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K^2

By K^2
in Science & Spaceflight

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Ultimate Mission?  

104 members have voted

  1. 1. Ultimate Mission?

    • LEO Only - Keep it safe
      55
    • Sun-Earth L1
      5
    • Sun-Earth L2
      1
    • Venus Capture
      14
    • Mars Capture
      23
    • Phobos Mission
      99
    • Jupiter Moons Mission
      14
    • Saturn Moons Mission
      14
    • Interstellar Space
      53

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Aethon

Aethon

Posted
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Cool, stickied. I hadn't seen anything in the regular science labs ( I rarely read stickies ), and wondered.

I have been looking at some 3D printers, but I still haven't looked up how reliable 3D printed plastics would be in space. On the other hand, it's just the thing for mockups and rapid prototyping. So hopefully, by winter, we'll have that option for testing things.

Here's a semi relevant article. NASA is going to 3D print a cubesat sized telescope on the International Space Station.

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-engineer-set-to-complete-first-3-d-printed-space-cameras/index.html#.U-JU-vldUTo

Teleportation is sneaking up on us!

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christok

christok

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Highly relevant Economist article on successful crowdfunding:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/08/spike-lee-and-kickstarter

When we're ready to start the crowdfunding campaign I think we should take a page out of Mr Lee's book and also ask Kickstarter (or whatever other place we use) if our funding goals are realistic and if they have any other comments before we publish it.

Here's a semi relevant article. NASA is going to 3D print a cubesat sized telescope on the International Space Station.

That article doesn't seem to be about garden variety 3D-printed plastics.

Given that consumer grade 3D printers use volatile thermoplastics, I can't imagine the stuff being of any use in a satellite. :(

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Mazon Del

Mazon Del

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As far as 3D printing mockups K^2, if we want 0.1 mm accuracy, I've got two printers that can manage that pretty cheaply. I can even run support material so basically any geometry that we want is possible. My volume currently is restricted to a 5"x"6"x7". Somewhat useful as we'd likely want the mockup to more easily come apart for visualization purposes, but I can also produce the individual plates and such rather than the whole thing as a singular piece. For other resources, I have access to a laser cutter and a CnC mill. I can also do whatever modeling we need (be it from a design drawing or scratch). If there are already cad files for a cubesat, I can import them into my system and try to print something out.

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K^2

K^2

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As far as 3D printing mockups K^2, if we want 0.1 mm accuracy, I've got two printers that can manage that pretty cheaply. I can even run support material so basically any geometry that we want is possible. My volume currently is restricted to a 5"x"6"x7". Somewhat useful as we'd likely want the mockup to more easily come apart for visualization purposes, but I can also produce the individual plates and such rather than the whole thing as a singular piece. For other resources, I have access to a laser cutter and a CnC mill. I can also do whatever modeling we need (be it from a design drawing or scratch). If there are already cad files for a cubesat, I can import them into my system and try to print something out.

Awesome.

What CAD software do you use? And is there a free/inexpensive alternative to start working with? I would like to have ability to design pats in CAD, which would be ready for printing/millilng, but also be able to export them both for use in physics simulation and rendering. If CAD software has ability to build a tessellated version of the part and export it into something import-friendly, like the .obj, that would be ideal. Given a tessellation of a part with constant density, I can easily compute its moments of inertia, and rendering is obviously a snap. Then I can just use something like a simple XML file to "assemble" the parts for the simulation.

Alternatively, I can work with CAD files all the way, but that's going to be a lot more work. Still, it will save a lot of time and tears later.

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Mazon Del

Mazon Del

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I still live next to my old college of WPI and am friends with the students there so I have access to Solidworks for my CAD work. In my opinion it is the best CAD program there is....unfortunately its price reflects that. Several thousand for a yearly license. That said though, if one can somehow gain access to it, with someone there to explain it, it is easily possible to learn how to make just about any mechanical shape in an afternoon (I've taught a few friends). My friends tend to like openscad because it is cheap and capable, though they describe it as "programming a web page in html, except not html, and its a 3D part.". Others are freecad, blender, etc. But I admittedly don't have much experience with those.

