India storms NASA!!!

Students from JAIPUR DID it!!!


Jaipur lads have brought laurels to the country after winning international competitions on space science organised by American space agency NASA ahead of the first International Day on Human Space Flight to be observed on Tuesday.

The United Nations General Assembly had recently adopted a resolution at a special session declaring April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight. The resolution was dedicated to the historic first manned flight to space by Russia's Yury Gagarin in 1961.

The competitions were organised by NASA for school and college students. Shubham Gupta, a student of Class X at St Xavier's School bagged the second position in grade IX-X for his project 'Avatar', a human settlement on space.

In the same competition, a three-member team from Rukmani Devi Birla High School won 'special honourable mention' for their project Astro-Indus. Another project by six students from four various schools grabbed the third position in grade XI-XII category.

Six students from four different schools have bagged third position in an international competition on 'Space Settlement' in category XI-XII organised by NASA. It had invited entries from schools across the world to select the best project on creating alternative space settlement to earth. The team members include Kanak Pareek and Kumar Aditya from Maheshwari Public, Tanushree Charan and Chavvi Gupta from Sawai Man Singh School, Gunjan Soni from St Xavier's School and Sahil Agarwal from Neerja Modi School.

They named the project 'Ashoka' which has a wide range of gravitational acceleration (0-10 metre/second2) helpful in conducting scientific researches. On earth, the gravitational force is 9.8 metre/second2 which allows only specific researches. This settlement can support a population of 1 lakh. They have used unique modified shapes like hyperboloid and spheriods to provide mechanical strength. "These shapes are widely used in building cooling towers in nuclear reactors," Agarwal said.

The settelment will support exclusive zones of activities like agriculture, industries and recreational activities. In this project, they have harnessed the strength and efficiency of bacteria, applied the geometrical concepts of symmetries and focused on solar energy for harnessing energy in space. The project took hours of calculation and imaginations.

On the other hand, a group of three students of Class XI, and one of Class X of Rukmani Birla Modern High School were selected for the prestigious 'Special Honourable Mention' recognition at an international contest organised by NASA.

The title of their project was 'Astro-Indus'. The students developed and designed a structure for permanent space settlement in zero gravity. Their project included features like growing plants without soil, use of pod or auxillary vehicles that run on batteries without any driver. Such pod vehicle are extremely popular at the Heathrow airport.

Their settlement model supports an average population of 3 lakh. In this settlement, the structures will be made up of titanium as it has a high melting point. The project's highlight is an orbital tower— a lift connecting Earth to space (NASA is working on this project). "The construction will start from Geo/middle point between Earth and space settlement. At this point, the orbiting speed of the celestial body is similar to the rotation speed of the Earth," said Chhaunkar.

The invisibility factor (rubbing the magnetic signatures) of the settlement to avoid collision with other celestial bodies and missile attacks was widely appreciated by the jury members.