PB3

1.

The majority of the feedback I got said that my topic was already really narrowed down. Some of the feedback gave some ideas on how I could modify the topic, but most of it would have made the topic broader. I could possibly narrow it down into a specific method for life support, but that might make it too narrow that i might not be able to find enough information on it. I think my topic is pretty good and I’m not really going to change it.

2.

Is it possible to combine multiple life support methods into one more efficient system?

3.

Gruenwald, J. (2016). A hybrid plasma technology life support system for the generation of oxygen on mars: Considerations on materials and geometry. Acta Astronautica, 123, 188-191. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2016.03.021

Verseux, C., Baque, M., Lehto, K., de Vera, J., Rothschild, L., & Billi, D. (2016). Sustainable life support on mars - the potential roles of cyanobacteria. International Journal of Astrobiology, 15(1), 65-92. doi:10.1017/S147355041500021X

Tong, L., Li, M., Hu, E., Fu, Y., Xie, B., & Liu, H. (2012). The fluxes of carbon, nitrogen and water in the multibiological life support system. Ecological Engineering, 43, 91-94. doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2012.01.023

Xie, B., Zhu, G., Liu, B., Liu, G., Liu, H., Su, Q., Wang, M. (2017). The water treatment and recycling in 105-day bioregenerative life support experiment in the lunar palace 1. Acta Astronautica, 140, 420-426. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2017.08.026

Sakurai, M., Sone, Y., Nishida, T., Matsushima, H., & Fukunaka, Y. (2013). Fundamental study of water electrolysis for life support system in space. Electrochimica Acta, 100, 350-357. doi:10.1016/j.electacta.2012.11.112

Fu, Y., Li, L., Xie, B., Dong, C., Wang, M., Jia, B., Liu, H. (2016). How to establish a bioregenerative life support system for long-term crewed missions to the moon or mars.Astrobiology, 16(12), 925-936. doi:10.1089/ast.2016.1477

Hager, P., Czupalla, M., & Walter, U. (2010). A dynamic human water and electrolyte balance model for verification and optimization of life support systems in space flight applications.Acta Astronautica, 67(9), 1003-1024. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2010.06.001


Keywords:

Life Support, Space, Mars, Water, Oxygen, Bioregenerative, Plasma Technology, Recycle, Electrolysis, Balance, Treatment

Elevator Pitch

Professor Okutsu, I’m Jacob Myers an engineering student here at Abington. I've done some research into you and your field of research, and I find it very interesting. I’ve seen some of your previous publications, and that you have worked with some of NASA’s mission studies. I saw that most of your research was devoted to human exploration of Mars, and I figured what more important than life support when it comes to manned missions. So I was thinking that we could work together on an ACURA project involving the design of a life support system. I have already done a little research, and I found 2 potential methods we could implement into our design. One involves the recycling of solid waste into oxygen, and the other involves the recycling of liquid waste into water and nitrogen. I figure we could try to combine the two methods to create a more productive and efficient system. Hopefully you give this some thought, and I look forward to potentially working with you in the future. Thank you for your time.

Elevator Pitch Assignment

Part 1: WP2 Rubric

• Completion of powerpoint
• Well put together presentation (effectively and clearly explain your powerpoint)
• Topic is a “small nesting doll”, and not a broad topic
• Research of chosen topic
• Understanding of your two scholarly articles, and all of their different aspects needed for the presentation
• Formatting

Part 2: What makes an elevator pitch an elevator pitch

I think the most important aspect of an elevator pitch is that it is always some kind of proposal, and you are trying to convince someone of something. The next thing that defines an elevator pitch is that they can only last for around 30 seconds to 2 minutes, because the whole idea behind it is that you have to give your pitch in an elevator and need to be finished before the ride is over. They usually consist of an introduction, description, and a request all within 30sec-2min. The audience can vary depending on the request of the elevator pitch, it could be anything such as a potential employer, investor, or client. The is one thing in common with all of the audiences which is they all have the ability to grant your request.




Part 3: Examples

Strengths:

• Made good first impression
• Introduced herself while also complimenting her audience at the same time
• She explained her skills and experience very clearly, and very quickly
• She brought up her request without making it seem really forced and awkward

Strengths:

• Got to the point immediately
• Described his business and its objective very well
• Gave many reasons as to why his company is a good choice

Struggles:

• Felt very forced and awkward
• The way he was talking seemed pretty aggressive

Strengths:

• Straight to the point
• Describes the problem his company is solving
• States exact request

Struggles

• Could have been a little longer. Could have used an extra 10-20 seconds to try and convince his audience better

One difference I noticed was that the first elevator pitch was someone trying to get an internship, while the other two were company CEO’s trying to get investors. The most obvious difference is that the first pitch was very calm, while the other two seemed very aggressive. I think I like the first one the most from that standpoint, and I think it is more like the elevator pitch we will have to create.

PB2B

Part 1: Two Scholarly Articles

[1] R. Shi, F. Zhang and Z. Zhang, "Recycling oxygen from spaceflight solid waste for life support system: Potential of pyrolysis process," Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 334, pp. 479-486, 2018.

[2] S. Deng, B. Xie and H. Liu, "The recycle of water and nitrogen from urine in bioregenerative life support system," Acta Astronautica, vol. 123, pp. 86-90, 2016.




