The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Dreaming a settlement on Moon

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Saturday, Jun 18, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Dreaming a settlement on Moon

K. Jeshi

Two winners of NASA space design contest will tour the research centre

FLYING HIGH: K.Manoj (left) and J. Satish Kumar, winners of the NASA Space Design Settlement Contest.

COIMBATORE: June 20, 2005 is going to be a memorable day in the lives of K. Manoj and J. Satish Kumar, grand prizewinners of the NASA Space Design Settlement Contest. The two students from Coimbatore will enter the corridors of National Aeronautics and Space Administration and spend the day there touring the research centre. They are the first Indians to have won the grand prize in the annual online contest, organised by NASA since 1994. Their project MARS — Magnifying the Abilities of Ruling the Space — won the recognition from a total of 109 submissions from 586 students all over the world.

"We are just looking forward to the D-day," say the elated winners. The annual contest organised by NASA for 6-12th graders (11-18 years old), challenges students to design all aspects of an orbital space colony, from the colony's structural design, atmosphere regulation and waste management, to how the colony will keep its inhabitants happy and healthy. Individuals, small teams of two to six, and large teams of seven or more may enter. The grand prize goes to a team for an overall outstanding performance.

Space, in the words of Satish, is a field in which many mysteries remain unsolved. "Many process happening in the space is still not understandable by human beings, it is this mind-boggling instinct that drew us closer to this field," he adds.

The late astronaut, Kalpana Chawla, is part of their dreams. "The `Columbia Shuttle' disaster shattered us. We wanted to design and develop a technology that will bring down the number of accidents on space and the competition was the first step," says Manoj, now into class XII at G.D. Naidu Matriculation Higher Secondary School. They attribute their success to dedication and hard work.

Will people ever live and work on the Moon and Mars? Will the settlement of space take place in our lifetime? Project MARS seeks to answer such questions. "Our objective is to create a settlement in moon, establish a basement using the minerals and other available materials there and construct a settlement," says Satish, who has completed class XII at Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Vidyalaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School.

In a space colony, people will have houses or apartments. They will go to work and to school. There will be shops, concerts and movies. But there will be differences as well. "Three lakh people can live in our dream colony. Crops can be grown in four different types of agriculture systems; water requirement and water reclamation, balanced diet, atmosphere and humidity control will be taken care under life support systems. It will take us many years but on completion it's going to a dream come true." This is what they are going to tell the NASA scientists when they make the presentation during their visit there. The text copy of their project running to 300 pages will be uploaded on the NASA website.

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