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To the Editor:
Excellent magazine! I was looking for information for my son (a high school junior) on the brain. Using the Alta-Vista search engine I located the Research News, 1995, No. 3. It contained enough information to demonstrate the brain's mystery and I hope it will keep his interest. Following the data gathering, I read the "Reviewing the Year" issue-again, excellent. I hadn't realized that the UM was involved in any of these areas!

This publication is an excellent source of information. You should consider coordinating with NASA on the International Space Station to apply your spectrometer contaminant technology. I work with NASA on the Phase I, Shuttle-Mir Program. One of the big issues we have with the Mir is determining the level of atmospheric contaminants. My understanding of the current technology was that chemical sensors are designed for specific contaminants and would be difficult to design for every known material carried to orbit. Because of this, we periodically return Mir air samples to JSC for analysis. But there is a time lag between the time when a suspected contaminant is released on Mir and when the analysis can be done on the ground. The Space Shuttle Program also uses a chemical sensor to detect the propellant hydrazine in the air lock or on a spacesuit before a crewmember comes in from an Extravehicular Activity (EVA). On orbit the hydrazine comes from the Shuttle Reaction Control System jets, and sometimes leaks at low rates due to improper valve seating.

Your spectrometer sensor technology may be adaptable to the Shuttle Airlock to help crewmembers determine if they're carrying anything hazardous (such as hydrazine) back into the crew cabin. I'm also sure that the Space Station will need some mechanism to identify atmospheric contaminants and their saturation levels. Here again, your technology may be useful both as a detection and warning system and as a measurement system.

In any event, keep up the good work! Best wishes,

Win Reid

To the Editor:
May I compliment all on 1996-Vol. 47, No. 2! It is extrememely interesting and "mind-stretching" throughout its pages. It will go to our library at Fairhaven, a full life community.

Roy Burroughs
(PhD, Economics 1933)
Sykesville, MD