647427main_spring12.pdf

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration A publication of NASA Research Park NRP POST The Spring 2012 CEO Bruno Kajiyama founded Photozig, Inc. in March 2002 with a vision to empower users through great products that save, organize and share lifetime memories. One of the earliest industry partners in NASA Research Park, Photozig has been doing research and develop- ment in Bldg. 19 since 2002. Photozig’s projects include devel- oping products inspired by NASA missions, like the new PepBlast Galaxy gaming app with space themes, and Pepcast web site (www.pepcast.com), a unique photo sharing service open to the public in 2009, after initially hosting pic- tures for Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2008. In 2008 Pepcast provided a virtual community for thousands of attend- ees celebrating our space heritage at NASA Ames Research Center and around the world. Pepcast photo sharing allows personalized skins, easy album organization, community capabilities and elegant slideshows. Bruno Kajiyama, Founder and CEO, Photozig, Inc. Photozig cont’d on page 3 Photozig–New Apps, Training Programs and a Webnovela by NRP Staff
N-CITE cont’d on page 3 The NASA Ames Center for Innovation and Technology Enhancement (N-CITE) has been established to facilitate communication and enable more collaboration between NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) and residents of NASA Research Park (NRP). One reason companies locate in the NRP is that they want the opportunity to collaborate with one of Silicon Valley’s innovation engines, NASA’s energetic, most out-of-the-box center.  Ames, in turn, welcomes the proximity of companies who are doing interesting, cutting-edge R&D. Many NRP N-CITE Set to Enhance NASA-NRP Collaborations by Ingrid Desilvestre Program Executive Offi ce of the Center Chief Technologist U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren Visits NASA Research Park John Hines, Chief Technologist at NASA Ames Research Center: “We hope that N-CITE will provide a forum to facilitate these potential teamings, and maximize the potential and effi ciencies of all involved.” U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren with NASA Ames Center Director Pete Worden and Bloom Energy’s Josh Richman, Vice President of Business Development, toured Bloom Energy’s facility at NASA Research Park March 13, 2012. Lofgren represents California's 16th district which encompasses most of San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley.

2 www.nasa.gov NRP Post CONTENTS All One Quantum Energy Research, Inc. Bldg. 19, Room 2025 Commencement 2/1/12 All One Quantum Energy Research, Inc. performs research and development in the fi eld of Quantum Medicine. Their mainline product, QRS (Quantum Resonance Spectrom- eter), is a device to automatically gather information from cells in the human body and determine environmental changes before diseases strike. Their concept is to combine research in quantum physics and medical fi elds to develop preventive medicine. This tech- nology has been extensively used in hospitals in Japan, Taiwan and China to study the predetermination of cardiovascular, cancer, heart and other diseases. Neerim Corporation Bldg. 19, Rm. 2089 Commencement 4/1/12 Neerim Corporation relocated their Mountain View headquarters to NRP for collaboration with NASA. Neerim provides systems engineering services for numerous NASA proj- ects, including support for Lockheed Martin’s prime contract to build the Orion spacecraft, a crewed vehicle for exploration beyond Earth orbit. Neerim is involved in the design and manufacture of Orion’s thermal protection system. Neerim also supports GSFC and Ames in a study to reconstruct the ViTAL mission, requiring an end-to-end mission design. This study is partly funded by Center Innovation Funds under Ames Offi ce of Chief Technologist. CMU Expands into Building 19 NRPWelcomes CMU-SV continues their campus expansion in NASA Research Park, adding 6,406 s.f. in Bldg. 19 on March 1, 2012. Over the last 6 months they have acquired 12,418 total s.f. in Bldg. 19. N-CITE to Enhance NASA NRP Collaborations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Photozig–New Apps, Programs, & Webnovela. . . . . 1 New Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 CMUSV Tenth Anniversary . . . 3 Singularity University Brings in Gabriel Baldinucci . . . . . . . . . . 4 NASA Awards Moon Express New Task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Moon Express: A New Breed of Space Explorers . . . . . . . . . . . 6 AAC Microtec & Ames’ First Plug-and-Play Compatible Spacecraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Ray Kurzweil Talks About ‘Singularity’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 GaryAir Participates in Technical Interchange Meeting . . . . . . . 8 NASA and CMUSV Host “Big Data Management” . . . . 9 Is Vasper Really the Exercise of the Future? . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 NRP Lecture Series Hosts Disaster Resiliency Panel . . . 14 STC Sponsors First Journal of Small Satellites . . . . . . . . . 17 STC’s Science and Technology International Education Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Taksha University Courses . . 17 In Memoriam: Rich Davies . . . 18

