NASA FOSTER On-line project
4/22/94  

NASA is pleased to announce FOSTER On-line, another project in the "Sharing
NASA with our Classrooms" series.

FOSTER On-line will plug an airborne astronomy missions group into cyberspace.
These researchers fly on NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory with an infrared
telescope at 41,000 feet; the altitude diminishes problems with atmospheric
absorption.  The women and men involved in this research will be based in both
Hawaii and California in May and early June. During this time they hope to
share the excitement of a NASA research project with K-12 classrooms via the
Internet.

Frequent project updates will be sent almost every day.  Students and teachers
will be encouraged to send question to the team via Email. Various background
materials including articles, lesson plans and images will be made available
via gopher and FTP. A video documentary about the research team will be aired
via satellite once per week.  The remainder of this message will provide
details on the various components.

______________________________________________________

Project updates and announcements

To receive reports on the status of the research project and other
announcements, please send an Email note to:

   listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov

In the first line of the message, write the words:

subscribe updates-foster

Within a few minutes, you should receive a confirmation note that you have been
added to the list of participants.  You may sign up for this service today.
The frequent updates will start arriving on May 3 and should continue until
June 10 of 1994.

______________________________________________________

Sending Email to the research team

The men and women of the research team will be available to answer questions
from K-12 students and teachers.  We will acknowledge and answer all questions
as quickly as possible.  Our goal is to provide some type of personal response
within a day or two.

These questions will be accepted from May 3 to June 10, 1994.

To send a message during these times, address the Email to

ask-foster@quest.arc.nasa.gov

In the subject field, please put the letters "QA:" before a descriptive
subject.  The following example should illustrate this idea

TO:		ask-foster@quest.arc.nasa.gov
FROM:         	your Email address
SUBJECT:	QA: bumpy ride?

Hello,

I am a seventh grader from Amarillo, Texas. I saw that the weather was bad in
Hawaii yesterday.  Did this cause your flight to be bumpy?  Is it still
possible to use the telescope when there is a lot of turbulence.

Thanks,
Susie Hernandez

If you or your class have several questions that are unrelated, it would be
best to send separate messages instead of one message with many different
questions.

All of the question/answer pairs will be placed on-line.  If you would like to
receive ongoing Email with answers to previously asked questions, please send
an Email note to:

   listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov

In the first line of the message, write the words:

answers-foster

______________________________________________________

On-line repository of background material

Information related to this project will be made available on the Internet on
on our server at quest.arc.nasa.gov.  Included on-line will be material about
the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, the mission plan, the people involved in this
work, lesson plans, an archive of updates and question/answer pairs, images and
other goodies.

Some of this information is available now and more material will be
continuously added until June 10.

This repository may be accessed using either Gopher or Anonymous FTP.

To use Gopher, open a connection to quest.arc.nasa.gov.

The main menu will look something like this:

1.  NASA K-12 Information/
2.  Frequently Asked Questions about Internet in School
3.  Global Quest: A Video about the Internet in Schools
4.  "Networks: Where Have you Been All My Life" Essay Contest Winners/
5.  Announcing Space Design Contest
6.  Other K-12 Gophers/
7.  Other Interesting Gophers/
8.  NASA Network Information Gopher/
9.  NASA Topics/
10. NASA NREN K-12 Initiative (Our Sponsor)

Choose the first menu choice (NASA K-12 Information/) and you will see
something like this:

1.  The Teacher's Guide to the Internet/
2.  Science Resources for Teacher K-12/
3.  Student Resources/
4.  Live From...Other Worlds /
5.  FOSTER On-Line/
6.  Recent Network Happenings/
7.  Connect with Spacelink <TEL>
8.  Network Guide & Directions/

At this point choose the fifth option (FOSTER On-Line) and you will be
surrounded by a wealth of information about this group of researchers.  Choose
whatever is interesting to you.  The menu will look something like this:

1.    README: About the FOSTER On-Line Project
2.    About Flight Opportunities for Science Teacher EnRichment (FOSTER)../
3.    KUIPER AIRBORNE OBSERVATORY (KAO) /
4.    Ask FOSTER - Questions and Answers Section/
5.    Mission Updates and Activities/
6.    Airborne Astronomy Lessons/
7.    Biographies of the KAO team
8.    Background Materials/
9.    Images/
10.   SOFIA - NASA's 21st Century Observatory /

Information may also be retrieved using Anonymous FTP. Depending on your
service provider, the specific program for Anonymous FTP will vary.  Popular
programs include FTP and Fetch. In any case, an Anonymous FTP session starts
with you requesting a connection to quest.arc.nasa.gov.  The word "anonymous"
is entered as the login name.  Your own Email address (for example:
mavis@zip.school.edu) is entered as the password.  Once you have connected, you
will receive a login message that looks like this:

