National Lab 15

**Gary Jordan** (0:00)
Houston, We Have a Podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, episode 435, National Lab 15 I'm Gary Jordan, and I'll be your host today. On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts, all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, or CASIS, is celebrating 15 years of managing the International Space Station US. National Laboratory. In those 15 years, there have been thousands of experiments on the space station that have contributed to advancing science for space exploration and the benefit of humanity, economic growth, and inspiration. On this episode, we go back in time to the beginnings of the ISS National Lab, reflect on some of the accomplishments, and discuss what's in store for the future. Our guest today is Patrick O'Neill, Public Affairs and Outreach Lead of the ISS National Laboratory, who we're excited to welcome back as a guest of Houston We Have a Podcast after more than eight and a half years, first appearing for episode 29 Lots to discuss. Let's get right into it. Enjoy.
We have a podcast.
Patrick O'Neill, welcome back to Houston We Have a Podcast. It has been a while.

**Patrick O'Neill** (1:28)
It has been almost 10 years, I want to say. This is, we were chatting about it earlier, and I was even looking at some of the previous broadcasts where it was season one, and now here we are in season...

**Gary Jordan** (1:40)
Funny enough, we're still with season one, technically, but we just, because we're just so continuous, but you could say we have passed nine years.

**Patrick O'Neill** (1:48)
It's almost like we have continuous presence on the International Space Station in the same capacity, right?

**Gary Jordan** (1:52)
Continuous presence on the audio landscape, if you will. Well, for this one, we're going to be talking about the ISS US. National Laboratory.
And when we last talked, we were, I think, maybe seven or eight years into CASIS, into the ISS National Lab. Part of the reason we have you on here today is one, you're in town, too. We are talking about 15 years of the ISS National Lab. We're doing a look back. We're going to talk about some of the highlights of everything that the US. National Lab has accomplished. But why don't we start with a little bit of background?
Early years, tell us about how this all began. We're talking about the ISS National Lab. What is it?

**Patrick O'Neill** (2:32)
Yeah. So I get a paycheck every two weeks from the Center for the Advancement of Science and Space. That is known as CASIS. And CASIS has been designated to manage the ISS National Laboratory through a cooperative agreement with our friends at NASA.
A little bit of background on the ISS National Lab. It was designated a national laboratory in 2005 by our friends in Congress. And the reason for that was because in the early origins of building the space station, when the astronauts did have a little bit of time to support investigations, research projects, you could just see that that microgravity environment had a profound impact on what was being done from a scientific perspective. And it got our friends in Congress thinking, well, what if we, you know, opened access, opportunity? What if we gave other researchers that maybe were not NASA affiliated, but whether it's researchers from academia or private sector entities, nonprofits, the ability to leverage this space station for Earth benefit? What could we learn from that? Could we create more effective therapeutics? Could we create more effective consumer goods? And so that was the genesis of them designating the ISS a national laboratory. Let's fast forward from 2005 to 2010 There was a NASA Authorization Act that said that while we have this national lab, we need somebody to manage this national laboratory, and it can't be NASA, because NASA's role is to focus more on living and working in space, better understanding technologies that will allow for us to go beyond low earth orbit to places like the moon or Mars or beyond.
So we need someone else, a non-profit entity, to manage this national laboratory that doesn't have a dog in the fight. And so the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space is a brainchild of the state of Florida. They submitted their name into this RFP that came out as part of this NASA Authorization Act. In 2011, we were selected, and then we signed our cooperative agreement with NASA on August 31, 2011, which means that this month marks our 15th anniversary of managing the ISS National Lab.