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 Alex Darragh, a freshman in agricultural and biological
engineering, and Matt Steinlauf, a freshman in mechanical
engineering, won’t be traveling to the moon themselves, but
their galactic greenhouse might.
The device is about the size of a beverage can and has an
Archimedes screw that drills into the ground, lifts lunar soil
(also called regolith) into the shell, and drops it into
rotating cups. When the screw retracts, the hole closes and the
device pressurizes and heats up. Tubes deposit seeds, water and
fertilizer into the cups.
Darragh and Steinlauf will present their project to TeamIndus,
an aerospace research organization sponsoring the Lab2Moon
Challenge. TeamIndus is one of four privately owned companies
traveling to the moon in December, hoping to win the Google
Lunar XPrize, a global competition to challenge and inspire
engineers and entrepreneurs to develop low-cost methods of
robotic space exploration. To win the $30 million prize, a
privately funded team must successfully place a robot on the
moon, travel at least 500 meters, and transmit high-definition
video and images back to earth.
To increase the opportunity for lunar research, TeamIndus
challenged college students world-wide to design and build an
experiment that would help develop sustainable life on the moon.
There were more than 3,000 applicants from 15 countries and 300
cities.
Phase II of the competition narrowed the field to 25 teams.
Darragh and Steinlauf’s team, Regolith Revolution, is one of
three from the United States to make the cut. Several teams are
from India, and Italy, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and the United
Kingdom will also be represented. TeamIndus will manufacture the
winning design and include it on their lunar voyage.
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“Right now we’re conducting experiments in the lab and growing
different plants in the lunar soil simulant,” said Darragh. “We’ve
worked with Arabidopsis, the first plant that was grown in space.
We’re also testing different fertilizer solutions to find the one
that will work the best with lunar soils and plants and minimize the
amount of nutrients you would have to bring to the moon.”
The team’s faculty mentors are Prasanta Kalita, a professor in
agricultural and biological engineering and associate dean for
academic programs in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and
Environmental Sciences, and Sameh Tawfick, assistant professor in
mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering.
Darragh says they are excited to be chosen as finalists in the
competition, and regardless of the outcome, “It’s been an amazing
experience to be part of a project that has so much potential.”
You can follow Regolith Revolution’s journey through video logs on
their website at
www.regolithrevolution.com.
[Leanne Lucas, News and Public
Affairs
University of Illinois
College of Agricultural, Consumer
and Environmental Sciences]
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