Fall 2018 Blog

Hello Professor Okutsu! My name is Nick Carr and I’m majoring in aerospace engineering at Penn State Abington! I’ve recently been doing some research in how space travel has an impact on the astronauts themselves and thought about some of my own ways we could measure and study this topic. Seeing as how you have a PhD in aeronautical AND astronautical engineering, I figured there was no one more suited than you to help me form an ACURA project. I know you already did a high altitude test using a weather balloon for a previous ACURA project, so I was thinking we could do a similar test, but apply different sensors that could measure the changes that occur as you get higher and higher above the Earth. This could also give us an opportunity to study some other tests that NASA has conducted from real astronauts. I’m so excited about the possibility of a Mars landing, and I know you are too, so hopefully you’ll consider my offer that will help both of us understand what we need to ...

Part 1: These are the two scholarly articles I chose to focus on. https://psu.summon.serialssolutions.com/#!/search?bookMark=ePnHCXMwjV09bwIxDI0qBqDwH7yjUwvJnZMuHVARHbpAOzCh5JKolfgSlwrx77Fzp4qxQ6QsiZQMefGz_d5QjC3XZh9S7uHyosskSv3UMFhw_EqDc7D6gY3fUBac3Ovdzft_JImqtClnA7FZUwQZ4i6La1CwSsf2kBUfT_TJ5PrjdIWfA2RjuwZsA_uWYvPgrvCxen-By7dN4I9wCcB0FTRHiPb8OhK9dP6lp_hr8fY5XxadBUFRM7YV6JEQUlpC2dpNo68j3fyzU0FpqWNl0akSMaLT0WpTYxXYnylMlTVlNCbIR6Hbfe9RbXtqlSS2rUB7JSVmln3eyXJzO3qipZP_L5U3Z-ltHA Ombergen, A. V., Laureys, S., Sunaert, S., Tomilovskaya, E., Parizel, P. M., Wuyts, F. L. (2017). Spaceflight-induced neuroplasticity in humans as measured by MRI: what do we know so far? doi: 10.1038/s41526-016-0010-8 https://psu.summon.serialssolutions.com/#!/search?bookMark=ePnHCXMwjV3NCsIwDC7iQZ2-Q-46WNfOtl5l4n3zPLb-oBcd2zz58qbdEL15KyWEQvqTNPm-rMim9rXZ9yFguMzMN3cTLPYJvPnXePH5COF7qbJ0SV5lKBTtIXSnAxtq0MLy4OEAz5e2B0DNUJ7zIr8UMII7wJvK9oBi-qeEc4cCn2z1DjAwxwm0Dkw0Oldou9ujC8SlazIfuideyJdTXh7P8dSIINa4o2...

Part 3: More Specific Questions How does long term space travel affect the human body both physically and mentally? Is it possible to build stations outside Earth’s orbit that could be used for extended space travel? How would building new satellites and space stations change the way we think about space travel? Can we design a spacecraft that can lift off and land mutliple times? Does the cost of building and launching rockets change the way engineers think about designs? Part 4: Key Words to Search International Space Station Satellites Long-term Travel Gravity Assisted Orbits Radiation Workload of Astronauts Time spent in Space Part 5: Scholarly Journal Articles and Citations https://psu.summon.serialssolutions.com/#!/search?bookMark=ePnHCXMwTV3BDsIgDOWwgxr9B36ABKiMeTRG48WbnknHxmEHZxxm8e8tzBkTwpG0PbR95PV1xTaYuNn3mGe4GvbPqUIfEQnCp6k7VWV1UTBF1oncCup8zWJOopaAwJLZPc-6zcleHvs-XbzJ1AYex16M-B54XmbHL4QDOYUm_TENa1bE54vy6-10vB7...

Part 1: The discipline I have chosen to do more research on is Aerospace Engineering. The specific researcher at Penn State Abington that I found is the professor we looked at in class, Professor Masataka Okutsu , who studies astronautical engineering as you know. He has designed gravity assisted trajectories for NASA missions and a large portion of his work deals with human exploration of Mars. Currently, he is working on researching the design and composition of Mars, using weather balloons to do high-altitude testing, and designing a drone that could fly and swim. Part 2: The reason I chose Professor Okutsu is because he specifically studies Mars and how we can explore it, which is one aspect of Aerospace Engineering I find really interesting. Some of the things I want to explore further are how new space stations could help us and how long distance travels in space affect people. Just through reading the news I found that NASA released new plans about having a space statio...