NASA exhibit gives students a glimpse of the next 40 years of space travel
NASA has brought its dream for the future of space travel to Utah State University.
Starship 2040 is a traveling exhibit from Marshall Space Center, located in Huntsville, Ala., designed to show what space travel may be like in 40 years. The exhibit has traveled to 25 states and spent more than 1 million miles on the road over the past two and a half years, sharing its vision and goals with students everywhere.
“We’re just trying to make space more accessible to people,” said Martin Jensen, a public affairs officer for NASA.
Although Starship 2040 is in no way a blueprint for the future of space travel, it is NASA’s hope for the outcome of the next 40 years of research and development, according to the NASA Web site.
Starship 2040 is built inside a 48-foot tractor and trailer rig and is set up at the Taggart Student Center patio. First on the tour of the spacecraft is the cockpit. Surprisingly enough, the cockpit, with its three computer monitors, is probably about the size it would be if the spacecraft were real -with minor expansions for chairs and such. The ship would basically fly itself, with the pilots present to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Next comes the transport tubes to help passengers to move quickly around the ship. These vertical tunnels are equipped with metal rungs along the wall, because a lack of gravity makes it difficult to get from point A to point B.
The next stop on the tour is the bathroom, where things get a little complicated. It’s difficult to keep things clean without gravity, said Nick Robbins, a junior in public relations who is working as an intern at the NASA exhibit. The toilet and sink are both equipped with a vacuum specially designed to suck everything up into a tank. Because of the high cost of space travel, (it costs $10,000 for every pound of “stuff” brought into space), this waste is recycled and reused as drinking water. But this water is actually cleaner than the water you drink now, Robbins said.
Farther down the ship is the passenger seating area, where seats are both upside down and right side up. Because of the lack of gravity, Starship 2040 is able to seat more than three times as many passengers as an aircraft in our skies today. A sign on the wall near the seats reads, “Zero G has its own rules: No free-floating, torpedoing or other low-grav acrobatics during weightlessness.” Each seat is equipped with its own television, which has information about every destination of the spacecraft as well as pre-recorded entertainment for both children and adults.
According to information provided by Starship 2040, anytime a person travels for prolonged periods of time, they are at a health risk, and space is no exception. NASA has planned ahead, however, and included an exercise station on Starship 2040. A daily 2.5-hour workout is recommended for everyone staying aboard longer than three days. The station is equipped with a vacuum tube to remove perspiration from the body, again recycling it into drinking water.
Next, the passenger finds the kitchen. Rather than tubes of toothpaste-like substances, the dinner menu posted includes such entrees as duck a l’orange, maple-baked pork, or chicken enchiladas. Drinks are served in Capri-Sun style packages, which were developed by NASA.
Next on the tour comes the observation deck, where passengers use cameras controlled by joysticks to view space or the spacecraft itself. Passengers can also view real-time photos of their destinations. Also in the observation deck is the secondary life support devices, which are basically space suits for the passengers in case an emergency occurs.
Last on the tour comes the engineering deck, where the crew makes sure the ship is running smoothly.
Freshman Mike Orencole, a bioveterinary science major, said he would take advantage of the opportunity to travel through space if he could.
“As long as it’s cheap, I’ll be there,” he said.
The reality, however, is that when space travel is made available to everyone, it probably won’t be cheap. Today, it takes $10,000 to send every pound into space, which means that in order to send a person weighing 150 pounds, it would cost $1.5 million. There is hope, however.
“We’re working to reduce the cost to $1,000 per pound,” Jensen said.
Cost is not the only problem. Another is the sheer difficulty of staying in space, said Kirk Sorenson, an aerospace engineer and USU alumnus.
“Space is about as far away as Provo is to here,” Sorenson said. “The difficult part is not getting into space, it’s staying there.”
The energy required to keep a spacecraft in space is almost unheard of. To put it in perspective, a car traveling at 60 mph requires .02 kilowatts per hour. An airplane traveling at 600 mph requires .7 kwh. A spacecraft, on the other hand, traveling at 17,000 mph, requires 580 kwh to stay in space. To add to the problem, it needs to acquire this energy in less than six minutes, the amount of time it takes to get to space.
Sorenson is confident, however, that a solution to this and many other problems will soon be found by the next generation of space researchers.
“I seriously believe the people that are going to make this work are the people in college right now,” Sorenson said. “They are going to look at things in a different way than we are, and they are going to make it work.”
Once it is “made to work,” space travel can revolutionize the way the world is run. Robbins said he is especially excited about the prospect of taking a vacation to another planet.
“Instead of booking a cruise to the Bahamas, people could book a cruise to the moon … it would be amazing,” Robbins said.
Robbins is one of many USU students working as interns for NASA while Starship 2040 is in Utah.
Starship 2040 is located on the TSC patio, and will be there from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Next, the exhibit is headed to Hill Air Force Base until Oct. 12, when it will head to Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City from Oct. 15 to 18. For more information on Starship 2040, visit www.starship2040.com.
-sophisan@cc.usu.edu
President Kermit L. Hall and H. Scott Hinton, dean of the College of Engineering, join children in touring NASA’s Starship 2040 display Tuesday afternoon. (Photo by Ryan Talbot)