3 www.nasa.gov NRP Post Photozig cont’d from page 1 N-CITE cont’d from page 1 Photozig cont’d on page 4 PepBlast Galaxy App, developed by Photozig, has been released to Apple App Store and Android Market/Google Play. PepBlast Galaxy is an educational casual gaming app, featuring videos created by NASA about galaxies and space exploration, music games and cool songs. Featured NASA videos have edu- cational information on galaxies, research and space explora- tion. The app combines short easy games with space themes and music, where users hit objects following song beats. Pep - Blast Galaxy App is available at Apple App Store (for iPhone and iPad) and Google Play (for Android smartphones and tablets).

2012 Marks the 10th Anniversary of CMUSV! Join us on Saturday, June 9, 2012 to celebrate the rich history of CMU and its impact on the west coast! We will host the 10th anniversary event on the campus at Moffett Field beginning at 3:30 PM. All attendees are welcome to participate in the festivities: 3:30-4:15 Looking Back and Moving Ahead with CMU
President Dr. Jared L. Cohon and
Provost Dr. Mark Kamlet 4:15-4:30 Time Capsule Ceremony 4:30-5:30 Technology Showcase 5:30-7:00 Reception Register at http://goo.gl/Hx608 Silicon Valley Campus Celebrates Ten Years of Developing Software Leaders collaborations have already led to technology acceleration for a number of companies, bringing their products to market sooner and creating new jobs for the American people.  In fact, five companies that started in the NRP with a piece of paper and some IP are now employing thousands in Silicon Valley.

N-CITE, by physically locating in the NRP (Bldg. 19 Room 2069), aims to make it easier to increase mutually beneficial collaborations between NASA ARC researchers and the NRP partners, both academic and commercial sectors. The result will both contribute substantively to the NASA mission and foster increased private sector innovation. N-CITE will pursue multidisciplinary, product-oriented technology development and applications through collaborations. Areas of interest include but are not limited to space biology and life sciences research and associated technologies, green technologies, small spacecraft and science instruments for small missions, high-confidence software and systems, and cyber-physical systems modeling and analysis.

Led by Ames Chief Technology Officer John Hines, N-CITE will explicitly attempt to break down organizational barriers and encourage multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary collaboration.  This will be done via technology interchanges and invited seminars to gauge the suitability and interest of selected parties for a particular collaboration or simply to boost the visibility of certain technology activities. Where specific areas of mutual interest are identified, N-CITE plans to translate these into concrete, practical collaborations allowing for the focused transfer of technology and the joint development of new technologies.  In some cases, interested parties can partner on proposals in response to NASA and other opportunities. Informal meetings (drop by) are encouraged by CTO Hines and the co-location in NRP Building 19, home to many start ups, was selected for that opportunity. CTO Hines perceives the NRP as a key enabler of NASA’s new technology focus, that continues to disseminate NASA technology and ideas, while welcoming the best ideas from industry and universities through collaborations in the NRP . Ultimately, N-CITE will create enabling technologies that advance NASA’s bold new missions, infuse aeronautics and space technologies into the commercial sector, and help drive the next wave of aerospace innovation. 4 www.nasa.gov NRP Post Singularity University (SU) has announced the appointment of Gabriel Baldinucci, an experienced entrepreneur, investor, and former Virgin Group executive, as Vice President of Strategy and New Venture Development. Mr. Baldinucci will be responsible for the development and leadership of a new venture, SU Labs, while also working closely with CEO Rob Nail to direct overall strategy for Singularity University. SU Labs will be the center for SU’s work “after the classroom” and will encompass faculty and alumni research, new company generation and incubation, and innovation services for larger companies around the world. “We are very excited to have Gabriel as a senior member of the Singularity University team. His experience developing new ventures is a perfect fit for SU as we expand our offerings beyond education and into the realm of catalyzing and mentoring projects and companies around the globe to tackle the grand challenges that face humanity, ” said Singularity University CEO Rob Nail. “Gabriel also brings a passionate, entrepreneurial spirit that is great to addition to the SU community. ” Singularity University Brings in Gabriel Baldinucci, Former Virgin Group Executive and Entrepreneur, to Lead Overall Strategy and New Venture Development, Including SU Labs Mountain View, CA February 7, 2012 “Creating, incubating and financing companies able to positively affect the lives of a billion people is a central element of SU’s vision. We call this 10^9+ impact, ” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder. “This will be Gabriel’s key focus at SU Labs. His previous experience at Virgin is perfect to expand our successes during the past three years and help take this University to scale. ” “This is not going to be a typical incubator, ” said Baldinucci. “We are building an innovative platform that will put our new SU companies alongside leading R&D teams from around the world, along with our incredible faculty. We will work across a company’s full life cycle in a way that helps people at different stages bring unique value to each other. ” Baldinucci was most recently a Managing Director at Palm Ventures in Greenwich, CT, where he focused on a broad range of industries with an emphasis on consumer services. Previously, Mr. Baldinucci was a Vice President of Corporate Development at Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, where new Virgin companies are developed and launched. During his five years with Virgin, Baldinucci often worked directly with Mr. Branson and conceived and developed new business opportunities in health & wellness, travel, retail, IT services, and media. Prior to joining Virgin, Mr. Baldinucci consulted for several startup companies and also spent two years with Goldman Sachs’ Investment Management Division in New York. Baldinucci started his entrepreneurial career in high school by founding and successfully selling a local pizza restaurant chain. He has been quoted in Forbes Magazine and his work on entrepreneurship has been published by the Family Office Association. He is personally an investor or advisor for several startup companies and he holds a BA in Economics from Duke University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Celebrating its tenth anniversary this April, Mr. Kajiyama shares a few exciting projects and products from the company:
“We began developing digital image systems to organize photos back in 2002, and saw the potential for applying digi- tal pictures and videos to many areas. We have completed projects in special education, training programs, consumer software and online systems. We are fond of NASA themes, such as space exploration, Kepler’s extrasolar planet dis- coveries and other missions. Recently, we have been doing more media production, online services and mobile apps. ”

