Exploring the Galaxy
Five decades ago, NASA began its mission to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research. Ohio State College of Engineering students, alumni and faculty could fill a book with their own experiences with the agency. Here are just a few of their stories, in honor of NASA’s 50th anniversary.
Enhancing Access to Space
Jack McNamara, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, and Andrea Serrani, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, are using $1.2 million in funding from NASA to investigate SCRAMjet-propelled hypersonic vehicles, which obtain the oxidizer for combustion from the atmosphere rather than carrying it on board. The research will focus on developing innovative multi-disciplinary models that capture unique interactions between the vehicle structure, propulsion, aerodynamic and control systems.
Project Puma
A team of Ohio State sophomores placed third in the 2008 NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Competition to design the next-generation DC-3-type aircraft. Aerospace engineering majors Kevin Disotell, Robert Craun, Nachiket Deshpande, Alvaro Hernandez, Masha Tolstykh, Stephen Norris and Kevin Holcomb Jr. and mechanical engineering major Matthew Hansen emphasized performance and efficiency in a design of an aircraft they called the“Puma.” Meeting NASA specifications, the team designed the Puma to cruise at Mach 0.8 and carry 25,000 pounds of payload. It would leap from the runway in 3,000 feet and be outfitted with noise abatement technologies, such as a variable area bypass nozzle on the aircraft’s twin GE CF34-10 engines to minimize flow instabilities that lead to noise. The Ohio State entry also explored alternative fuels such as biofuel and lighter materials.
“This design competition was an excellent way for us to engage with challenges facing the aerospace industry: the need for better fuel economy, greater access to airports and decreased noise levels,” says Disotell, project leader.
As a result of the competition, team members Craun, Deshpande and Holcomb received summer internships at NASA.“It was a privilege to work with the talented NASA employees on a real aeronautics modeling and analysis problem, the Blended Wing-Body aircraft, which gave me much exposure to various areas of research as well as experience in systems thinking,” says Deshpande. “I feel like I have reached a new level of thinking, of comprehension and of capability after being there.” The 2008-2009 team has expanded to 23 students majoring in aerospace, civil and mechanical engineering.
Astrobucks
Four aerospace engineering students traveled to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in 2008 to test a new technique for extracting oxygen from lunar soil. The team members — Rachel Neff, Richard Jedrey, Elizabeth Carruthers and Michael Boehler — conducted the experiments aboard NASA’s C-9 aircraft. The flight simulated lunar gravity, whichis about one-sixth of Earth’s gravity.
“The reason this process is so interesting is that it may be possible to set up ‘gas stations’ on the moon,” says Neff, who graduated cum laude with honors in spring 2008 and is a project engineer at ASE Technologies in Greenville, S.C. “Any space mission launched from Earth could swing bythe moon to pick up oxygen for its trip.”
Jedrey plans to complete a co-op rotation at Johnson Space Center before graduating next summer. Boehler is finishing his degree and staying at Ohio State to obtain a master’s degree. Carruthers, also a Johnson Space Center co-op, expects to graduate in spring 2010.
Moonbuggy
An Ohio State team of welding engineering students had an impressive showing at the 15th annual Great Moonbuggy Race, sponsored by NASA in spring 2008 at the U.S. Space&Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. Student teams designed vehicles that addressed engineering problems similar to those faced by the original Moonbuggy team during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971.
The Ohio State team was named the Rookie of the Year, received the Pit Crew Award for ingenuity and persistence in overcoming problems during the race, and placed ninth overall. The team’s Moonbuggy is a manually powered vehicle, similar to two recumbent bicycles, joined and pedaled through a 0.7-mile lunar terrain surface.
“This is the first time for Ohio State to have a team entered in the competition,” says team member Sara Canale. “We have alumni down there (in Huntsville); they were very proud of our showing.”
