Research Team to Fly High in NASA Program
At the end of March, students and faculty from the College of Engineering will travel to Johnson Space Center in Houston to aid NASA in its mission to “advance human exploration, use and development of space.”
Boise State will join an elite group of colleges and universities involved in NASA’s Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program, also known as Microgravity University. The highly competitive program challenges students to successfully design, fabricate, fly and evaluate a reduced gravity experiment conducted in a Boeing 727 that simulates Martian, lunar and zero gravity through a series of parabolic maneuvers executed in “roller coaster fashion” over the Gulf of Mexico.
Seniors Dan Isla, Ryan Bedell and Alex Miller wrote Boise State’s proposal for the Systems Engineering Educational Discovery (SEED) segment of the Microgravity University program, with advisement on its outreach requirement from the College of Engineering’s educational research director Patricia Pyke and distinguished educator in residence Barbara Morgan. Professors Donald Plumlee, Jim Browning and Robert Davidson, sophomores Mallory Yates and Kyle Knori and graduate students Matt McCrink and Jeff Perkins also are part of the SEED team, which includes flight and ground crews. Their areas of engineering expertise range from materials science to mechanics, and interdisciplinary collaboration was key to both the experiments and educational outreach strategies proposed.
Last week, NASA posted its selection of eight proposals for the 2009 SEED program from Boise State, Carthage College, Ohio State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Kentucky, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Washington University in St. Louis (for more details, visit http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/se). Teams were officially notified in December, and the Boise State crew has been busy since the beginning of January designing an experiment around its assigned topic: Lunar Surface Traction Concepts for Pressurized or Unpressurized Manned or Robotic Rovers. Lead Microgravity University coordinator Sara Malloy explained that SEED differs from the traditional undergraduate program in that NASA principal investigators provide project ideas based on their own research needs.
“As astronauts return to the moon to establish a sustained presence in preparation for missions to Mars, there will be a need for a transport system that can carry humans and cargo over the lunar surface, and Boise State’s research will produce traction concepts to address anticipated challenges,” said Pedro H. Curiel, principal investigator and mentor for Boise State’s project and engineer for NASA’s Constellation Program, Systems Engineering & Integration directorate at Johnson Space Center. “I am glad to be part of this project, partnering with this highly motivated team and sharing this experience with students and faculty who are also strong believers in the importance of space exploration. I think the Systems Engineering Microgravity program will be a great learning experience for everyone involved.”
A video explaining more about microgravity and why it is an important tool is available at the NASA Web site.