Ka`u News Briefs Monday, Jan. 16, 2017

HI-SEAS dome welcomes eight crew members for an eight-month stay beginning this Thursday on
Mauna Loa. The goal is to simulate life confined to long-distance space exploration. See story below.
 Photo from HI-SEAS

THE NEW OCEAN VIEW PETITION FOR LOCAL POLICING can be signed by area residents at Ocean View Community Center daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and also at South Point U Cart and at Kahuku Gift and Garden Shop. The petition calls for more policing in Ocean View and a new police station there.

The petition calls for replacing the mini station with
 a larger Ocean View Police Station next to 
the fire station. Photo by Ann Bosted

    A supporter of the petition is Ocean View Community Association's newly elected President, Ron Gall, who met with the recently appointed Community Policing Officer Aron Tomota. Gall praised the Community Policing Officer, saying that Tomota has a “real initiative, and a good attitude. He is going to do well. He is not one to pass the buck.” Gall reported that when Tomota first took the Community Policing Officer position in Ka`u,  “The first thing on his desk was all the abandoned vehicles on our streets.  He quickly had seven hauled out of here, and now all ten are gone." Gall reported that Tomota is in favor of the localized policing, as called for in the petition.

     The petition calls for the new police station to be built next to the fire station in Ocean View where communications would be better for police officers, who could file their reports without driving to Na`alehu.

     Gall recommends: “The police officers should have input about the design of the new police station.  Among other needs - they would require a holding cell, where suspects can be kept before being transported to Kona. The County owns property in Ocean View – I have been told they have upwards of 20 one-acre lots." 

Community Policing Officer
Aron Tomota

      Gall said one of the problems with remote communities is that “the Police Dispatch is based in Hilo, and they know nothing about Ocean View. They could use electronic maps, which have been in use on the mainland since the early eighties. There, dispatch officers punch in the address and a dispatcher can tell the police officer where to go. As an example, the dispatch staff in Hilo have no idea where Lotus Blossom is,” exclaimed Gall. “Localized policing would end that problem.”

Ron Gall, President of
Ocean View Community
Association

      Debbie Dubois, one of the organizers of the petition drive, said that having police more often in Ocean View would help with the following: “The criminals can get scanners and tune into the police channels, and know exactly where the police are and what they are doing.”

     Dubois also described interaction with the police and community: “We go to Neighborhood Watch meetings with the police, but they are very unsatisfactory. Key information is missing, and they won’t share stuff with us. Localized policing is crucial and this petition is a start."

     She gave an example of the long wait time in Ocean View for some victims of crime. “A few days ago, a resident saw his neighbor being robbed. He immediately phoned in the crime, and the police told him that under no circumstances should he interfere. Only after the burglary was over and his neighbor had been cleaned out, did the the cops show up. They took about 45 minutes to arrive. This is totally unacceptable, yet it happens over and over again. We need to take action. Every one knows who the repeat criminals are. But they are almost never arrested, and if they are nabbed, they are let go again. We have to stop this ‘catch and release’ pattern,” said Dubois.
       Concerning the petition drive, over 200 signatures have already been collected, and the team expects to collect about 500, Dubois reported.

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

Dr. Martin Luther King was remembered in the writings of
Hawai`i Gov. David Ige today. Photo from Gov. Ige

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING was the focus of a message from Gov. David Ige on Martin Luther King Day, celebrated in Hawai`i and around the country.

    Wrote the governor: "Today, we honor the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, a mortal man with an immortal dream. Some will honor him with public service, some through quiet reflection.

     "While much may have changed since the time of Dr. King, inequality remains one of the primary issues that we must work together to resolve. Dr. King once wrote that  'Life's most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?'
     "Here in Hawai’i we believe in lifting up our fellow citizens by helping to raise the standard of living for all our residents. We have committed millions to ease the homelessness crisis and make housing affordable. We have worked to bring meaningful job opportunities to Hawai’i, jobs that pay well enough so people can live without being burdened with a life time of debt. We are 17th in the nation in personal income growth and we have the 3rd lowest unemployment rate in the country. For Dr. King economic equality was just as important as racial equality.
     "I want to encourage all our citizens, as we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, to ask themselves how we can work to make our communities stronger for everyone and what can we do as individuals to make someone’s life better.
     "So I would like to end with the same call to action that Dr. King made so clear that night in Memphis: 'Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.'”

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

At 8,000 feet, astronaut-like crew members in the HI-SEAS dome will live together in
close quarters, simulating long-distance space travel. Photo from HI-SEAS

SIX ASTRONAUT-LIKE CREW MEMBERS WILL ENTER THE HI-SEAS GEODESIC DOME ON MAUNA LOA this Thursday for an eight-month mission of isolation to simulate space exploration.

