Photon Propulsion for a Gossamer Spacecraft

The Outreach objective for team SOLAR is to inspire the public to advance space exploration through the pursuit of knowledge[1]. SOLAR’s audience consists of children and adults of varied ages and backgrounds. Due to the unique multi-university team, SOLAR will have the opportunity to share our knowledge of NASA, as well as our educational experience with the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program (RGSFOP), and promote mathematics, science, engineering, and technology in communities around the nation.

SOLAR will begin by giving back to the communities that first laid the foundation that taught us to reach for the stars. SOLAR is currently in the process of contacting our hometown schools and has already received multiple letters inviting team members to share their experiment and experiences with NASA and the RGSFOP. With a group hailing from eight different home states and five different university towns, SOLAR has the geographical coverage unfeasible for a single-university team. Of those eight home states, team members will be able to present in twelve different hometowns as well as individual university locations and the Houston area.

Current planned activities at the schools vary depending upon the age and size of the groups. For younger audiences (K-6), such as Mrs. Oleson’s 1^st grade class at St. Elizabeth Seton School in Rapid City in South Dakota, SOLAR has created a hands-on presentation. The goal is to introduce students to the world of space and science by opening their imaginations to the many possibilities that lay within those realms. One such activity requires students to create their own version of a solar sail, the earth, sun, moon, or other space related objects. This activity will use construction paper and a variety of art mediums, such as crayons, markers, or modeling clay. For a tastier project, students can recreate the Wrights brother’s plane using graham crackers and other edible items. This project will introduce the basic aircraft design concepts, and explain how each part is essential for a successful flight. The older students in this age group will construct rockets using paper, a clear film canister, water, and an antacid tablet to demonstrate Newton’s Laws of Motion; thereby introducing some standard principles frequently found in space exploration. To provide active participation and a hint of competition, the rocket activity will be followed by an altitude contest and a Q&A session regarding the successes and failures of the rockets. This interactive approach to rocket dynamics enables students to better understand the concepts involved and give them a chance to ask the questions that interest them.

Middle school assemblies (7-9th grade students) will receive a more defined presentation that focuses on the many facets of the space program ranging from teamwork to education to careers. SOLAR members will relate their educational and professional experiences thus far and where they are headed. Group activities will be organized and conducted by the presenters to demonstrate the importance of teamwork and communication in the academic setting and beyond. The students’ prior science curriculum will provide a base from which project SOLAR may be explained in layman’s terms. An exercise that the students can partake, in order to understand why we chose to work in a microgravity environment, will be the construction of parachutes using plastic bags, string, masking tape, and small stones differing in size and shape. By building them, with the specified supplies, they will be able to see the effect of gravity on a free falling object, and use those observations to understand our comparing and contrasting of the effects microgravity would have with the same experiment. Another notion to introduce through an activity will the fundamental principle of aerodynamics—Bernoulli’s equation. The actual equation will not be explained in depth, but the effects of his idea on an airfoil and its ability to fly will be proposed. Using a variety of supplies, the students will construct both a test platform and two airfoils in order to illustrate the Bernoulli effect. We hopes that the presentation and subsequent activities will further pique the students’ interest in science.

High school students will be provided a more detailed description of our experiment, including the principles and instruments used, the data obtained and analyzed, including our conclusions. To supplement the presentation, students will receive a project summary, images of the experiment itself, and diagrams that will coincide with the PowerPoint presentation. Furthermore, team members will reiterate the significance of going to college and the abundant possibilities found in higher education. Team members will also emphasize the numerous opportunities available at NASA. A list of NASA programs with Internet sources will be provided to aid those interested in space related careers. SOLAR intends to utilize today’s technology by conducting videoconferences with other team members during their outreach presentations.

Among our college peers, we will examine all technical aspects of our experiment, as well as our student internships. Information will be shared though presentations, publications, and press coverage. The PowerPoint presentation used in the high school outreach programs will be expanded to accommodate the needs and interests of the higher educated audience. Likewise, the university students will also be able to participate in videoconferences with another team members and their presentation, as well as participate in a Q&A session.

In addition to the presentations and video conferences, we will continue to interact with the public through various mediums, including, but not limited to, letters, email, and our team’s website http://www.solarvision.org. The website encompasses four main areas: Meet the Team, Experiment, Outreach, and Open Forum. These four topics may be easily accessed from the main page that offers exciting graphics and updates, as well as a brief introduction to the SOLAR project. The Meet the Team section will allow visitors to read team member biographies and access the supporting universities’ sites. Visitors wishing to access detailed information regarding the experiment procedures, data, and conclusions can link to the Experiment section. This section will be subdivided into age appropriate categories incorporating visual graphics to further explain complex details. The Outreach link will give updates on our current activities and upcoming presentations. All of the presentation materials will be available online to enable educators to supplement their core curriculum with ideas from our project. Educators and other visitors to the site can quickly access team members or other interested parties via the Public Forum or directly through email.