Photozig cont’d from page 3 Photozig cont’d on page 13 “Photozig has also worked on healthcare-related products /services with the goal of helping families around the country.
With Stanford University and the Alzheimer’s Association, we are developing more applications for Alzheimer’s care. Some of our research projects on healthcare applications have been funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), such as LifeZig and iCare. LifeZig was our first NIH-funded project, which allowed us to determine appropriate technologies, user inter - faces and design factors to develop programs for Alzheimer’s 5 www.nasa.gov NRP Post by Bob Richards Mountain View, CA March 5, 2012 Moon Express, a Google Lunar X PRIZE contender, announced March 5 that it has won an additional task order from NASA under its Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data (ILDD) Program contract. The newest task order in the $10M ILDD contract calls for Moon Express to provide NASA with data about the company’s progress through a Preliminary Design Checkpoint Tech- nical Package that documents details of mission operations, spacecraft develop- ment, payload accommodations and Planetary Protection Plans. Silicon Valley-based Moon Express was one of only three U.S. companies awarded the first $500K Task Order un- der NASA’s ILDD program. Successful completion of the newest task order will bring the company’s ILDD awards to $610,000. Although an important sub - stantiation of NASA’s interest in commer- cial lunar providers, the ILDD contract represents a fraction of the investment needed to execute a commercial lunar mission. The majority of Moon Express funding is coming from private investors and is supplemented by revenues from payload customers. “We are very pleased to receive another ILDD contract award from NASA, ” said Bob Richards, co-founder and CEO of Moon Express. “NASA is an important partner in our reach for the Moon. ” Moon Express is the first company to flight test a prototype lunar lander sys- tem designed for the Moon, developed in partnership with NASA. The company plans to send a series of robotic space - craft to the Moon for ongoing exploration and commercial development focused on benefits to Earth. In the near future, Moon Express will not only be deliver - ing important payloads to the Moon, but will also be exploring the Moon for the potential mining of precious elements we need here on Earth like platinum group metals, rare earth elements and Helium-3 (used to create a second gener- ation fusion fuel for electrical generation). Moon Express is adapting NASA’s Common Spacecraft Bus for use in small, low cost spacecraft designed to deliver payloads to a variety of locations, including lunar orbit and the lunar surface, Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Earth- Moon Lagrange points, and Near Earth Objects (NEOs). The Common Spacecraft Bus allows the company to design low- cost missions, launch on a variety of commercial rockets and deliver flexible payloads to the lunar surface and various orbits. Moon Express signed a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with NASA in 2010 to invest over $500K into the commercialization of the agency’s technology in return for technical assistance. NASA Awards Moon Express New Task in $10M Commercial Lunar Data Contract The Moon Express team Lunar Landar Vehicle (LTV) 6 www.nasa.gov NRP Post NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) and the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB), with NRP Partner AAC Microtec, presented the outcomes of the first bilateral nanosatellite cooperation between the two entities at the 9th Annual Spring CubeSat Workshop held April 18-20 at San Lois Obispo, CA. The collaboration resulted in ARC’s first plug-and-play compatible spacecraft, an 1U CubeSat called TechEdSat which is built around AAC Microtec’s Rapid Integration Architecture™ (RIA) framework. The RIA framework is compatible with the AFRL developed Space Plug-and-Play Avionics (SPA) standard. AAC Microtec developed and supplied the spacecraft avionics and supported the software development throughout the execution.

