ISU STUDENTS TO TEST SPACE BLENDER AT NASA
01-26-04
Contacts:
David Chipman, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, (515) 291-9964Cheryll B. Reitmeier, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, (515) 294-4325
Sue Ellen Tuttle, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, (515) 294-8799
Kevin Brown, News Service, (515) 294-8986
ISU STUDENTS TO TEST SPACE BLENDER AT NASA
| Another ISU team to spacecenter Another team of students will test a prototype for a small satellite in March 2004. |
An Iowa State honors seminar addressing space food systems introduced senior biology major David Chipman to foodpreparation in space and the processes behind it. As food science and human nutrition professor Cheryll Reitmeiertalked about plans to grow food in space, the question became how to process it. Chipman remembered reading aboutNASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities, an annual program that allows about 70 undergraduate teams fromacross the U.S. to propose, design, fabricate, fly and evaluate a reduced-gravity experiment. Chipman had an idea. Herounded up three engineering buddies--Jonathan Gettler, Clayton Neumann and Kevin Schroeder--and Team CyMix wasborn.
Chipman explained that blenders used on earth depend on gravity to pull the food towards the blades. In themicrogravity of space travel, an alternative method of processing is needed. So Chipman and his team designed a devicethat doesn't require gravity to function. The tool utilizes a roller that moves back and forth like a rolling pin tocrush food. Chipman said ground-based trial runs have successfully liquefied cooked soybeans.
Team CyMix's project focuses on processing soybeans, a product already being grown on space stations and shuttlemissions, that has multiple applications in tofu, soymilk and other soy products.
"Can we crush soybeans so that the resulting slurry mash has the appropriate concentration of proteins and sugars tomake soymilk? That is the benchmark," said Chipman.
The group will spend the next two months building the device, roughly the size of two side-by-side microwaves, in HoweHall under the guidance of Adin Mann, associate professor of aerospace engineering, and Reitmeier, Team CyMixadvisor.
Then it's on to Houston, where team members will undergo physical training to prepare them for the parabolic flightsthey'll experience during the trials. The students will spend time in a chamber that simulates loss of cabin pressure,and will experience a sensation compared to being in an elevator when the cable snaps. NASA technicians will help theISU students fit their experimental blender to the Boeing KC-135A, an aircraft affectionately dubbed the "vomit comet,"Chipman said.
Airborne trials will take place the last two days the students are there. Each flight is approximately 30 parabolas (orintervals of simulated weightlessness), during which the blender will be repeatedly tested. Following the trials, teammembers will analyze the results and write a final report to NASA.
Chipman estimates the cost of the blender at $1,500, with the total project cost, including travel and housing, to be$5,200. The project is being sponsored by the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, a USDA Space Food Challenge Grant, theCollege of Engineering and its electrical and mechanical engineering departments, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,a University Honors grant, and the NASA Food Technology Commercial Space Center.
More info:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kevinsch/home.htm
http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/
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