August 17, 2008 11:30 pm
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Special to the Leader
A Mauriceville native recently participated as a member on one of two Lamar University student teams which flew experiments aboard NASA’s reduced-gravity aircraft this summer as part of the space agency’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program becoming the 10th and 11th LU teams to fly since the program began in 1995.
The first team to fly was led by Tiffany Smith of Mauriceville. Smith, who graduated from Lamar in May with a degree in mechanical engineering, performed a study of “Vibrational Damping Effects of Grass-Like Crops in a Microgravity Environment.”
Smith’s team consisted of May graduates Jordan Addison of Port Neches, mechanical engineering; Gary Decaney of Sour Lake, mechanical engineering and physics; and Corey Wyble of Port Neches, mechanical engineering.
Also on the team was Jonathan Sterling a senior mechanical engineering and physics major from Sour Lake. Sterling and Smith flew their experiment on June 12.
The students traveled to NASA Johnson Space Center’s Ellington Field in Houston to conduct their micro-gravity experiments aboard the agency’s “Weightless Wonder” aircraft.
Each year, the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program gives undergraduate students the opportunity to propose, build and fly a reduced-gravity experiment. The teams conducted the experiments aboard NASA’s C-9 aircraft, which mimics micro-gravity for 25 to 30 seconds at a time by executing a series of 32 parabolas – a steep climb followed by a rapid descent – over the Gulf of Mexico.
Lamar University’s opportunity to participate was the result of the hard work and commitment of the students who put many hours into researching and building their experiments, said Jim Jordan, chair of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at Lamar. Jordan holds a Ph.D. in geology from Rice University.
“When I brag about our students at NASA, I say they have a calculus book in one hand and a wrench in the other” Jordan said. “That’s the way I like to think about our students. They are hard working and they come from a background that has a strong work ethic.”
As mankind explores the possibility of extended durations in space for manned spacecraft missions, two essential requirements are evident. The first one is the suppression of low-frequency space vehicle structural vibration, and the second is the sustainable production of the clean air, water and food needed by the crew.
“The hypothesis is that a crop-based life support system would suppress low-frequency structural vibrations, and, simultaneously, the vibrations would enhance crop growth in microgravity,” said Jiang “Jenny” Zhou, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and faculty advisor to the team.
Joining Smith in the project Addison and Wyble went aloft on June 13.
The students are evaluating the energy dissipation of the selected grass-like crops in a microgravity environment. The experiment of dynamic structural frequency response was performed on a grass-like crop colony. Energy dissipation and the damping loss factor was measured to show that grass-like crops allow the colony to dissipate substantial amounts of energy, over a frequency band centered at 0.1 to 4 Hz.
The research was supported in part by a New Investigator’s Program grant from the Texas Space Grant Consortium and was also the team’s capstone project for Zhou’s senior design class.
In the second project that flew, students sought to determine whether the geometry of a meniscus — the curve in the surface of a liquid that is produced in response to the surface of the container or another object — can be controlled in reduced gravity to form a variable focus reflective surface. The concept is the brainchild of junior physics major Michael Hennigan of Beaumont.
“On Earth the surface of a liquid is flat,” Hennigan said. “However, in reduced gravity a liquid surface can become curved due to capillary action. By fixing the contact point of the liquid surface to a container and controlling the volume of liquid the amount of curvature can be controlled. This technique may be used to produce a liquid space telescope.”
In the experiment, a sealed cylindrical container provided a boundary to stop the capillary rise of water contained in the cylindrical container. Then, by altering the volume of water in the container, the curvature of the meniscus could be varied. Camcorders recorded images so that the various curvatures of the meniscus during reduced gravity can be plotted and mapped.
This technique of producing a reduced-gravity, variable-focus reflective surface may have space-science applications such as use in a liquid space telescope.
All the team members were instrumental in developing the experiment proposal, a lengthy and detailed analysis required by NASA, as well as in building the experiment itself and the safety cage that will contain it when it is on the aircraft.
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