Earthbound Civil Engineering Experience for Space Applications

Since the dawn of civilization, the civil engineering profession has served mankind. Civil engineers have provided humanity with safe, reliable, and economical facilities and a livable environment. This paper seeks to outline the potential applications of various Earth‐based civil engineering fields for the engineering, construction, and operation of facilities in space stations in Earth orbit, bases on the Moon and Mars, and the exploration of other extraterrestrial bodies. On Earth, civil engineers have played a key role in design, construction, and operation of ground‐support facilities since the beginning of the space program. The vast and diverse Earth‐based knowledge and experience earned by civil engineers could be applied to create a suitable infrastructure in space to satisfy human needs. Therefore, civil engineers can play a significant role in the future expansion of human endeavors into space. The time has come for civil engineers throughout the world to come together; take the challenge posed by time, human needs, and ambition; and extend their joint expertise toward large‐scale projects in space for the benefit of all.     

Global Rural Electrification: A Different Race Initiative

“Perhaps the single greatest contribution that could be made to environmental conservation would be the invention of a satisfactory fuel‐wood substitute” for developing nations. Providing electric power from orbit under a program of energy as foreign aid to developing nations will benefit the local and global environment and people living on the margins of existence, and it will provide technically challenging jobs to the engineers and scientists of all the nations that undertake such a massive project. Civil engineers can, if they and their professional societies so choose, play a significant, if not integral, role in using the resources of Earth and its surroundings for the benefit of mankind under a program of energy from space. This paper extends the concepts from a previous work by the writer to global rural electrification based on electric power from power stations, built in geosynchronous orbit out of lunar materials, distributed to individual villages and rural electric cooperatives via microwaves for a cost of between 6 cents and 45 cents per kilowatt‐hour. Power would be available in modular increments of 25–100 kilowatts with an average capital cost as low as $5,000 per kilowatt. The goals of the program for global rural electrification are twofold: to provide electric power from space at competitive costs, relative to current costs, to rural and agricultural areas, and to divert resources from weapons development to infrastructure development. The potential for involvement by civil engineers is limited only by their own lack of vision and daring.     

A Civil Engineer's View from Space

From the perspective of a 250‐nautical‐mile orbit aboard the Space Shuttle, the author has had the opportunity to observe the effects of man on the earth, to reflect on his future in space, and to examine the role civil engineers may have in building our future. In the decades to come, civil engineers will require skills that are not currently provided by universities and which are not adequately represented in professional societies. All disciplines of the civil engineering profession will need to examine their strategies to enable them to establish a significant place on the team. From launch pads to remote sensing satellites, from space stations to lunar bases, civil engineers can and should play a significant role in design requirements, engineering, testing, assembly, and operation. The Aerospace Division of the ASCE should take the lead to insure that civil engineers are prepared to meet the challenge.     

Next Generation Space Telescope. II: Proposed Pointing Control System

The pointing control system of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) represents the current state of the art for the precision control of a large spacecraft. The proposed Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) will require an order‐of‐magnitude increase in pointing resolution over that of HST. The use of active optics in the form of a steerable secondary mirror has been proposed for NGST to satisfy these requirements. The primary motivation for this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of satisfying the pointing‐stability requirements by sensing the guide‐star position and steering the optical path of the telescope with the active secondary mirror. To study the requirements of the control system, a two‐degree‐of‐freedom model that retains the rigid‐body mode of the telescope as well as its first oscillatory mode was constructed. The corresponding optimal control law was developed and implemented in a discrete manner to examine the behavior of the system subject to typical spacecraft excitations.     

The many faces of Eros: A psychoanalytic exploration of human sexuality.

Review of book: The Many Faces of Eros: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Human Sexuality by Joyce McDougall, New York: W.W. Norton, 1995, 257 pp. Reviewed by Donna Bassin. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The management of Stress Management: A decade of the journal.

It has been more than four years since the last of my infrequent editorials in the International Journal of Stress Management (IJSM) and nearly a decade since my first (Carlson, 1998b). I am writing to you at this time first to inform you of a change in editorship, then to summarize a few high points of the past 10 years of IJSM as they relate to its management and future. My focus will be on matters dear to journal editors and useful to submitters and subscribers concerning submissions, content, and editorial activity, since such issues determine journal policy and direction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychologist and hospital policy: A report from the real world.

Discusses the hospital as a "city-state" and how psychologists' skills can be applied there. Decision making by hospital staff is discussed in terms of meta-issues. Psychologists have useful hospital skills apart from the traditional roles of assessment, therapy, and program evaluation. These skills include the knack of conceptualizing complex and dynamic situations and of using their own reactions as an instrument to understand special interests involved, shift the balance of incentives, and improve communication. (1 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Meaning of Race in Psychology and How to Change It: A Methodological Perspective.

The primary purpose of this article was to offer a methodological critique in support of arguments that racial categories should be replaced as explanatory constructs in psychological research and theory. To accomplish this goal, the authors (a) summarized arguments for why racial categories should be replaced; (b) used principles of the scientific method to show that racial categories lack conceptual meaning; (c) identified common errors in researchers' measurement, statistical analyses, and interpretation of racial categories as independent variables; and (d) used hierarchical regression analysis to illustrate a strategy for replacing racial categories in research designs with conceptual variables. Implications for changing the study of race in psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The treating expert: A hybrid role with firm boundaries.

Ongoing or impending litigation may have a substantial impact on treatment, affecting parents' and children's interactions with the therapist and the structure and content of treatment. Psychologists must be prepared to think forensically as well as clinically and have the requisite expertise to support children's needs, accomplish interventions, and, if appropriate, provide information to the forensic evaluator or the court. S. Greenberg and D. Shuman's (1997) conceptualization of the treating expert is expanded and applied to the child custody or dependency case, with an emphasis on role boundaries, standards of expertise, and suggestions for professional practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Use of Race Variables in Genetic Studies of Complex Traits and the Goal of Reducing Health Disparities: A Transdisciplinary Perspective.

The use of racial variables in genetic studies has become a matter of intense public debate, with implications for research design and translation into practice. Using research on smoking as a springboard, the authors examine the history of racial categories, current research practices, and arguments for and against using race variables in genetic analyses. The authors argue that the sociopolitical constructs appropriate for monitoring health disparities are not appropriate for use in genetic studies investigating the etiology of complex diseases. More powerful methods for addressing population structure exist, and race variables are unacceptable as gross proxies for numerous social/environmental factors that disproportionately affect minority populations. The authors conclude with recommendations for genetic researchers and policymakers, aimed at facilitating better science and producing new knowledge useful for reducing health disparities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)