Iowa Space Grant Consortium

Announcements

ISGC’s Gonzalez-Torres will be Story Collider presenter October 16

Tomas Gonzalez-Torres
Tomas Gonzalez-Torres

Department of Aerospace Engineering lecturer and director of the Iowa Space Grant Consortium Tomas Gonzalez-Torres will be a featured presenter when The Story Collider comes to Iowa State University.

With a goal of presenting the human side of science, The Story Collider is a nonprofit organization dedicated to telling true, personal stories about science through a series of live shows and podcasts involving various individuals from many backgrounds, including scientists and education professionals.

Gonzalez-Torres will relate a story under the theme of “Fields of Opportunities,” the name of the show at Iowa State. He will join three other individuals who are part of the university Oct. 16 at 8 p.m. at the Maintenance Shop, Memorial Union, as they tell stories of seeking, finding and losing new opportunities in science.

Gonzalez-Torres, a native of Puerto Rico who grew up in Iowa, received a B.S. in aerospace engineering from Iowa State in 1998 and went on to a distinguished career with NASA. He served as Flight Director for four years, earning the prestigious NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for his exceptional performance as head of an International Space Station Expedition. He worked missions involving the assembly of the International Space Station and repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope, where he was the lead spacewalk officer. He led four space station expedition space walks. He left NASA in 2016 to move back to Iowa and be closer to his family.

He was named the director of the Iowa Space Grant Consortium at Iowa State University in 2018.

Admission to The Story Collider event is free, but requires advance registration. Click here for more information about The Story Collider.

Student opportunity with NASA buoyancy lab design challenge

NASA is continuing a student engineering opportunity at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL).

Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams, or Micro-g NExT, challenges students to design and build prototypes of spacewalk tools and then travel to Houston to test their prototypes in the simulated microgravity environment of NASA’s 6.2 million gallon indoor pool – the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), where astronauts train for spacewalks.

Through this activity, the NBL is open to students for hands-on engineering design. Advisors and mentors are encouraged to have students apply for Micro-g NExT. The proposal deadline is November 1, 2018.

NASA Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory

For tips on how to submit a successful proposal, join the Micro-g NExT Coordinator for an online information session. Information sessions are available at https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov during these upcoming times:

  • September 20, 2018, 6p.m. Central Time
  • October 1, 2018 at 6p.m. Central Time

Learn more at https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/about-micro-g-next.cfm

Call for proposals open for NASA’s RASC-AL student competition

NASA’s Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) has released a call for proposals for its 2019 competition.

The RASC-AL Competition is a collegiate-level engineering design challenge that allows students to incorporate their coursework into real aerospace design concepts and work together in a team environment. It is one of NASA’s long-running and most robust student competitions.

Four different themes are available for submissions. Interested students and their advisors should submit an online notice of intent by October 15, 2018, and proposals and videos by January 17, 2019. Details are available here.

UNI-NASA Connection event September 24

Be an insider when the “UNI-NASA Connection” comes to the University of Northern Iowa September 24. The event will showcase Iowa Space Grant Consortium (ISGC) and NASA opportunities for educators and researchers, especially those involved with STEM-related curriculum.

The event will be held in the Maucker Union Elm Room, 3:30-4:30 p.m.  It will feature new Iowa Space Grant Consortium director Tomas Gonzalez-Torres, former NASA Mission Control Flight Director and now lecturer in Iowa State University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering; and Nina Jocic, an Iowa Space Grant Consortium undergraduate research fellow from UNI.

No R.S.V.P required. See an event flyer here.

All systems “go” for 2018 Spaceflight Operations Workshop

Spaceflight Operations Workshop ActivitiesWith funding support from the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, the 2018 Spaceflight Operations Workshop with the Iowa State University Department of Aerospace Engineering will begin August 3.

Thinking and acting like an astronaut will soon become daily life for a group of undergraduate students who are about to embark on an unforgettable journey with the Department of Aerospace Engineering’s 2018 Spaceflight Operations Workshop.

The program, in its fifth year, will run from August 3-13, and will immerse participants in a series of experiences and classroom activities that are a microcosm of the training NASA astronauts undergo to develop “operational thinking” necessary for space exploration.

Retired NASA astronaut, Iowa State alumnus and Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Clayton Anderson, who developed and manages the program, says “Spaceflight Operations is a concept – it’s a thought process. When you live and works as an astronaut, you think in an operational sense. The idea with this workshop is to change the students’ way of thinking – to open their eyes to a way to think more operationally.”

Read the full story here.