Lunar Exploration
NASA awarded Rongxing (Ron) Li $1.2 million to develop a navigation system for astronauts on the moon. Images taken from orbit and from the moon surface will create maps of lunar terrain; motion sensors on lunar vehicles and on the astronauts will allow computers to calculate their locations; and signals from lunar beacons, the lunar lander and base stations will give astronauts a picture of their surroundings similar to what drivers see when using a GPS device on Earth. Li, the Lowber B. Strange Designated Professor of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science, works on the project with Alper Yilmaz, assistant professor, and Bo Wu, research associate, also from Li’s department, as well as researchers from NASA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley. In addition, NASA selected Li as one of 24 scientists to participate in research related to a new moon exploration mission, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scheduled for launch next spring.
Metals on the Moon
Doru Stefanescu, Ashland Research Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Evan Standish, a master’s student, are investigating metal casting as it relates to a NASA project to build a permanent base on the moon. NASA has a long-standing goal of generating oxygen on themoon from lunar soil, and a process being developed at MIT with capability to do so would produce as byproducts molten oxides, iron and silicon. Stefanescu and Standish are examining the means of extracting those oxide and metal byproducts from an oxygen reactor to cast them for use in other lunarapplications. Technical difficulties include problems related to the very high temperature of the molten materials (1,650 degrees Celsius) and the high reactivity of the molten lunar soil with containment materials. So far, NASA has funded the project at $100,000.
Ernest Levert,’82 WE
Production Operations Technical Excellence Staff and Senior Staff Manufacturing Engineer, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, Dallas
From 1995 to 2002, Levert and colleagues at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control developed welding systems for the heat rejection system and the photovoltaic radiators for the International Space Station.
He discovered the direction for his career at Ohio State, when astronaut Ronald McNair spoke at an awards banquet.
“He said, ‘Pick an area of your career and become an expert; don’t be a typical welding engineer.’ So I took every class Professor Charles Albright offered and specialized in power beam processes,” he says.
Levert is chairman of the International Institute of Welding Commission IV, Power Beam Processes. He frequently speaks at school career days, giving students“Ron McNair Words of Wisdom,” he says of his inspiration, who died in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. “I share with them: You can become a rocket scientist.”
Now Levert, a 2004 College of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus, works on the launch abort system for the Orion, part of NASA’s Constellation Program to send human explorers back to the moon and then other destinations in the solar system.
“It was a great personal experience to have worked with some of these astronauts,” he says, “and then there’s the fact that my work is now in outer space.”
Ralph Rockow,’58, B.S. and M.S. ME
Founder and President, Exodyne Inc., Phoenix
As a manager and engineer at then-TRW’s Space Technology Laboratories in Redondo Beach, Calif., in the mid- to late 1960s, Rockow was responsible for a team that designed and developed 80 percent of the engine that landed Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on the lunar surface in 1969.
“We started on the thrust chamber, the nozzle extension and the gimbal ring system on the descent engine for the Apollo Lunar Landing missions,” Rockow remembers. “The lunar excursion module descent engine was used to retro brake the return of the Apollo 13 mission for re-entry into Earth’sorbit for the safe ocean landing of astronauts James Lovell, Fred Haise Jr. and John Swigert Jr.”
In 1982, Rockow started his own company, Exodyne, a holding company with subsidiaries in areas such as developing safety features for transportation, training and educating young people through subsidiary Dynamic Educational Systems Inc. and being involved in real estate investments.
Rockow, who sits on Ohio State’s foundation board and many committees at the College of Engineering, has received a number of special recognitions from Ohio State, including the Benjamin G. Lamme Meritorious Achievement Medal, the most honored award presented by the College of Engineering, and the 2003 University Distinguished Service Award.
Rockow says his conversations with people about his career almost always gravitate toward his Apollo experiences.
“This program was separated from others in my career based on the fact that President Kennedy said we were going to put a man on the moon by 1970. We were all driven to accomplish that goal,” Rockow says. “It’s like anything in life, leadership is what counts. When you’re working ona program comparable to the Apollo program, you know you’re working on something that’s going to be historic.”