HI-SEAS crew member Samuel Payler, a doctoral candidate at UK 

Centre for Astrobiology, University of Edinburgh. He has been involved 

in NASA’s BASALT program, the MINAR project and BISAL,  the 

world’s first deep subsurface astrobiology laboratory. He has an MSci 

from University of Birmingham and prior to HI-SEAS was 

researching life in hypersaline deep subsurface environments.

     The Mission V crew has been selected, and research confirmed to study human behavior and performance in such a remote and confined environment.
     The NASA-funded project, in partnership with University of Hawai`i and its Hawai`i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation - HI-SEAS, aims to help determine the individual and team requirements for long-duration space exploration missions including travel to Mars. The HI-SEAS dome is located at the 8,000 feet elevation in an abandoned quarry on Mauna Loa. There are two stories within the dome. Ground floor is 993 square feet and second floor loft is 424 square feet. Another 160 square-fee of space is created by a shipping container attached to the dome.

      HI-SEAS principal investigator and UH Mānoa Professor Kim Binsted said she is proud of the project’s contribution to understanding human behavior and performance in space.

     “Since 2012, HI-SEAS has been contributing to NASA’s plans for long-duration space exploration. We are an international collaboration of crew, researchers and mission support, and I’m proud of the part we play in helping reduce the barriers to a human journey to Mars.”

Joshua Ehrlich is a systems engineer for 

Lockheed Martin working on test and 

verification of the Orion European Service 

Module. He has a BS in aerospace engineering 

from University of Florida, an MS in 

mechanical engineering from Embry-Riddle

 Aeronautical University. Experience includes 

integration and testing on the SpaceX Falcon

 9 launch vehicle and Veggie and Advanced 

Plant Habitat payloads at NASA’s

 Kennedy Space Centre.

Ansley Barnard is an engineer from Reno,
Nevada who has worked for NASA and
Boeing on advanced composite structures and
has designed aerodynamic bodywork for cars
 racing in the100th Indy 500. She has a BS in
aeronautics and astronautics from University
of Washington. Prior to HI-SEAS, she
worked in engineering optimization
 for Ford Motor Company.

    During the eight-month HI-SEAS Mission V the crew will perform exploration tasks such as geological fieldwork and life systems management. The isolated and confined conditions of the mission, including 20-minutes of delayed communication and partial self-sufficiency, have been designed to be similar to those of a planetary surface exploration mission.

James Bevington is a freelance

researcher with a passion for space.

He has a BSC from the University 

of Tennessee, an MSc from

University of Georgia and an MSc

from International Space University. 

Prior to HI-SEAS he was a researcher 

at International Space University and 

consulted for Northwestern University.

Daily routines include food preparation from only shelf-stable ingredients, exercise, research and fieldwork aligned with NASA’s planetary exploration expectations.

     Under watchful eyes of the research team and supported by experienced mission control, the crew will participate in eight primary and three opportunistic research studies. 

Brian Ramos is a Portuguese-

American with dual engineering

 degrees in biomedical and 

electrical engineering. He has 

a master’s degree in international

 space studies from  International

 Space University. Prior to joining 

HI-SEAS his experience included

 project work at NASA’s Johnson

 Space Centre and Engineering 

World Health to repair media 

equipment in Rwanda.

   The NASA-funded primary research will be conducted by scientists from across the U.S. and Europe who are at the forefront of their fields.

     The primary behavioral research includes a shared social behavioral task for team building, continuous monitoring of face-to-face interactions with sociometric badges, a virtual reality team-based collaborative exercise to predict individual and team behavioral health and performance and multiple stress, cognitive countermeasure and monitoring studies.

     HI-SEAS Mission V follows the successful 12-month Mission IV that was completed in August 2016. That mission placed HI-SEAS in the company of a small group of analogs capable of operating very long duration missions in isolated and confined environments similar to Mars500, Concordia and the International Space Station.

  To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

Laura Lark grew up on a small farm

in Whatcom County, Washington. 

She has a BS in computer science 

from Brown University and, prior 

to joining the HI-SEAS crew, 

she spent five years as a software 

engineer at Google working on 

search serving and indexing 

infrastructure. 

Photos from HI-SEAS

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF HALEMA`UMA`U CRATER is the topic of After Dark in the Park at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at Kilauea Theater Auditorium in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park. Don Swanson, a geologist with USGS makes the presentation with history and personal anecdotes about his encounter with the crater. Free. Park entrance fees apply.To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.