TU students hope project will be out of this world
SHAUN SCHAFER World Staff Writer
03/27/2002
 
Nothing seems farther from a ride on the space shuttle than a nondescript room
in Keplinger Hall -- four walls, a dry-erase board at the front, wooden cabinets
in the back and a handful of students arrayed in chairs and tables.
 
The ongoing discussions, the schematics on the board and the thoughts floating
about this University of Tulsa classroom are well on their way to taking flight,
however. A cadre of TU science students gathers for at least an hour each Friday
afternoon in room M230 to rehash the week's work on a physical science project.
The project ultimately will face stress tests at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory, a reduced gravity ride on a NASA plane this summer and, eventually,
travel into orbit aboard the shuttle.
 
With funding from Research Corp. -- a nonprofit foundation in Tucson, Ariz. --
and TU, the students are putting together eight sapphire-walled boxes, a
custom-designed shaker and a power system that can be placed in a carbon- fiber
box. With these components, they can test theories on clustering. In science
parlance, they call the experiment granular agglomeration in nongravitating
systems, or Gr.A.I.N.S. for short.
 
"What we hope to get is a better understanding of the behavior of granular
materials," said Michael Wilson, a TU assistant professor of physics and
the project's faculty supervisor. "On Earth, those systems typically have
air in them, and that complicates them quite a bit. In space we don't have to
worry about that."
 
The results from this experiment eventually could help determine how an
avalanche happens on the moon or how soils settle on asteroids. For now, the
students' investigation of the effect of gravity on the dynamics of granular
gases -- visible ones, such as soot -- is earthbound and largely confined to
prototypes and possibilities.
 
On most Fridays, the project starts to come alive. As talk turns into action and
deadlines rapidly approach, topics such as PVC strength, aluminum density and D-
cell battery arrangements take on an urgent tone.
 
Simple questions, such as "Where do you put the batteries?" suddenly
become of paramount importance in turning basic concepts into an experiment that
must function on the ground, survive crushing forces at liftoff and work again
in outer space.
 
Team leader Justin Mitchell, going over plans earlier this month for assembling
the D-cell batteries to power the experiment, tried to explain some of the
challenges.
 
"You worry and wonder about how 10 Gs of force at liftoff will rattle the
experiment," he said.
 
The hope is that the crushing ride into space will pass without incident. Once
in orbit, on a yet-to-be-determined shuttle flight, their shaker will shake,
their cameras will run and tiny, brass balls within their "super cube"
will move, providing some idea of the dynamics of interstellar dust clouds and
planetary ring systems.
 
For now, the project is a collection of half-finished components. Each of the
team members, including the four who will ride on the NASA KC-135A during the
reduced gravity experiments in July, continues to build parts, connect pieces
and search for technical data.
 
"You have to keep track of what type of material you use, down to the
aluminum stress data," Wilson said. "If you use screws, they must be
stainless steel."
 
After the July flight from Houston, the students probably will spend the next
year going over the results and pushing to get the project launched, Wilson
said.
 
"The flight out of Houston may ultimately prove nothing other than what not
to do," he said. "But even that's good."
 
Then, someday, this sturdy, simple and partially realized $50,000 project will
take its ride into a little bit of history.
 
Shaun Schafer, World staff writer, can be reached at 581-8320 or via e-mail at
shaun.schafer@ tulsaworld.com.