 |
 |
||
|
|
||
02.09.99 |
ERSKINE'S GORRY AND DUDLEY-ROWLEY LOOK AT THE HUMAN FACTOR IN SPACE EXPLORATION Erskine College Professor of Psychology Dr. Thomas H. Gorry and Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology Marilyn Dudley-Rowley attended the Space Human Factors Engineering Needs Assessment Workshop held in Houston, Texas Jan. 14-15. Dudley-Rowley, who has been awarded a $50,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for a space psychosocial study, has an ongoing interest in the subject of space exploration. “Erskine students help me with the research,” says Dudley-Rowley. She has also helped two students receive grants in connection with the study. “President Carson asked our department to look into proposing a space-based curricular program at Erskine for promotion over the Internet and we have been working on that proposal.” Gorry and Dudley-Rowley are involved with a project based in Russia at the Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow, the agency involved with making cosmonaut medical selections as well as producing all the biomedical research aboard Russian space missions for the past 35 years. Dudley-Rowley plans to spend 110 days in the International Space Simulator this summer. “USC Medical School assists with my medical and conditioning requirements along with my Russian physicians at the IMBP Clinic,” she says. “I traveled to Russia for the third time during Christmas to take the Cosmonaut physical at the Clinic.” “Tom Gorry and I, along with a Russian research partner, Vadim Gushin ... will be assessing group states of crew aboard the Simulator.” Gorry will deliver their joint paper at the International Conference on Environmental Sciences in Denver this July, but neither Dudley-Rowley, who will be in the Simulator, nor Gushin, who must remain in Russia while the Simulator is operating, will be able to attend. “All these things did not happen overnight, though to some observers it may seem like it,” says Dudley-Rowley, who became the founding chair of the Russian Chapter of the Mars Society and chair of the Alaska Chapter at the Mars Society's founding convention in Boulder, Colorado this summer. “Alaska is where my private scientific research company is headquartered,” she explains. “This past December, I also traveled to Russia to launch the publication of Mars Society's founder Robert Zubrin's book The Case for Mars in Russian ... Zubrin is the engineer whose Mars Direct mission plan became the blueprint for the NASA Mars Reference Mission.” Speaking of further possibilities to explore at Erskine, Dudley-Rowley says, “Tom (Gorry) and I will likely mount some other space-related studies and seek NASA funding which could tie in a number of Erskine faculty, students, and facilities.” Meanwhile, she looks forward to her 110 days of confinement and subsequent release.“I guess I will be a little like a prisoner facing a strange world upon being set free.” |
||||||
Erskine College Netnews is a weekly Electronic Publication of the Erskine College Public Relations Office. |
Please foward your suggestions and comments to us by phone, fax, or e-mail at:
Jason Peevy, Editor Joyce Guyette, Co-Editor Aldon Knight, Contributor Contributors:
|
||||||