CONTENTS

 

 

This Thursday: “Satellites, Sterilized Flies, and the Screwworm Scourge”

The “Aerospace Latin America: A History” seminar series concludes this Thursday with a fascinating presentation by NASA historian Brad Massey!

“Satellites, Sterilized Flies, and the Screwworm Scourge: NASA, la Comisión Nacional del Espacio Exterior, and the Mexican-American Screwworm Eradication Campaign, 1972–1980”

Brad Massey (NASA History Office)
Thursday, September 25 at 2:00 pm EDT / 1:00 pm CDT / 11:00 am PDT

In 1972, a screwworm outbreak plagued the U.S. and Mexican cattle industries. The parasite ultimately cost ranchers millions of dollars and contributed to food inflation. In response, U.S. and Mexican agricultural officials created the Comisión México Americana para la Erradicación del Gusano Barrenador del Ganado [COMEXA]. Also known as the Mexican-American Screwworm Eradication Commission.

This history examines the role NASA and Mexico’s Comisión Nacional del Espacio Exterior [CONEE] played in the multi-agency campaign to eradicate screwworms. The presentation begins with a brief look at the joint NASA-CONEE agricultural initiatives of the 1960s. It then examines the 1972 screwworm outbreak and the NASA-CONEE-COMEXA collaboration that led to the creation of the Screwworm Eradication Data System [SEDS]. Using satellite, aircraft, and ground-sourced climate and moisture data from Mexico and the United States, SEDS designers created an algorithm that predicted where screwworms might proliferate. SEDS proponents argued that COMEXA could use these predictions to determine where to drop sterilized flies in its quest to stop the spread of screwworms.

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Life Lessons from the Space Shuttle Columbia Tragedy: e-Book Now Online

The latest book in the NASA History Series is now available! Ascension: Life Lessons from the Space Shuttle Columbia Tragedy for Engineers, Managers, and Leaders is a firsthand account by author Steven R. Hirshorn on his experiences when Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew were lost on February 1, 2003. He details the following two and a half years in his role as the operations representative to the Space Shuttle Orbiter Project Office, charged along with others with the safety and success of NASA’s human spaceflight endeavors. With technical expertise and deeply human, visceral insight, Hirshorn’s perspective on these events as they unfolded—and the lessons he draws from them—provide insight for the engineers, managers, and leaders now charged with advancing human spaceflight today.

Download the e-book: https://www.nasa.gov/history/ascension

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