AAC Microtec North America is now es- tablished at NASA Research Park and is gearing up to bring state-of-the-art, radia- Ames’ First Plug-and-Play Compatible Spacecraft built on NRP’s AAC Microtec Framework by AAC Microtec Staff Jorge Freyer, CEO of AAC Microtec North America Inc., provided stra- tegic guidance on expanding busi- nesses globally through alliances and product expansion. He has been an executive of several companies; amongst them GE and Sony, as well as co-founder of startup companies that debut in the public markets in the US and in Europe. He headed several M&A activities as a partner at Hultquist Capital. He holds a gradu - ate degree in Engineering from Stan- ford University. tion tolerant, and affordable small space systems to the global market based on successful collaboration with ARC, the US Air Force Research Laboratory, and a fast growing customer base.

In addition, AAC has delivered many Rapid Integration Architecture™ (RIA) plug-and-play compatible subsystems to the Tohoku University built micro - satellite RISESAT, including onboard computers (OBC Lite™ 52X), 8 payload interfaces (DPCU-221X, µRTU™ 31X), 16 GB non-volatile mass memory (M16E1), and the main payload power system (MPDU 151X).

“AAC Microtec North America is in getting many requests on our space systems capabilities and unique products. We expect to see a significant growth of the company in the coming year, ” says Jorge Freyer, CEO of AAC Microtec North America Inc. Moon Express cont’d on page 10 Mountain View’s Moon Express Introduces a New Breed of Space Explorers Mountain View’s Moon Express is a new breed of space explorers. They are sending a craft to the Moon because they think they can. by Rod Bastanmehr Metroactive February 15, 2012 At 22, Brandon Plaster finds himself part of a project that could, in theory, redefine how we view not only lunar research and space travel. And where the buttoned-up Houston control engineer of yesteryear, with his black-framed, horn-rimmed Moon Express CEO Bob Richards glasses and pocket protector firmly in place, pulled off one of the greatest human accomplishments of the 20th century, the next great American hero may look nothing like them. They may just look like Brandon. If successful, Brandon and his cohorts wouldn’t just be revitalizing America’s lunar relationship; they could also help make the dream of clean energy an actual reality. They could finally bring about the seemingly eons-touted concept of commercial flights to the nether regions of space. And in doing so could make America a dominant presence in space exploration and innovation—again. The company that Brandon finds himself in (or, more accurately, that found Brandon) is Moon Express, located in Building 19 in the NASA Research Park. MoonEx, as it is often called, is one of 26 companies currently vying to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP).
7 www.nasa.gov NRP Post

Ray Kurzweil believes computers will soon think like humans and ultimately merge with us, a notion he has dubbed “the singularity. ”

That idea persuaded the former inventor in 2007 to form Singularity University, an institution housed at the NASA Research Park on Moffett Field in Mountain View, which teaches students about artificial intelligence and other topics straight out of science fiction.

While the institution isn’t accredited and offers short programs rather than a four-year degree, it has attracted lecturers and advisers such as Autodesk Inc. Chief Executive Carl Bass and Google Inc. Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf. The notion of the singularity previously spawned the Singularity Institute, an artificial-intelligence research group in San Francisco.

Mr. Kurzweil’s artificial-intelligence theories have made him something of a lightning rod among Silicon Valley technologists. He draws praise and funding from the likes of Google co- founder and CEO Larry Page and investor Peter Thiel. But others such as Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen and Lotus 1-2-3 designer Mitch Kapor dismiss Mr. Kurzweil’s ideas, arguing, in part, that the way humans process information may not be analogous to how computers do so, which means human consciousness can’t necessarily be reproduced digitally.

Mr. Kurzweil, 64 years old, who lives in the suburbs of Boston and regularly travels to the Bay Area for his work at the university and institute, discussed his predictions and his status as a polarizing figure in a recent interview:

WSJ: There are plenty of universities in the Bay Area that teach computer sci- ence, neuroscience, all the fields you’re exploring at Singularit y University. What kind of gap does Singularity Uni- versity fill?