Generally speaking most cad programs (be they open source, cheap, or things like Solidworks) have the ability to output in almost any 3D model format. The usual one for printing and such is the .stl format, as the .stl reduces the parts down to a series of triangles, I think it is what you are wanting. That said, if you do manage to get Solidworks it has a bunch of packages in it for things like stress analysis. Solidworks is also capable of (assuming you are good at informing it the densities and metalurgies of the component parts) information like estimated weight, center of mass, etc.

Now, failing to contact Mary Musgrave, I have instead contacted a Biology Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (by the name of Luis Vidali). Here is the response I got (slightly edited) to my email explaining our projects basics and its hoped for goals.

Hi Mazon Del,

This sound like a very interesting project, I will be happy to help you in what I can. Where are you located at the moment?

I work with very small plants (mosses) that are very sensitive to the gravity field. They can detect changes in gravity at the single cell level, and you are correct, very little is known about the 0-1 g forces.

I would suggest using mosses since they are easy to propagate and culture and require simple media.

We can talk some more in the near future. I will be away next week, but I will be happy to talk to you on the phone the week after.

While he's away I told him I'd try to assemble a list of questions to pass along. Any suggestions? Go ahead and restate obvious things like "what type of data should we collect?" just in case I forget anything.

Edited by Mazon Del
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Nicholander

Nicholander

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Yes Majon Del, could you ask Luis Vidali about how much research has been done on bacteria in partial-gravity, and what kinds of bacteria would not negatively effect the mosses. Also, what do you guys think the pressurized area's walls should be made out of, and what shape should it be. (Sorry if it's all ready been answered before in our very long thread, but I think it should be a sort of 3D ovular shape, as I made in my diagram on the previous page)

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Mazon Del

Mazon Del

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For the pressure we are working with, it shouldn't be too much of an issue to just have flat walls. I will see if I can CAD up a model for the idea I have for the plant area.

I will ask about the bacteria, though his primary research has been into the mosses, it is possible he may suggest we intentionally introduce some sort of bacteria that attacks mosses into the chamber at a certain point, to possibly examine how capable the mosses immune / defenses are at low g?

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Mazon Del

Mazon Del

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The real question is if it is possible for us to make useful observations given our mass and space limitations. If we need a microscope on board, it is technically possible to do that, but it gets hard, plus we'd likely need some sort of robot arm, which is quite easy to add, but there are plenty of problems that now crop up.

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christok

christok

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Mazon Del, good work. I think you should ask the Prof. about the following:

- If we chose to go with moss, which species are the most common model species in the field?

- Which introductory text or texts would he recommend?

- Which journals are well-respected in the field? (We should try to read at least some related articles.)

- Are there any good well-known effects of gravity on them (such as size or reproduction rate) that we can try to observe with just a webcam instead of a microscope?

Beyond that, I wouldn't want to add pathogens to the experiment. The size is too small and bacteria are known to grow extremely fast in microgravity, so we are likely to kill the plants. Let's keep in mind that our experiment should test one variable only.

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K^2

K^2

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Any new things or anything? Mazon Del, how's that Email? K^2, how's the sim? christok, got anything to say?

I'm a bit busy with a move right now. I can get the sim done pretty fast, but I need at least a couple of days of mostly uninterrupted free time. I don't think I'll have time to do this properly until early September, but if an opportunity comes up to do this sooner, I will.

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christok

christok

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Hmm... interesting christok. Also, does anyone else here have any programing experience to make a sim?

Programming? Yes. Modelling? Yes. Physics? Not nearly as much.

If K^2 can specify in more detail what he(?) has planned, I could perhaps look into getting it started.

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Mazon Del

Mazon Del

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Status on the email:

I haven't sent the email yet since Luis is out on vacation or something this week. I didn't want to spam him with multiple emails of questions or leave him one to have to dig for. Once he lets me know he is back, I'll send him the email or meet up with him in person.

So right now I'm just writing down everybodies questions for post in one email.

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