Two UA Undergrads Win NASA Fellowships for Visionary Space Projects

TWO UA UNDERGRADS WIN NASA FELLOWSHIPS FOR VISIONARY SPACE PROJECTS
(From Lori Stiles, University Communications, 520-621-1877)

- Tuesday, May 16, 2006

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Contact Information
Daniella Della-Giustina 520-626-1985
Rigel Woida 520-626-0623

Related Web site - http://www.niac.usra.edu
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NASA has awarded two University of Arizona undergraduate students
fellowships to investigate revolutionary ideas for space exploration.
Only
five such fellowships were awarded nationwide.

Daniella Della-Giustina has been awarded a $9,000 NASA Institute for
Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Student Fellows Prize to study the use of
near-Earth asteroids for radiation shielding during a human journey to
Mars.

Della-Giustina is an engineering physics major who just completed her
junior
year and a 2005-2006 UA NASA Space Grant internship with Dante Lauretta
of
UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Her prize-winning project is
titled
"The Martian Bus Schedule: An Innovative Technique for Protecting
Humans on
a Journey to Mars." Lauretta will supervise Della-Giustina on the
project.

Rigel Woida has been awarded a $9,000 NIAC Student Fellows Prize to
study
the use of large aperture, lightweight orbital mirrors for
"terraforming" an
area of the martian surface so humans could affordably colonize the Red
Planet.

Woida is an optical sciences and engineering senior who is a staff
technician at UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. His prize-winning
project
is titled "The Road to Mars." Optical sciences Professor Eustace
Dereniak
and Assistant Research Professor Robert M. Stone will supervise Woida
on the
project.

"The biggest obstacle facing manned space exploration is the threat of
biologically hazardous cosmic radiation," Della-Giustina said. "If we
don't
develop an effective solution to this issue, the threat of cosmic
radiation
will prevent a manned mission to Mars."

During astronauts' six-to-ten-month journey to Mars, they will be
exposed to
dangerous levels of space radiation that potentially causes cancer and
other
serious medical problems. Currently proposed shielding systems that
would
absorb or deflect cosmic radiation are prohibitively expensive or
impractical, Della-Giustina said.

She will investigate the possibility of spacecraft "hitching" a ride on
asteroids with orbits that cross both Earth's and Mars' orbits. There
is a
large population of such asteroids with regolith for shielding
spacecraft
and mass from which Martian astronauts could mine natural resources
during
their journey, Della-Giustina said.

Della-Giustina said she will use her fellowship funds to make direct
observations of near-Earth asteroids, to travel to Denver to work with
Lockheed Martin researchers who will collaborate with her on the
project,
and to conduct cosmochemistry experiments at UA.

"The goal of the 'Road to Mars' project is to bring a small area of
Mars'
surface to Earth ambient temperature" so humans could explore and,
eventually, colonize Mars, Woida said.

His idea is to establish a segmented global reflector in orbit around
Mars,
a 1.5-kilometer diameter array made up of 150 segmented,
150-meter-diameter
Mylar balloons that would collect sunlight and shine it down over a
one-square kilometer area of Mars' surface.

"I adjusted the aperture so the reflector would heat a square-kilometer
of
Mars' surface to roughly Tucson daytime illumination and temperatures,"
Woida said. "This would have immediate benefits for the astronauts. It
would
increase the light level, solar panel energy collection and bring the
temperature of that part of the planet up to Earth's. Astronauts
wouldn't
have to work in freezing temperatures or spend energy thawing frozen
water -
water they need for manufacturing fuel to return to Earth, as well as
water
needed for consumption. "

Eventually, the orbital reflector could permit humans to create a
stable
base camp "terraformed" over a small part of the surface for
colonization
and future exploration, Woida said. "Eventually, using techniques like
these, humans might cultivate plants on Mars."

Woida's father, Patrick Woida, is a Lunar and Planetary Lab test
engineer
on the 2007-2008 Mars Scout Phoenix Mission that will run science
operations
at UA with Peter Smith as principal investigator.

The NIAC Student Fellows Prize, sponsored by Universities Space
Research
Association and managed by NIAC, was initiated in 2005 to attract
visionary
students and facilitate their work. No two students from a single
university
have been awarded NIAC fellowships until this year.

NIAC investigates revolutionary ideas that could greatly advance NASA's
missions in the future. The proposals push the limits of known science
and
technology, and thus are not expected to be realized for at least a
decade
or more.

"This year's crop of exciting proposals and students continues our
latest
effort at identifying the best new ideas for advanced concepts in
aerospace
endeavors," said NIAC Associate Director Diana Jennings, who manages
the
Student Fellows Program. "We look forward to exciting work by these
creative
and accomplished students."

Della-Giustina, Woida and the three other winners will present their
results at NIAC's annual meeting that will be held in Tucson next
October.
They also will present results at the NIAC's Fellows meeting in Atlanta
in
March 2007. The students results' will be publicized at NIAC's Website,
http://www.niac.usra.edu.

Other 2006-2007 NIAC student winners are from the University of
Alabama,
Huntsville; the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Cornell University.