February 25, 2004
UNM STUDENT TEAM TO BLAST OFF FOR JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
Nine UNM School of Engineering students are preparing to zip up their flight suits in preparation for a trip to Zero Gravity.
For the fourth consecutive year, students from the University of New Mexico Department of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering will fly experiments, March 9- 12, on board the "Weightless Wonder," a microgravity KC-135 airplane at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Two Albuquerque high school students will join UNM undergraduates as part of the NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program.
Sponsored by NASA's Johnson Space Center, the program provides a rare academic experience for undergraduate students to successfully propose, design, fabricate, fly and evaluate a reduced gravity experiment of their choice over the course of a school year.
Experiments will be conducted aboard the KC-135, a plane that was originally used in support of NASA missions. The Boeing 707 has been retrofit with massive turbo engines and padded walls. As a result, the plane can experience near weightlessness in a free fall. To do so, the plane takes off and climbs to an altitude where it can accelerate downward at the rate of gravity. Then it goes into a climb to regain its lost altitude and dives again.
Robert Busch, chemical and nuclear engineering professor, is the faculty advisor for the project. Busch says we rely on gravity to make things like pumps and coffee pots work. In the absence of gravity, other factors come into play, and everyday items don't behave the same. Busch will accompany the students to Houston.
On March 9&10, students will conduct The Effects of Gravity on Bubble Detachment Diameter Sub-Cooled Pool Nucleate Boiling. The experiment abstract states while the mechanism of boiling is well understood in earth's standard gravity, removinggravity's familiar effects will have a profound impact on the physics of boiling, namely the vapor bubbles that form during this process. Students will attempt to determine the detachment diameter of the bubbles that are formed.
On March 11&12, a second team of students will conduct Upper Atmosphere Cosmic Gamma Ray Fields and Fluid Level Tank Measurements in Microgravity. The study will use equipment similar to a lava lamp to examine the difference in paraffin globules when exposed to gamma ray radiation during microgravity conditions
The student team will drive to Houston March 2 to transport the equipment they built to conduct their research. All are scheduled to return to Albuquerque March 14.
UNM students who will conduct the boiling experiment are seniors Thien Le Nguyen, Thomas Quirk and David Stone, and Daniel Casey, a junior. Students participating in the gamma ray experiment are juniors Nick Brown, Eduardo Padilla, Daniel Sanchez and Ryan Kamm, and sophomore Danielle Hensen.
Two high school students to participate are Kay Halloran, Albuquerque Academy, and Renee Johnson, Sandia High School. The technical advisor to the program is Robert Singleterry with the NASA Langley Research Center.
# # #
|
