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Now I speak a little about the German perspectives and
the collaboration between Germany and the United States.
Um, first of all,
a short overview of the
showing a little bit the great
interesting times we are in at present
Because it's a time of change on the one side, and
a time where we really can use the
international space station, and it's also
some great challenges ahead of us both
on the private side, and on the side of the
government side for exploration. So Germany
was involved in human
first in space flight at all for many years, and later
was in human space flight, and
we are very thankful for the Americans
to have invited us to join in the shuttle program
because you probably know, many of you probably know
Germany had plans to build its own shuttle, it was called Singer,
later ESA said, OK, we will will build our
European shuttle which is the Hermes program
and then the United States came
with the offer to join into the shuttle program
so Germany agreed to build a space
lab facility. And the space lab facility was then
given over to the United States and uh
to America, and then this was kind of
the way in which we bought into the shuttle program.
So and we are very thankful
for this and think this collaboration was great
and we made many friends,
and I also think this is also a way also to go into the future.
Now the first shuttle flight in which we were involved
was the Spacelab STS-9 Mission
and it was not the first shuttle
it was the first shuttle flight also in which we were involved directly
with, and um, we flew
our first West German astronaut here
and he is now a for sure very
famous in Germany. Not so much here.
But for us he is very famous, and
here you see a little picture of the spacelab facility
I wasn't worth myself as a scientist ususally
and I said well I do, and um,
mostly I recollect urines from the astronaut because
it doesn't take crew time, but I was
really very naive, because you see this
tunnel here, this spacelab is here
and whenever I wanted a urine sample from an
astronaut, the astronaut had to come here and to go into
the restroom, and into midtake,
and fly back and go back then to work, and this
really costs crew time, so I've
for sure I was able and allowed to do my
experiments. Next one was
the D-1 mission. Germany thought we will have many
upcoming D missions and
spacelab and use the spacelab extensively, but also
in Germany there were budget cuts and then ESA came
and we joined the program, and then the mission
and everything Germany did, basically when
together with ESA and European
Space Agency. And the there was a D-2
mission in 1993 with lots of
experiments and all together
the very many experiments
which were done in the German Life Sciences
Program. I am a Life Scientist
and you see here
up to 2007 there were
over 500 experiments in space and
a big chunk of those experiments was done on the
shuttle for sure. We also collaborated and
still collaborate with the Russians, also directly
and we had already our first experiment
and even in the Apollo phase and
actually also my institute. This was long before
my time at the institute, but
I still was educated by all the people
but we already had participated in Apollo flight.
Now on the ISS up to February
2011, you can see
all German experiments on the ISS now
and we have
about 40 already completed and
ongoing experiments and you see here the distribution
of those experiments. Might be interesting for you
you see here life sciences,
medicine, biotechnology, life sciences, radition,
is basically life science and gravitational biology life sciences,
so the biggest part of
the experiments on the ISS
is life sciences. Has been life
sciences. This has also to do with hardware
and it will change a little bit in the future, because
the material scientists are always complaining, we have
lots of experiments waiting, but no
hardware, but now and in the future there will also be hardware
as well. But uh, there's
a strong involvement of Germany in the life sciences
experiments. Now when we look
to the philosophy, we maybe have a little bit of different
philosophy for our life science experinments because
at NASA, the biggest philosophy now is
to look for risks and mitigate risks
and from in
Europe, we rather say ok, we have no
human space craft, so risk
mitigation will always be done by NASA, and
by those counties who have the
operate, have to operate a spacecraft, so we go
more into science and into research
and also we don't really have to in Europe
to promise about spinoffs.
We say OK, we go, we look
to ISS, RAS, as an
lack, a huge lack and we
can answer scientific questions in this lab
and for us it's also a little bit, it's just a lab, it's not a separation
between space and Earth. It's a lab, and then we
have questions in this lab, questions in microgravity
it tells us we do not
know something in our basic knowledge, and therefore it's not a
space question, it's just a science question.
And we use the ISS as a scientific
laboratory. Now let me give
you one experiment; one example
of how we do experiments.
You can't just look at it like
a chess play. Now let's play chess and
because this is a, I think a
very important thing. On the MIR station,
actually, in one astronaut, we made a very
strange for us strange finding.
It looks boring here but it's very interesting. What we did
for two weeks, we gave this astronaut
a defined diet
and measured what goes into
the astronaut, what comes out of the astronaut.
[ audience laughter ] Balancing it.
And if you're healthy then you should
about, if you don't lose weight or win weight, you should the same things which
go in should come out again. So,
we especially measured water and salt.
So what this astronaut did on Earth is
those bars here is salt
balance, he just uh,
excreted the same salt which he ingested, he also excreted
the same water which he ingested on Earth,
same experiment in space. He excreted
same amount of water which we gave him,
but he's stored salt. And he stored a huge
amount of salt. He stored so much salt that
if he would convert it into
usually we know when you store salt
then you also store water. It also goes in parallel. So we had
he should have stored six liters
of water. So when we weigh him he should have
been pumped up,
but he was not. He did not store this water
but he stored salt. But this
is forbidden. This is not allowed. So
in every textbook since 50 or more years we know
in physiology, salt and water
go in parallel. Period. If it doesn't go in parallel, you
die. But this astronaut was very healthy actually.