Part 2: Content

Both articles focused on life support systems that could be used for manned space missions. The first article focused more on the aspect of recycling oxygen from solid waste, while the second article focused more on the recycling of water from water waste. Both articles researched and studied the concepts in very similar ways. They both conducted experiments where they actually recycled waste in oxygen gas and water. In the first article they would expose the waste to high temperatures, anywhere from 400 to 800 degrees celcius, and this would leave them with 3 different products. They were left with a charred solid that contained between 7 to 10 percent oxygen, a liquid that contained 30 to 50 percent oxygen, and a gas that contained 50 to 60 percent oxygen. The yield of oxygen changed based on the temperature that the waste was exposed to. In the second article they used a combination of hydrolysis and distillation to recycle water and nitrogen from water waste. They discovered that nitrogen recovery was the most efficient at higher temperatures and lower pH levels, also they found out that they could recover about 92 percent of water but believe it's possible to reach 100 percent. Also they each made many calculations on the topic to see what theoretically should happen and compare it to the actual results. Both articles describe the concepts pretty similarly. They go into a lot of detail about the process they go through to recycle the waste, and they describe the entire process from beginning to end. Both articles posed the question of how efficient the methods were, and how well they could recycle the waste. The first article determined that they could recycle anywhere from 60-7% of oxygen from the different types of waste, and the second article determine they could recycle around 92% or water from liquid waste.




Part 3: Conventions

The most obvious convention is the jargon because with these kinds of topics there are a lot of technical words and phrases that you have no idea what the meaning is at first glance. Also both of the articles ar split up into multiple sections, and some containing subsections. These sections usually consisted of the research methods that were used to study the topic. Also i'm pretty sure every single scholarly article that exists has an abstract and a conclusion. Some affordances of the articles was the use of charts and graphs. Both of the articles had a lot of graphs to show the results, and the ranged from pie graphs, line graphs, bar graphs, and histograms. Another affordance that I think was pretty unique to these articles was the use of formulas and calculations. Both articles described the calculations they used, and provided the formulas. I think the author's purpose for both of these articles was to persuade the reader to think that the method they were researching is the best option for life support. The main audience of these articles are other scholars in this field of study. This is very obvious since there is a lot of jargon, and anyone else wouldn’t understand what they were reading. Also both articles explain how these are new methods that could be used on manned space missions, which kind of tells you that they were written for other people to use as research in the future. One article even explains how there are other minerals that could be recycled, and that further research should be conducted. The writing style is very formal and informative, because it is well put together and every sentence is just information. The authors of both articles structured them very similar. Both started with an introduction to the concept, and then moved on to the methods of research. Them they explained the results of the research, and finished with their conclusion.




Part 4: Interesting Aspects

What struck me as the most important aspect of the articles was the results and efficiency of the methods. I think it was amazing how the researcher in the second article were able to recover around 92 percent of water from the waste, and the fact that they believe if there was more testing done that they could recover 100 percent of the water. Also they explained how there are a lot more elements and minerals that can be recovered, and that more research should be done on it. That would make that process overall a lot better, and would allow us to recover the majority of the elements from waste through this method.

PB2A Parts 3,4,5

Part 3

• How could space suits be designed to support human life on mars?
• How could existing space suits be redesigned to be better or more efficient?
• How could a “Biosphere” be designed that would fully function?
• How could a “Biosphere” be designed that could easily be transported to mars?
• How could a new engine be designed for rockets that could function better or more efficiently?

Part 4

• Engineering
• Design
• Mars
• Space Suit
• Biosphere
• Rocket Engine
• Thrusters
• Space Helmet
• Survival
• Oxygen
• Life Support

Part 5

[1] C. L. Moore, "Technology development for human exploration of Mars," Acta Astronautica, vol. 67, (9), pp. 1170-1175, 2010.


[2] R. B. Malla, J. Gopal and J. Ahn, "Mechanical Behavior of Water Deionizing Granular Material Bed for Space Life Support Systems," Journal of Engineering Mechanics, vol. 139, (5), pp. 650-663, 2013.


[3] S. Aydogan-Cremaschi et al, "A novel approach for life-support-system design for manned space missions," Acta Astronautica, vol. 65, (3), pp. 330-346, 2009.


[4] R. Shi, F. Zhang and Z. Zhang, "Recycling oxygen from spaceflight solid waste for life support system: Potential of pyrolysis process," Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 334, pp. 479-486, 2018.


[5] S. Deng, B. Xie and H. Liu, "The recycle of water and nitrogen from urine in bioregenerative life support system," Acta Astronautica, vol. 123, pp. 86-90, 2016.

PB2A Parts 1,2

Engineering is the discipline I have chosen for this project. The professor I decided to pick was Masataka Okutsu. His main focuses of research are the design of space missions and flight vehicles. He has worked with NASA in the past on mission studies involving Europa and Cassini. Also he has worked with students on research missions about Mars, and high altitude CubeSat prototypes.


Something I find interesting about Okutsu’s research is human exploration of Mar. I think it would be cool to research things like how the space suit would be designed for survival on Mars, how you would design some type of building or structure for them to live in how how to get it there, and how the spacecraft would be designed to be able to take them there and back. Another thing I find interesting about his research is the design of spacecraft. I think it would be cool to research how they are made, and try to figure out ways to improve them.

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