NASA administrators dodged direct questions about the effect on JPL during Monday’s budget press conference. When asked specifically how the budget cuts will affect the mission to Mars and those working at JPL, Bolden responded simply, “We are having to make tough decisions.”

Bolden will visit the Pasadena facility on Wednesday, Feb. 22, where he is scheduled to meet with the team of the Mars Science Laboratory. NASA’s largest, most ambitious Mars mission ever, is currently en route to the Red Planet and many of the scientists and those involved with the project work at JPL.

Accompanied by JPL Director Charles Elachi, Bolden will address the mission’s flight team inside the Space Flight Operations Facility, commonly known as Mission Control. He will also talk with the surface operations team in the Mars In-Situ Lab, where Mars rovers are tested.

President Obama’s proposed 2013 federal budget was released in full on Monday. Although it keeps NASA funding at about the same level next year, it cuts deep into the agency’s robotic Mars mission and is directly affected by employees at JPL. According to experts, NASA’s 2013 budget request calls for a $226 million decrease in funding for Mars exploration.

During a stop at JPL’s mission control, Bolden is expected to answer questions about NASA’s proposed 2013 budget. What is unclear, however, is what he will tell employees at JPL about their future with NASA since much the robotic exploration projects will not be funded in the new budget.

As NASA Administrator, Bolden has held the post since July 2009. He is a former astronaut and a retired Marine Corps Major General. Elachi has served as JPL director since 2001 and is also a vice president of Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is located at 4800 Oak Grove Drive in Pasadena. JPL’s website is www.jpl.nasa.gov.

The “Eyes on the Solar System” interface combines video game technology and NASA data to create an environment for users to ride along with agency spacecraft and explore the cosmos.

“You are now free to move about the solar system,” said Blaine Baggett, executive manager in the Office of Communication and Education at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).  “See what NASA’s spacecraft see — and where they are right now — all without leaving your computer.”

Screen graphics and information such as planet locations and spacecraft maneuvers use actual space mission data.

“This is the first time the public has been able to see the entire solar system and our missions moving together in real time,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “It demonstrates NASA’s continued commitment to share our science with everyone.”

The virtual environment uses the Unity game engine to display models of planets, moons, asteroids, comets and spacecraft as they move through our solar system. With keyboard and mouse controls, users cruise through space to explore anything that catches their interest. A free browser plug-in, available at the site, is required to run the Web application.

Users may experience missions in real time, and “Eyes on the Solar System” also allows them to travel through time. The tool is populated with NASA data dating back to 1950 and projected to 2050.

The playback rate can be sped up or slowed down. When NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, users could look ahead to see the mission’s five-year journey to Jupiter in a matter of seconds.

Point of view can be switched from faraway to close-up to right “on board” spacecraft. Location, motion and appearance are based on predicted and reconstructed mission data. Dozens of controls on a series of pop-up menus allow users to fully customize what they see, and video and audio tutorials explain how to use the tool’s many options. Users may choose from 2-D or 3-D modes, with the latter simply requiring a pair of red-cyan glasses to see.

“By basing our visualization primarily on mission data, this tool will help both NASA and the public better understand complex space science missions,” said Kevin Hussey, manager of Visualization Technology Applications and Development at JPL, whose team developed “Eyes on the Solar System.”

“Eyes on the Solar System” is in beta release. It has been demonstrated at science conferences, in classrooms and at the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas.

Designers are updating “Eyes on the Solar System” to include NASA science missions launching during the coming months, including GRAIL to the moon and the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover.

“Eyes on the Solar System” and an introduction video are available at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes.

Updates on new features are available through the tool’s Twitter account: http://twitter.com/NASA_Eyes.

The mechanism they developed is outlined in a paper published on July 24 in the journal “Nature Materials.” Borrowing a concept from electronics, the acoustic diode is a component that allows a current—in this case a sound wave—to pass in one direction, while blocking the current in the opposite direction. “We exploited a physical mechanism that causes a sharp transition between transmitting and nontransmitting states of the diode,” says Chiara Daraio, professor of aeronautics and applied physics at Caltech and lead author on the study. “Using experiments, simulations, and analytical predictions, We demonstrated the one-way transmission of sound in an audible frequency range for the first time.”

This new mechanism brings the idea of true soundproofing closer to reality. Imagine two rooms labeled room A and room B. This new technology, Daraio explains, would enable someone in room A to hear sound coming from room B; however, it would block the same sound in room A from being heard in room B.

“The concept of the one-way transmission of sound could be quite important in architectural acoustics, or the science and engineering of sound control within buildings,” says Georgios Theocharis, a postdoctoral scholar in Daraio’s laboratory and a co-author of the study.

The system is based on a simple assembly of elastic spheres—granular crystals that transmit the sound vibrations—that could be easily used in multiple settings, can be tuned easily, and can potentially be scaled to operate within a wide range of frequencies, meaning its application could reach far beyond soundproofing.

Similar systems have been demonstrated by other scientists, but they all feature smooth transitions between transmitting and nontransmitting states instead of the sharp transitions needed to be more effective at controlling the flow of sound waves. To obtain the sharp transition, the team created a periodic system with a small defect that supports this kind of quick change from an “on” to an “off” transmission state. According to Daraio, this means the system is very sensitive to small variations of operational conditions, like pressure and movement, making it useful in the development of ultrasensitive acoustic sensors to detect sound waves. The system can also operate at different frequencies of sound and is capable of downshifting, or reducing the frequency of the traveling signals, as needed.

“We propose to use these effects to improve energy-harvesting technologies,” she says. “For example, we may be able to scavenge sound energy from undesired structural vibrations in machinery by controlling the flow of sound waves away from the machinery and into a transducer. The transducer would then convert the sound waves into electricity.” Daraio says the technology can also shift the undesired frequencies to a range that enables a more efficient conversion to electricity.

The team plans to continue studying the fundamental properties of these systems, focusing on their potential application to energy-harvesting systems. They also believe that these systems may be applicable to a range of technologies including biomedical ultrasound devices, advanced noise control, and even thermal materials aimed at temperature control.

“Because the concepts governing wave propagation are universal to many systems, We envision that the use of this novel way to control energy might enable the design of many advanced thermal and acoustic materials and devices,” says Daraio.

The Nature Materials paper is titled “Bifurcation-based acoustic switching and rectification.” Nicholas Boechler, a former Ph.D. student at Caltech, is also an author on the study.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and the A. S. Onassis Benefit Foundation.