[ Audience laughter ] So,
this was very strange for us. So now let's play
chess. We said OK, maybe an artifact, it's only
one astronaut. If you make a small mistake every day,
it is a huge mistake at the end, since that
is statisticailly highly significant but still a mistake
and so the question was, does this
happen on Earth? And our usually
guinea pigs on Earth are students, so
[ audience laughter ] So, we studied
a lot of students with a lot of salt and found out really
it is happening also on Earth.
So we have a salt storage mechanism
which just nobody had found before. And
later we found out because the
salt mechanism
storage mechanism starts earlier in space at
lower salt concentrations. So we found something
because we had the opportunity to do it in space, so we
have a salt storing mechanism. Now if something works
on students, we had a very clever
colleague at [ inaudible ] University not at our Institute
who something works in students, generally
it should also work in rats.
[ Audience laughter ]
Because we are all
come from the same origins. So if a mechanism is important
it should also be available in animals.
And rats have a big opportunity, you can look
where the salt goes. So those
experiments fed those rats with salt, and just
then sacrifice the animals and look to
different tissues, look, where's the salt?
I started with going to, I said, "It goes into bone."
However, it did not go into bones.
It went into the skin,
subcutaneously, and so it was found out
the skin is a salt storage, has a salt storage
capacity, which is completely unknown,
and this, um, there's a molecular mechanism,
a so called proteoglycans, which can bind
salt under the skin in huge amounts
actually of salt. Now this
mechanism contains salt
storage in exchange for protons. And protons
are in the acid balance,
of the human, and you can have a mechanism just of
just to get rid of protons by your
breathing and uh, mechanism, and
so we said OK, if this mechanism is
acting, then we could, should produce
a lot of protons and you should, we should
acidify inside the body, and if we
acidifed, we know acidification means
bone degradation. The so called osteo-
class are activated are degrade bone
if you acidify, so we say OK, would this mean
that if you eat a lot of salt, you don't get only high blood
pressure, but do your bones degrade?
So we measured, and this I think is very important, we
measured bone degradation, and we found
if you eat a lot of salt, then
your bones degrade more than if you lay
in bed. So you have a real actual
of bone degradation. So this links salt
to osteoporosis. And
very interesting, we always wondered why we cannot get
rid of, why we have so big problems
in stopping bone degradation in astronauts.
But now we know already
at low salt, at normal salt
ingestion, this mechanism is activated,
and this activation
makes us understand why we have big problems of one reason
why we have big problems and get rid of the osteoperosis,
it's not the main reason, but it's one additional factor. You make
remember Scott Smith, saying that we should
reduce the salt ingestion of astronauts, um
and astronauts you probably all know, like to
ingest salt because of the taste
is changing, so they use highly salted food,
we measure, usually they take about two or three
times the salt they should. So not only
is this mechanism active, but there's increased salt
ingestion. Currently we are doing experiments on
ISS, so called solo experiment, and we are very thankful to all the
astronauts, which participated in those experiments.
But this clever colleague in
[ University ] he was also analyzing his
skin in the microscope, and then he
he saw that in the skin of those rats,
suddenly when they eat a lot of salt, there are
so called macrophages. Macrophages are little cells
which eat up bacteria and viruses,
and we know them as immune cells,
but suddenly those immune cells are in the skin,
when you ingest a lot of salt. So what
he said, OK, there must be something linked
and let's just inhibit those macrophages
when they are in high salt,
and they migrate in, lets
inhibit them, because they active
give out like some
growth factors that vessels grow, and
and around, and so
he applied some antibodies,
and what happened very interesting,
the rats developed high blood pressure,
so there's suddenly a link between
salt and its immune system, and high
blood pressure. And uh, this guy
now is getting very famous,
so what I want to say from this simple observation
we now have uh,
we now are able to um, get very new tools to the blood
pressure regulation and we have uh,
completely new link that the immune system and
salt balance are linked. We don't know
as the immune cells are changing their function,
when you ingest high salt,
you also have a link between salt ingestion and osteoperosis,
now these two key people who found
this one in my institute, she was
she was taken up by industry, they
pay her much more, she is getting very successful,
and the person who
Doctor [ inaudible ], he is being lured to the United
States and got a very great offer, and
which he probably cannot resist, and
so I think, but I think you will hear
in maybe 10 years that blood pressure is
linked to the immune system, and you may remember that you heard
this here for the first time. Now let's go into the
future. I use the same slide as you do,
now let's go into the future. What are our
German perspectives for beyond ISS?
I think for present we will use the ISS for
research, like I just showed you, we also will
use the ISS to prepare for
future exploration. But what does the German
government tell us is, the German government says
OK, let's use the ISS.
