Abstract: This program is intended for Sigma Xi members, university and college faculty and students, and researchers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, materials science, agriculture and related areas, as well as for high-tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. The first hour will discuss Research on the Space Station; the second hour will focus on Commercialization of Space Research.

The schedule for the first hour includes:

1. Living and working in a space outpost: life sciences and biotechnology in micogravity
2. Biotechnology case study: Chagas Disease
3. Viewer questions and answers
4. Key technology: combustion research
5. Panel discussion: research in space
6. Closed environment system technology
7. More viewer questions and answers

1. Investigating in space
2. Commercial biotechnology in microgravity: BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
3. Pharmaceuticals, inc.
4. Viewer questions and answers
5. Commercialization of ISS (International Space Station) materials research
6. Agribusiness
7. Panel discussion of small business and ISS
8. SPACEHAD - the business of space
9. More viewer questions and answers

This is the fifth annual International Space Station satellite teleconference. (Our chapter videotaped last year's conference, if anyone is interested.) The first flight to be launched, which consists of the US-funded, Russian-built Functional Cargo Block, is apparently ahead of schedule for a June 1998 launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Hardware for the second flight, the US Node and two Pressurized Mating Adapters, is currently at Kennedy Space Center. Overall, design and development of ISS elements for the first six flights is apparently largely complete, and the elements are undergoing pre-launch testing. All elements for the first six flights will in fact be at their respective launch sites for prepartion for flight, by year's end.

A web site of possible interest specifically for these videoconferences is available here. The ISS web site is available here.