· Several elementary and secondary schools (listed with letters of invitation in appendix C)

The public presentations will include information on the project, NASA, the RGSFOP, and how to get involved in similar activities. We also plan to incorporate the activities done with the students at the various schools, in order to demonstrate some of the principles involved in our solar sail project.

In addition, team members will be in contact with local media including exposure in each of our hometown and school papers. Considering the magnitude and scope of this project, most of our effort will be made to pursue journalist coverage at a national level. Nationwide newspapers, like the Chicago Tribune and New York Times, as well as magazines such as Popular Science, Discover, Air and Space Magazine, Aviation Weekly, etc. will be sought after in order to share our experience with a much broader based audience.

By focusing a major portion of our outreach plan on elementary and high school students, we wish to inspire not only the next generation of scientists, engineers, and explorers, but also those within the generations of the past and present as well. We hope our lasting impression will be in accordance with NASA’s mission statement. We wish to “understand… explore… and inspire” – as student ambassadors in space exploration.

03-17-03 - On Saint Patrick's Day Purdue SOLAR gals, Lindsay Gossom and Jayleen Guttromson, visited HOME Hospital in Lafayette, Indiana to share their space interest with patients in the pediatrics ward. They read space-themed children's books and talked about space exploration with the children, inspiring them to dream of the unknown and wish upon the stars. The success of the hand-crafted solar system mobiles project was easily displayed by one patient's smile and how quickly she learned the order of the planets. As creative engineers, the patients created mobiles out of construction paper planets attached to a clothes hanger. The next outreach opportunity from Purdue will be with West Lafayette Jr. High School on March 27th.

03-04-03 through 03-08-03 - FIRST Robotics Regionals Competition in St. Louis, Missouri, John Keefner - John discussed NASA opportunities for senior high school students and the reduced gravity program with high school students representing Rapid City Stevens High School, Rapid City Central High School and Sturgis High School over the course of the robotics program. The robotics competition, sponsored in South Dakota by the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium, already helps to recruit interested students into the NASA pipeline. Students John spoke with showed interest and enthusiasm in continuing participation with NASA-related programs while in high school and college. The students also were treated to a tour of Boeing's Prologue Room at Boeing headquarters in St. Louis.

12-17-02 - Mr. Lamphere's 8th Grade Class at Williams Middle School in Sturgis, John Keefner - Five presentations to approximately 100 students covered a thorough background of microgravity research and solar sails at the middle school level. Extra effort was made to relate lessons learned from the reduced gravity program to an upcoming science fair in which 8th grade students will be participating.

12-11-02 - Mrs. Karen Westergaard's Freshman English Class at SDSM&T, Brian Glover - Approximately 40 undergraduate students were present for 2 talks discussing the undergraduate opportunities and space science taking place at the SDSM&T campus, and the requirements for becoming involved.

12-09-02 - Mrs. Larchied-Christianson and Mrs. Fisher's 7th Grade Classes at Williams Middle School in Sturgis, John Keefner - The 7th grade presentation made to approximately 200 students over 7 lectures (each lecture including Mrs. Fisher's and Mrs. Larchied-Christianson's classes) covered various topics including the original NASA missions, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and moved into the current Space Shuttle and ISS. The goal of this overview was to introduce students to the duration of microgravity in each mission and the relative size of each vehicle. With this background, several educational videos of astronauts explaining the physiological effects of microgravity were played. Finally, the KC-135 team video was played and the short term effects of microgravity were pointed out during the video. The student participation was excellent....except for the occasional passed out kid in the front!

12-06-02 - Tech Geological Association Friday Seminar Lecture, SDSM&T Mineral Industries Building, John Keefner - Semi-technical presentation to approximately forty undergraduate earth science students and graduate students, including most of the geology and geological engineering faculty and the Dean of Graduate Studies. Lecture topics included a background on the KC-135, the history of solar sails, the project construction-procedures-results, and the KC-135 experience including a 10 minute video of student flyers in microgravity.

11-01-02 - Children's Science Center, Rapid City, Brian Glover - Presentation including video presentation, sail material demonstration, meteorite sample presentation, and discussion. Audience including young children and a range of ages up to adults and SDSM&T professors.

[1] SOLAR will be presenting the background and conclusions for both SOLAR Alpha and Beta in all outreach activities. Letters of Invitation apply to both projects.