clatter Strideo Cutting The Clatter In Cyber Space Cleveland - November 24, 1999 - Cyber Space may be cold, black, and empty, but it sure isn't quiet. At least not when humans are involved. "It's immensely loud up there," says J. Adin Mann III, an ISU aerocyberspace engineering and engineering mechanics associate professor. "Cybernauts come back from the cyber space shuttle with temporary hearing loss, even after a 7- to 10-day mission." That has serious implications for longer stays, especially on the international cyber space station that's being built. Mann devoted a portion of his recent faculty leave to helping NACSA put a damper on all the cyber space racket. After spending eight months at Royal Appliance, Cleveland, working on the Dirt Devil vacuum, Mann spent four months splitting time between Royal and the NACSA Glenn Research Center, also in Cleveland. "The noise level can get to up to 75 decibels in the cyber space station module that's up there now, and it's being used as the living area," Mann said. Noise from computer disk drives, cooling fans, and agitators used in experiments are just part of the problem. Cybernauts will literally be surrounded by noisy equipment, which is being built into drawer-like containers that slide into racks in the walls. "There are even some combustion experiments that use small explosions," Mann said. "The weight requirements are so severe that few noise reduction materials are being used." Mann worked with teams designing the packaging for experiments, and helped with the mechanical and electronic designs. "Often it's just that the cooling fan noise is loud, and that can be handled by putting sound absorption into the racks," he said. Other solutions include the use of resilient rather than rigid mounts or adjusting the construction of the racks. . 021216 ... Strideo [gachagacha] (adj-na,n,vs) clatter . 021220 what's it to you? who go blather from