Mr. Kurzweil: There are lots of univer - sities that teach this subject matter in a traditional way, basically looking at the current state of knowledge. Singularity University is really devoted to under- Ray Kurzweil Talks About ‘Singularity’ and Theory’s Critics by Vauhini Vara The Wall Street Journal February 22, 2012 standing the phenomenon of exponen - tial growth and how that is transforming one field after another. Computation and communication are obvious ones, but biology, health and medicine are others. The point is that health and medicine are now information technologies, and once an area becomes an information tech- nology it progresses exponentially and not linearly.

The other key difference is that the stu- dents learn primarily through learning: The students self-organize into teams and take on some world challenge and start a project intended to last a long time. One project is to provide inexpen- sive housing for the developing world by building houses Lego-style using three- dimensional printing.

WSJ: What do you expect the most prominent companies in Silicon Valley to be making in 20 years?

Mr. Kurzweil: There are several different fields that are quite revolutionary. One area is biotechnology technologies to really change the information processes underlying our bodies to program our bodies away from diseases and aging. You and I are walking around with out - dated technology in our bodies. Twenty years from now, we’ll really have a way to radically change those processes.

Another area is artificial intelligence. Twenty years from now you won’t have to ask computers for help. The computer will be listening in on you and determin- ing what you need. And we’ll have virtual reality you and I could have sat together in a virtual living room or taken a virtual walk on a Mediterranean beach.

WSJ: You have some famous proponents in the Bay Area, but you also have some vocal critics like Mitch Kapor and Paul Allen. Can you respond to the idea that the brain’s workings are so different Singularity cont’d on page 8 Dr. Ray Kurzweil, Chancellor and co-founder with Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, of Singularity Univer - sity. Kurzweil is an American author, scientist, inventor and futurist involved in fields such as optical character recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology and electronic key- board instruments. 8 www.nasa.gov NRP Post Carnegie Mellon University alumni and NASA HQ Chief of Staff David Radzanowski, visited CMU-Silicon Valley on February 9, 2012. (L-R) Steven Rosenberg, Associate Director, CMUSV; David Radzanowski, NASA Chief of Staff; Ole Mengshoel, Associate Research Professor, Director of the Intelligent and High-Performing Systems Lab, CMU-SV; Sylvia Leong, CMU-SV; Director of External Relations and Admissions, CMU-SV; Hector Rastrullo, Director Business and Finance. from that of a computer that they would be impossible to simulate?

Mr. Kurzweil: My critics are thinking linearly and imagining continued linear progress, but that’s not true. [Progress will be] exponential: It makes an enormous difference. People also say the brain is too complex. Well, it’s a complicated area, but there’s a tremendous amount of redundancy— the complexity is more apparent than real. It’s a level of complexity that we can handle.

WSJ: Where is the most interesting artificial-intelligence research taking place?

Mr. Kurzweil: This type of research is being done all over the world. The most sophisticated is being done in the United States, most significantly in Silicon Valley. Larry Page has a strong personal interest in AI. Search engines are going to understand what you mean and not just look at words. Look at Watson [the IBM computer that won Jeopardy]. It dealt with questions that were extremely subtle, dealt with puns, innuendo and metaphors. Printed with permission of The Wall Street Journal Singularity cont’d from page 7 GaryAir in Single Pilot Operations Technical Interchange Meeting By Dave Guerrieri, V.P . Business Development, GaryAir Break Out Group 3 at Ames' Flight Deck Display Research Lab Technical Interchange Meeting including (L-R) Josh Kraut, San Jose State University; Greg Potter, Cessna Aircraft Company; Leigh-lu Prasse, ARINC; Dave Guerrieri, GaryAir; Mike Feary, NASA Ames; Fred Rudolph, Rockwell Collins; Joel Lachter, San Jose State University; and Sergio Pizziol, SUPAERO. Ames’ Flight Deck Display Research Lab hosted a Technical Interchange Meeting April 10th–12th to ask industry, academic, and research experts how best to improve the safety of aircraft operated with one pilot. Attendees also considered when, if ever, further advances might permit additional operations of this type in other categories of aircraft. Large air transport passenger aircraft might never be flown with less than two pilots. Cargo aircraft might have a reduced number of aircrew sooner than passenger planes. Some believe cargo planes might someday fly without a pilot at all. Today many small aircraft are flown with only one pilot. Therefore research in this area will improve the safety of those operations right away. Many military aircraft are also flown with only one pilot. System improvements to help single pilot operations, as they are called, will likely improve the systems for multi pilot crews too, because automation for one pilot must be very easy to use. Dave Guerrieri of GaryAir Air Taxi, a NASA Research Park Partner, contributed to the meeting as an industry participant and subject matter expert.

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