My second article covered a House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearing on June 21 that discussed a draft of the "Helium Extraction Act," which aims to facilitate additional helium production on federal lands. I wrote my required weekly SPS blog post on the experience, which you can find here. Then, this week, I did enough research for my team member that I was given shared byline with her on the Horizon 2020 article I mentioned in my last post (you can find that article here). This means I've now sole authored two articles and co-authored a third, officially breaking the score of last year's intern who co-authored two. I'm setting new records!
Now that I've caught you up on that front, let me transition into the two big places I visited this week: NASA Goddard and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Two of the interns are working at NASA, and one intern at NIST, and we visited those places Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. To be honest, I actually greatly preferred the NIST tour over the NASA one. Though NASA does have a ton of name recognition, the projects they conduct hold a high level of confidentiality, so the places we walked through didn't allow for pictures or detailed explanations of the science going on. However, everywhere we visited at NIST was open for pictures, and they were more than happy to go into all the science behind the gadgets. Thus, for me, I found NIST to be a lot more engaging of a tour than NASA. Additionally, the big thing we did see at NASA—the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—was definitely an impressive feat of engineering, but the fact they only touted its benefits and did not discuss how its catastrophic budget threatens the funding for the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) project makes me a bit irked.
Who here has heard of NIST though? Honestly, before my internship, I really wasn't aware of the agency. But it turns out NIST is actually super-duper cool, so let me tell you a bit about what NIST does.
NIST is a metrology laboratory, meaning a laboratory that focuses on the science of measurement. In science, there are seven standard units in the International System of Units (SI units), and metrologists use these standards to make sure everyone is measuring things the same way, like time, weight, and distance.
The seven SI units are:
- The kilogram (mass)
- The meter (length)
- The second (time)
- The Kelvin (temperature)
- The mole (amount of substance)
- The ampere (current)
- The candela (luminous intensity)
Experiments like this are one of the things NIST does. Yet not all the research at NIST is this high-level. NIST also measures things like the makeup of various food, beauty, and cleaning products and lets companies know what's inside, so the companies can be sure they are complying with federal regulations on what levels of various chemicals are allowed in their products. NIST also measures the capability of robots to maneuver obstacle courses like stairs, rough terrain, and air turbulence to determine if the robots could successfully aid in missions that humans are unable to do, like cleaning a nuclear disaster site. The special importance of this research gained prominence following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdown when the Japanese did not have robots capable of effectively infiltrating and cleaning up the reactor site.
NIST was founded in 1901 under the name National Bureau of Standards, with the mandate to provide standard weights and measures and to serve as the national physical laboratory for the United States. However, when the mission of the agency changed in 1988, the name changed to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The new mission is to:
"Promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life."
In addition to employing about 2,900 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support and administrative personnel, NIST also has about 1,800 guest researchers and engineers from American companies and foreign countries complementing the staff. Furthermore, NIST partners with nearly 350 affiliated centers around the country.
To get to NIST requires taking the red line metro all the way to Shady Grove, and then a free shuttle takes you the rest of the way. Because it's so far out, we spent the entire day touring the place.
The thing I found the most exciting at NIST were the people who gave the tours. Every laboratory we visited, the people working there were super passionate about their jobs and could explain what they were doing in a very clear, simple way. Being able to do that tells me they know their research very well, and the vigor with which they engaged with us interns tells me they valued our visit and didn't see it as a waste of time but rather as a way to inspire the new generation. This kind of touring experience is what I hope I can do someday for others when I begin my science communication career.