economy, and to offer insight and guidance on the development of an emerging accounting subfield: space accounting.

Human space exploration to date has been limited to low Earth orbit and the moon. The International Space Station (ISS) provides a unique opportunity for researchers to prove out the technologies that will enable humans to safely live and work in space for longer periods and venture farther into the solar system. The ability to manufacture parts in-space rather than launch them from earth represents a fundamental shift in the current risk and logistics paradigm for human space exploration. The purpose of this mission is to prove out the fused deposition modeling (FDM) process in the microgravity environment, evaluate microgravity effects on the materials manufactured, and provide the first demonstration of on-demand manufacturing for space exploration.

In 2014, NASA, in cooperation with Made in Space, Inc., launched a 3D printer to the ISS with the goal of evaluating the effect of microgravity on the fused deposition modeling (FDM) process and prove out the technology for use on long duration, long endurance missions where it could leveraged to reduce logistics requirements and enhance crew safety by enabling a rapid response capability. This paper presents the results of testing of the first phase of prints from the technology demonstration mission, where 21 parts where printed on orbit and compared against analogous specimens produced using the printer prior to its launch to ISS.

Mechanical properties, dimensional variations, structural differences and chemical composition for ground and flight specimens are reported. Hypotheses to explain differences observed in ground and flight prints are also developed. Phase II print operations, which took place in June and July of 2016, and ground-based studies using a printer identical to the hardware on ISS, will serve to answer remaining questions about the phase I data set. Based on Phase I analyses, operating the FDM process in microgravity has no substantive effect on the material produced.

Demonstrates that there is no discernable, engineering significant effect on operation of FDM in microgravity. Implication is that material characterization activities for this application can be ground-based.

Summary of results of testing of parts from the first operation of 3D printing in a microgravity environment.