DEEP THINKING ABOUT DEEP SPACE

NASA is mining the rich fields of knowledge and creativity in the minds of university students to improve living and working conditions in space.

Five university teams are in the final stages of yearlong projects to develop ideas that might one day be used by NASA for space habitats such as the International Space Station, and for deep-space exploration missions. Their efforts are being undertaken as part of the the agency's 2015 X-Hab (Exploration Habitat) Academic Innovation Challenge, the goal of which is to tap into the knowledge and creativity of university students for possible improvements in how human occupation and exploration of space is carried out.

X-Hab projects are required to be undertaken as part of a two-semester design course at a university. The five teams and the names of their projects are:

University of Colorado Boulder: Deployable Greenhouse for Food Production

Oklahoma State University: Deployable Greenhouse for Food Production on Long-Duration Exploration Missions

University of South Alabama: Development of a Volumetric Adsorption System for CO₂ and H₂O Multicomponent Isotherm Measurements

University of Vermont: Design of a “Smart-Structure” Deployable Airlock

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Design of a Carbon-fiber/Fused Deposition Modeling Spacecraft Structural Fabrication System