To Mars... Via North Dakota
On Friday, ANN reported
extensively on the new combined effort between NASA's Centennial
Challenge and the X-Prize Foundation to fund a competition to build
the a lunar lander. Such endeavours show NASA is getting serious
about seeking new and better ways of thinking for space travel (and
of course, they wouldn't mind if it's cheaper, too)... in fact,
that's just one of the competitions we're seeing nationwide in
NASA's effort to get to the moon, Mars and beyond.
Take what's going on in North Dakota these days as another
example. There, students from five colleges -- University of North
Dakota, North Dakota State, Dickinson State, the state College of
Science and Turtle Mountain Community College -- have gotten
together to design a new space suit for use on Mars.
In just over a year -- working with only a $100,000 NASA grant
-- North Dakota Space Grant Consortium students have come up with a
47-pound suit unveiled this past weekend in "Mars on Earth" -- the
Badlands of North Dakota.
The suit comes in two pieces, and takes the help of two people
to get on. College students who built it say it's essentially a
self-contained spacecraft.
The Associated Press reports it took about 20 minutes for UND
Space Studies graduate student Fabio Sau to get the suit on
Saturday. Afterwards, he walked out, waved to the small crowd
gathered, and proceeded to explore prairie brush and cactus.
The suit is designed to
allow the wearer can walk up a 45-degree slope. Sau said the gloves
are pliable enough to tie a shoe, Sau said, and its boots are
modified cold-weather hunting boots. The suit is worn over an inner
pressure suit that also serves as heat insulation.
Mike Zietz, an NDSU junior who monitored space suit temperatures
during Saturday's inaugural test, said it reached about 100 degrees
inside the suit, and 70 degrees inside the helmet.
Oh, and if 47 pounds seems a bit heavy, Sau is quick to add it
would only weigh about 16 pounds in Martian conditions.
"This is a very small project," Sau said. "But it was very well
executed, and it's the first step toward something bigger and
better."
No word yet on whether NASA is interested in continued research
into the students' suit, which contains several innovative
components including three under patent consideration. But consider
this: a $100,000 Mars suit... compared to the $22 million space
suits now used by shuttle astronauts.
In a year.
Better, cheaper and faster, eh?