It has been over 30 years since man last walked on the moon. But within two decades, new footprints could be laid in the stagnant lunar dust. In January 2004 President Bush announced an ambitious plan to put man back on the moon, and UT is working hard to be at the forefront of these efforts.
In February, UT President Larry Faulkner signed a "Space Act Agreement" with then-director of the Johnson Space Center Jefferson Howell, a retired lieutenant general of the Marines. The agreement affirms both institutions' commitment to a partnership in research and technology relating to space and exploration. Howell estimates that the University currently holds over $4 million in NASA research contracts, the large majority of those directly from the Johnson Space Center, which is about 25 miles south of Houston.
Since signing the agreement, Howell has resigned from his position as director of Johnson Space Center, a post he had held since April 2002. He is now moving to Austin to take a position as a visiting professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He will remain a NASA employee, and he plans to strengthen the collaboration between the University and the Johnson Space Center.
"There is already a great collaboration in place," says Howell of the center's work with the University. "I will simply be here to help grease the wheels."
The new professor
Howell says that his appointment as Space Center director raised some eyebrows within the ranks of engineers employed by NASA. A former Marine and native Texan with a political science degree and a master's in economics, both from the University of Texas, he seemed an odd choice to run one of the foremost research and exploration centers in the nation. It was precisely this outside experience that made Howell so qualified for that position and his transition to the University.
Howell is excited about his future at the University. "My parents were both teachers," Howell says, "so I am excited about the opportunity to teach others from my experience." Though details have not been finalized, Howell will tentatively teach a course on leadership and ethics at the LBJ School.
Appointment at the LBJ School is a fitting position for a Texan so immersed in NASA culture - President Lyndon Baines Johnson co-sponsored the bill that created NASA in 1958.
In addition to teaching classes, Howell hopes to develop new leadership programs, such as a forum for high school administrators. He is also working with Robert Bishop, director of the Aerospace Engineering Department, to possibly teach an engineering leadership course. Howell says he plans to "report in" on Dec. 15 and work out the details of his semester after that.
The Partnership
There is already a strong collaboration in place between the University and NASA that Bishop deems "historic." The Space Act Agreement of February simply formalized what was already a productive partnership. The Act expresses the bilateral commitment of each institution to provide access to facilities, to exchange knowledge and to share the costs of components of the collaboration.
NASA research is conducted all over the University campus, not just in engineering departments. Some current projects include psychology professor Robert Helmreich's proposal to "develop and demonstrate analysis tools and strategies for the distributed national aviation safety action program archive," Bishop's "Adaptive On-Board Navigation for Pinpoint Landing," Stanley Roux's molecular biology study, "Cellular Bases of Light-Regulated Gravity Responses" and others in astronomy, biology, physics and construction science.
Bishop hopes that the arts will eventually be included in NASA projects. "If we had an expansion to the moon I would hope to see it include writers and artists to go and describe the real experience," he said.
The University is both a center for research and a pool for new talent for Space Center programs. Many students participate in the cooperative education program at NASA, working alternate semesters at NASA centers and often gaining full-time employment after graduation. The UT Center for Space Research on the Pickle Research campus is also a hotbed for NASA research and development.
Students and NASA
The allure of the unknown attracts many students to space. Aspiring astronauts may pursue education in science and engineering in hopes of being the next person to set foot on an extraterrestrial surface. NASA and UT help encourage students along these paths by providing research opportunities at the University and cooperative education positions at NASA centers.
Ben Stahl, an aerospace engineering senior, worked four alternating semesters at the Johnson Space Center as a co-op student. "Flight design and analysis was my favorite," says Stahl of his experiences at NASA. He worked two terms in that department, but also spent time in the EVA Small Tools Division and the Applied Aerospace and Computational Fluid Dynamics office.
Stahl decided in high school that aerospace engineering would be the best path for him. "I can't think of a more interesting field," says Stahl. "It's like a big puzzle. There are all the things you have to put together, and you contribute to society in a big way."
He's now considering graduate school, motivated by his involvement in an infant research project, the PARADIGM satellite, which is currently in proposal for funding by NASA.
Satellite development is a ripe area for student and university research. Another team at UT, FASTRAC, has already won a proposal competition sponsored by the U.S. Air Force and NASA, and has gained $100,000 in grant money. FASTRAC, Formation Autonomy Spacecraft with Thrust, Relnav, Attitude and Crosslink, is a two-art nano-satellite that weighs only 45 pounds and is about the size of two stacked car tires. Designed and built by UT faculty, graduate students and undergraduates in a converted office in the W.R. Woolrich Laboratories, FASTRAC has been ranked to launch on an Air Force rocket sometime in the next year.
FASTRAC will perform several scientific experiments in Earth's orbit. The battery case was a student design project, and it was manufactured in the machine shop in the building basement. Another student team designed the external support structure. Almost the only component neither designed nor built on campus is the delicate separation ring, which was donated by a project sponsor.
Jamin Greenbaum, an aerospace engineering graduate student and the student project manager for FASTRAC, feels that FASTRAC stood out among the entries to win the competition because the UT prototype was the most complete, and the team had already performed many tests on the structure, partly thanks to the strong collaboration between UT and the Johnson Space Center. The FASTRAC team gained access to JSC's thermal vacuum chamber and was able to verify the stability and safety of their design and make changes where necessary. The team was also able to test some components on NASA's KC-135 airplane, the "vomit comet" that simulates reduced gravity conditions. Once the final satellite is complete, more tests will be run in both NASA and Air Force laboratories to certify the project for space.
Other benefits
Though the research experience, laboratory access and grant money from NASA are obvious benefits to the University, there are other, non-material advantages to the partnership. "The strongest benefit," says Bishop "is the motivational impact on education." He believes that NASA's greatest gift to the nation is the inspiration it will bring to the students such as Ben Stahl and Jamin Greenbaum, members of the generation that may eventually travel to Mars and beyond.
New NASA Administrator Michael Griffin agreed. "The most valuable thing NASA does for education in the United States is to do things so exciting that more kids want to study these exciting things," he said in an address to engineering students. Indirectly, NASA may further its collaboration with the University by inspiring the next generation of students to pursue science and engineering education and get college degrees.
With the combination of the Space Act Agreement, the visiting professorship of Jefferson Howell and the continuing NASA research across campus, the University's position in the space program is promising. "This is an exciting time for Johnson Space Center and the University," said Burke Fort of the Center for Space Research. "Both are placed to take a lead role in the future of space research."
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