230-WELCOME to the NREN K-12 ftp archive at NASA Ames Research Center.
230-All useful files are in the pub directory.  To start, type the command
230-cd pub

You should begin by changing to the directory called pub.  Again the specifics
     of how to do this will depend on your software and service provider.  From
     here, you should change to the directory called

FOSTER-OnLine

You must type this exactly as it appears, including proper capitalization.  At
this point you will receive a message that looks like this:

250-This FOSTER On-Line subdirectory contains the following sections:

250-
250-    - README
250-    - About FOSTER
250-    - Kuiper Airborne Observatory
250-    - Ask FOSTER: Question & Answers
250-    - Mission Updates and Activities
250-    - Airborne Astronomy Lessons
250-    - Biographies of the Research Team
250-    - Background Materials
250-    - Images
250-    - SOFIA - NASA's 21 Century Observatory

At this point, please list out the files and retrieve the information which
seems useful to you.

______________________________________________________

On-line discussion with other teachers

A mailing list has been created to facilitate discussions among teachers using
this on-line project.  This forum will allow teachers to share ideas, discuss
potential classroom activities, benefit from one anothers' experiences, and
perhaps build a community of like minded educators.  The discussion will not be
moderated or filtered.

If you would like to take part in this dialogue, please send an Email note to:

listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov

In the first line of the message, write the words:
   discuss-foster
______________________________________________________

Feedback or comments

NASA welcomes your ideas on how to make this and future projects better.
Please address any constructive ideas to
feedback-foster@quest.arc.nasa.gov.

______________________________________________________

Video documentary available

NASA will be broadcasting a 30 minute documentary about the Kuiper Airborne
Observatory. This video will air over NASA Select TV for four consecutive
Wednesdays starting on May 11 at at 2:00pm Eastern time (5/11, 5/18, 5/25,
6/1).  The program will also repeat at 6:00pm, 10:00pm and 2:00am (the next
day).  The documentary will be immediately followed by a 12 minute video called
Global Quest: The Internet in the Classroom

NASA Television may be downlinked without cost from satellite by using the
following parameters: SpaceNet II satellite, transponder 5, 69 degrees west
longitude, frequesncy 38.8 MHz, Audio 6.8MHz, Horizontal polarization

The following is a more complete description of the video program.

Kuiper Airborne Observatory: NASA's Telescope in the Stratosphere

This documentary program introduces to the public one of NASA's least known and
least expensive but scientifically most productive projects: an airborne
observatory which takes astronomers into the stratosphere.

Through the 36" telescope which is mounted on a modified Lockheed C-141 cargo
jet, astronomers gather light in infrared wavelengths from objects as close as
a local asteroid and as far as a quasar billions of light years away.  The
program follows one flight of the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. On board the
Kuiper as it travels at 41,000 feet from its base at Moffett Field in Northern
California to the Mississippi River and back are University of Chicago
astronomers who are mapping the great nebula in the constellation of Orion
where stars are being born.  On board are two teachers from the San Jose
Unified School District who are participating in a NASA program designed to
enhance science education.

This documentary itself provides an exciting and informative introduction to
contemporary astronomy.  For in telling the story of the airborne observatory,
the program gives the history of major discoveries that have resulted from
flights that astronomers have taken on the Kuiper. These discoveries include
the rings of Uranus, the presence of organic chemicals and water ice on
Halley's Comet, and the elements that were spewed into space by the spectacular
explosion of Supernova 1987A.  The astronomy that has occurred on the Kuiper
throws light on the origin of life on Earth, the composition of stars, the
intense activity that is occurring at the center of the Milky Way and the
process whereby galaxies are formed.

The program reveals the unique technologies used on board the Kuiper to wrest
secrets from the universe.  These include supercooled data collection
instruments, and the telescope's compressed air and gyroscopes systems which
enable it to remain fixed on a distant object despite turbulent flying
conditions.  Interconnected networks of computers navigate the aircraft,
collect the data, point the telescope, and track the flights.  In addition,
basic astronomical concepts such as electromagnetic radiation and the uses of
spectrographic analysis are also presented.

Designed for audiences ranging from junior high students to the general public,
featuring interviews with leading astronomers and photography from NASA space
probes and on board the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, this documentary provides
a unique and inspiring look at astronomy in action.

---
  Via FTL BBS (404-292-8761) and NASA Spacelink (205-895-0028)
