The Integrated Display and Environmental Awareness System (IDEAS) is an interdisciplinary team project focusing on the development of a wearable computer and Head Mounted Display (HMD) based on Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components for the specific application and needs of NASA technicians, engineers and astronauts. Wearable computers are on the verge of utilization trials in daily life as well as industrial environments. The first civil and COTS wearable head mounted display systems were introduced just a few years ago and they probed not only technology readiness in terms of performance, endurance, miniaturization, operability and usefulness but also maturity of practice in perspective of a socio-technical context. Although the main technical hurdles such as mass and power were addressed as improvements on the technical side, the usefulness, practicality and social acceptance were often noted on the side of a broad variety of humans' operations. In other words, although the technology made a giant leap, its use and efficiency still looks for the sweet spot. The first IDEAS project started in January 2015 and was concluded in January 2017. The project identified current COTS systems' capability at minimum cost and maximum applicability and brought about important strategic concepts that will serve further IDEASlike system development.

The Orbital Syngas/Commodity Augmentation Reactor (OSCAR) project investigated hardware and engineering development for waste conversion operations related to trash deconstruction and repurposing for long duration space missions. Operations of the trash-to-gas system were investigated to compare microgravity (μg) and Earth gravity environments. The OSCAR system has been demonstrated in other μg platforms, but here the performance and results on the Blue Origin New Shepard Suborbital Vehicle are discussed. The OSCAR suborbital operation demonstrated the introduction of trash into a high temperature reactor for solid to gas conversion, ignition of mixed trash feedstock, combustion during μg, and subsequent gas collection processes in a flight automated sequence. An oxygen (O2)- and steam-rich environment was created within the reactor for ignition conditions, and the product gases were quantified to verify the reaction product composition. This paper focuses on the chemistry processes of the reactor, and gas and solid product analysis of the μg and gravity conditions. The gas production, reactor thermal profile, and mass and carbon conversion results validated confidence in the system design to continue the advancement of this technology for future spaceflight implementations.