As long as it's there, like until
2020, and then let's stop the involvement
in human space flight. Uh, what
do the other European countries say? Um, pretty
much the same. Very similar. So I could be
frustrated, but I am not frustrated, actually,
I find it a great challenge, because it shows
that we are in a pioneering field, and it's
great for scientists to be in a pioneering field, you never
know whether and how it goes on
and also, if there is a vacuum, there is
the chance to influence the future. If there is no vacuum,
if everything is decided,
you just can
go with the track, but if there's a vacuum,
you can just influence the way it goes, so what we are doing now is
say OK, where should, how should we try
to influence where we are going? And
that I think we can,
use the past to go into future,
and look what are the possible
past reasons to go to make major investments
in the future. Now traditionally first is religion always.
Know this was started, this is
the cathedral of Colon [ inaudible ]. It was started
in 1248, and in
the middle ages, those people wanted to get closer to
the heavens,
closer to God, and as they did not have rockets,
they built something which looked a little bit similar but
it was an investment with no basic return, it was kind of
a vision, visionary, but in the meantime,
Colon as you know, or may not know, is the richest
archdiocese in the world, because
of the church owns basically all of its
riches around the cathedral, and that's the scent of Colon.
So they are very, very rich. So this investment
was not only good for religion, but it paid off
and still pays off for Colon.
The other reason is leadership (peace),
avoiding war, and I think this was
the main driver for the human
space program in the United States, and we always should note
remember that Kennedy said, "I am not so interested...
...in space." So he clearly said this was
clearly the reason and not exploration was the reason. And
the third reason which I know is economy,
Colombus convinced by
economic factors, so when
we look at that, what should we do
in Germany, how should we try to influence our
leaders and when we
try to influence the way it goes, then we also can look
back to the theories of how
economic circuits are going. Now in the
last conductive cycle which you probably
all know about was information technology.
And I'm very convinced that the leadership of
United States in the last decades was really
really, uh,
inspired by the human space
program. And so what I think
that we can learn from this is
we all think to analyze what's
what is the future bringing? And where
could we inspire people? And I think
for myself, we need
a symbol, we need a task, for me,
in Germany and in Europe, we will not build you a
spacecraft. Especially if your privatize.
But exploration on
Mars for example, needs a station. And needs
people to work in the station, to live in the station,
so my question was, why couldn't we use this
as an inspiration point and
go and actually
it was, I mean I went to my
DLR management, I said,
Yes, but we don't know
what the future is bringing and so on, so I
went to the local government and said well,
we need an inspiration. We need something for here,
so the local government gave me money to
build a new facility. And this is DLR, some of you may
know it. This is my institute here, this is the European Astronaut
Center with the trainings, and between them is a big
field. And so I convinced the local government
they are inspired by exploration.
They are, they just say
this is great, this is fantastic. And they
they gave me a program. It's, uh
well for NASA people it's small, we hear about
billions, but this is about
forty five million, and out of the forty-five million,
in dollars, the local government gave
me thirty, so I went to DLR and said,
I have 30 million, DLR said oh
if it's 30 million, we cannot say no.
[ Laughter ] So now I
convinced also our government, and we have our chess building,
this is two, three weeks ago, building this
facility is called envihab, and uh,
we also need to, to
get partners. And I think which we have
not to get the partners
we have for sure to get the traditional partners,
and I just was in Houston and I tried
to convince the Life Sciences community to
in the United States to team up with us and I think
we have a good chance for this.
But I have now lobbied with
health insurance companies. And one company now is in
investing in us because we say, OK,
challenges to care for astronauts, I mean,
have to do prevention. And health insurances want to go into prevention.
So why not link those two things together?
Private hospital. I have one private hospital chain.
Which is now investing also.
For sure, we are collaborating
a lot with the military, but when you have
the vision of a Mars station,
you can say, what do we need? We have to recycle it.
And recycling I think
is one, is a [ inaudible ] scientists which are coming,
one cycle is the Life Sciences,
especially medicine and prevention, and the other is the so-called
green industry, which will be a huge business
so why not team up directly with them?
And also, team up with people
who try to fascinate young people
because we need engineers. Not all people should go into banking
and investment and such things, but some people should
do inspiring work. Ok,
So, what we do here
is we try to use the fascination of exploration
to inspire and thus to
stimulate economic growth,
and therefore we will focus and we have a medicine
and directly link up also with terrestial applications
this environment and also with the
outreach. Now this facility, if you look to it from outside,
it is a huge roof. And all is under the roof
one floor, it looks like a moon, a
Mars station in 100 years.
This is [ inaudible ] street above it, and underneath
are all the labs and all the functionalities. But this is
not only a lab, but this is a facility
with a lot of space for
outreach and education because we want to bring the public
directly in where we work. We do not want to have
museums, we want the people to see directly what we do.
This has mixed functions, we
can also bring in the private human space flight people
we have here a lot for facility, we
have a small centerfuge here, virtual reality
so everything which you need for those purposes
under one roof in order to
little bit excite people in these days. I thank you for your attention.
[ Applause ]