Zarana Sanghani
Staff Writer
Descending at a steep 45-degree angle from 32,000 to 24,000 feet, the KC-135 jet simulated zero-gravity for the two University of Houston engineering students inside.
For 25 seconds, senior mechanical engineering major Eric Myers and senior industrial engineering major Roy Hayes experienced zero-gravity Wednesday in the jet at NASA's Ellington Airfield to test a damage detection device they developed during the semester with their team.
The team of UH engineering students was made up of Myers and Hayes, as well as senior mechanical engineering majors Ricardo Ortiz and Bryan Pendleton. They were supervised by mechanical engineering professor Dr. David Zimmerman. Only two students could fly in the jet, and Hayes and Myers won the seats by a coin toss.
"It's the weirdest thing - one minute you're sitting there," Hayes said, "and the next minute, you haven't done anything, and you're floating at the top of the ceiling. It's like the feeling you get when you're at the top of a rollercoaster and about to come back down."
Before flying in the jet, the students drafted strict safety procedures. They used Velcro to make sure their tools wouldn't float away and that sharp objects wouldn't harm anyone, Hayes said.
The project began with a device normally used to detect damage in a truss, or support structure on Earth's gravity, and the team modified the device to detect damage in similar structures in zero-gravity. The switchboard, for example, normally allows eight inputs from the structure, and Ortiz created one that accepts 25.
"We hope that the experiment will ultimately enable us to utilize this to reduce the time it takes to perform maintenance on the International Space Station," Zimmerman said.
The device, he said, receives vibrations from the structure. Each part of the structure gives a signature vibration, sending different vibrations for each missing or damaged part.
Zimmerman and Dr. Suzanne Smith of the University of Kentucky spent seven years developing the device. A variety of methods were used in analyzing structures in Earth's gravity, such as bridges and car bodies. They began work on a method to use the device in zero-gravity in the fall.
Presently, in zero-gravity, astronauts have to personally inspect a structure for damage. "This method could be used as a safer and faster alternative to having astronauts perform an extra vehicular activity visual inspection of the space station," Zimmerman said.
The students tested the structure undamaged, and then tested it after removing one part at a time and hammering the structure to damage it.
The structure the UH team tested is similar to the structures used to build the Freedom Space Station. Although that project is canceled, the data from Myers and Hayes' experiment would apply to the International Space Station now in construction at Langley Airforce Base.
Zimmerman, Smith and her students proposed the experiment to NASA's reduced gravity academic opportunities program in mid-fall 1996, and the UH students joined the team this semester. NASA received 55 proposals and accepted 24. Two UK students flew in the jet Thursday, after Myers and Hayes.
The students became involved in the program through their Applications from Engineering /Engineering Systems Design class. They broke into groups of three and four at the beginning of the semester. Several professors presented their current projects to the class, and then the teams submitted proposals to the professors saying why they wanted to work on their respective projects.
The opportunity revived old ambitions for Myers. "I've always been interested in the space program. That's really why I'm doing mechanical engineering," Myers said. "This let me step away from the academic book work and kind of let me get interested in the field again."