My New Office @ Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston

It’s been quite awhile since my last blog post, but not because I haven’t been busy. Rather, I’ve been moving at nearly Warp Speed with travel, some speaking gigs and a brand new job — not to mention the Christmas holidays… Above you can see the placard outside my brand new office at the Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston, where I’ll be involved in developing technologies that we hope will reshape medical care for all of us. Methodist Hospital is one of the very finest clinical hospitals in the country (and the known Universe), and they have established a major research institute, led by world-renowned nanomedicine expert Dr. Mauro Ferrari (my good friend and now boss).

I’m thrilled by this exciting opportunity to work with some of the very best and brightest physicians and scientists in the world. I’ll be getting oriented and working part time at Methodist for a few weeks, while I devote some serious hours to writing the autobiography I’ve been talking about (but not writing) for years… I’ll be onboard at the institute full time by mid-February, hopefully with a substantial portion of the manuscript down on paper. I truly enjoyed my (almost) 2 years at Wyle Integrated Science & Engineering in Clear Lake, TX, where I worked with wonderful people and learned a great deal from some outstanding mentors.

I still have my fingers on the pulse of spaceflight though, and it’s been fantastic to have my good friend and STS-120 crewmate (and recent ISS Commander) Doug Wheelock back on Terra Firma — telling tall tales, and reliving past glories. One of the beauties of this age of global and intergalactic communication is the ability to reach space. Both Scott Kelly (current ISS Commander) and Paolo Nespoli (ISS flight engineer) have been in touch, and both “friended” me on Facebook from the Cosmos! I’m also looking forward to giving talks at the Commercial Human Spaceflight Technical Panel (in Boulder, CO) and the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (in Orlando, FL) in the coming weeks…

This January 28th marks the 25th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, from which the brave families turned devastation into inspiration. I’ll be heading to the Kennedy Space Center at the end of the month with founding Chair of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, Dr. June Scobee-Rogers. After a remembrance ceremony there, we’ll head back to Houston for events planned at our local Challenger Learning Center. Please visit www.challenger.org for more details about our organization that currently reaches 400,000 school children each year, motivating them through hands-on mission simulations throughout our solar system.

In closing, Merry 2011 to one and all!

Scott

High Altitude Hydration System

Often the most difficult part of invention is just identifying the unmet need. Once you figure this out, bringing technology to bear on the problem is generally pretty simple. Having suffered mightily from dehydration on long hikes, treks and climbs in the past, I knew performance and good hydration were closely linked. From a climb of Cerro Aconcagua in South America, just shy of 23,000 feet, I also learned how quickly water bottles can crust over (despite being inside my down jacket), and eventually become blocks of useless weight! I’ve long been a fan of Camelback-type hydration systems, where you can take a swig of water whenever you need to, but the neoprene insulation commercially available for the tubing can’t come close to handling even modest cold, as I demonstrated to myself on the approach to Alaska’s Denali. In an effort to stay healthy and hydrated on Everest, some NASA colleagues of mine and I built the HAHS, a.k.a. High Altitude Hydration System. Check it out: http://www.fuentek.com/technologies/HighAltHydration.htm

Karen Hizer of Fuentek (NASA’s commercialization consultant) took my Everest HAHS to the Outdoor Retailers convention in Salt Lake this week, and several companies expressed great interest in licensing the technology. Patent pending, and coming soon to a mountain near you!

http://fuentek.blogspot.com/2010/01/live-from-outdoor-retailer-show-in-salt.html