ESMD Sr. Design Proposals Now Being Accepted

Please go to the following link to find out more about the 2009 ESMD Sr. Design proposal awards available through the Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium. 

Proposals are due to the NVSGC office no later than November 6, 2009.

ESMD Sr.Design Proposal Announcement

Internship Opportunities

The Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium is now accepting industry internship applications for qualified college students across the state, from community colleges to four-year institutions. The program is open to undergraduate and graduate students.

These internships will start at the beginning of the Spring 2010 semester.

Please go the following link to read about this offer and additional student opportunities offered by NASA.

Student Opportunities

Upcoming Events at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Hubble's Top Scientific Discoveries

Robots for Lunar Surface Operations 

Above: Left, the K-10 rover (NASA Ames) is a low-cost rover designed to operate at human interaction speeds; right, Robonaut-B (NASA JSC) is a mobile manipulation system attached to a Segway RMPdifferential-drive base.

For the past five years, NASA has been working to return humans to the Moon. In contrast to Apollo, two key objectives of the current exploration program are to establish surface infrastructure and sustained human presence. This will enable comprehensive, detailed exploration of the Moon. To achieve these objectives, robotic systems will be needed to perform work which cannot, or should not, be performed by humans. Some of this work will be performed in parallel with human activity, but many tasks can be done before and after humans are on the Moon. In his talk, Dr. Fong will summarize how the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group has been developing and field testing "utility robots" for lunar surface operations.

Dr. Terry Fong is the Director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at the NASA Ames Research Center. Prior to this, Dr. Fong was the deputy leader of the Virtual Reality and Active Interfaces Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). From 1997 to 2000, he was Vice President of Development for Fourth Planet, Inc., a developer of real-time visualization software. Dr. Fong has published more than seventy papers in field robotics, human-robot interaction, and virtual reality user interfaces. Dr. Fong received his B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and his Ph.D. in Robotics from CMU.

Location: SEM-234, College of Engineering 

Friday, November 13, at 12:00 p.m.

UNR Host: Dr. George Bebis, Computer Science and Engineering Dept

ESMD Space Grant 2010 Research Paper Competition

Join NASA’s mission to bring us to the moon, Mars and beyond by submitting a research paper on one of the four ESMD topics listed below.  Your research may be used as the solution to current NASA challenges. 

• Open to students who are United States citizens in an undergraduate or graduate studies program
• Students must be in good standing and enrolled full or part-time and attending a college or university in the United States
  
• Papers may be submitted by an individual or team
• Papers that have been previously submitted in other competitions are permitted 

Topics

• Ground Operations
• Lunar and Planetary Surface Systems
• Propulsion
• Spacecraft
  

Four 1st place prizes of $3500 cash scholarships--one for each research topic

The deadline for submitting the research paper is midnight EST January 25, 2010.
Eligibility

For More Information Click HERE

NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate is proud to announce the inaugural Lunar Regolith Excavator Student Competition

Susan Sawyer
E-mail: Susan.G.Sawyer@nasa.gov

NevadaSat: High Altitude Balloon launch from US95 and I-80, September 27, 2009. Photo was taken with a fisheye lens from 107,000 feet. Over 500,000 square miles are shown in the field of view. As a reference, the distance to the horizon is 399 miles at this altitude, which is about 5 times the size of the State of Nevada. The dark blue body of water on the left of the images is Pyramid Lake and the large light area is the Carson Sink (Alkali Flat). The launch was sponsored by the Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium. Photo by Gabe Herz.

Congratulations to Henry Sun at DRI and his Co-investigators at ASU and NASA-ARC on being awarded a NASA NAI Director's Discretionary Fund Award for work on chirality and amino acids.

Lead Investigator/Home Institution/NAI Team Affiliation: Henry Sun, Desert Research Institution/ASU Team
Co-Investigators/Home Institutions: Ariel Anbar, ASU, Chris McKay, NASA ARC

Laboratory experiments will test a new concept for Martian life detection. Chiral preference in organic consumption may distinguish between biological and chemical reactions. Offered D- and L-form of a chiral organic compound, living organisms should select only one for utilization, whereas abiotic redox processes are indiscriminate and would destroy both. 

Proposed experiments with archaea, fungi, and bacteria will define a list of amino acids that are suitable for a chiral experiment on Mars, because not all amino acid species appear to be stereo specific. Necessary analytical capability and a culture collection of extremophiles already exist from an ongoing Exobiology project. This proposal complements existing themes of the ASU team. In particular, it ties to the search for life as we don’t know it on Earth or the “shadow biosphere”. Could it be that some of the microorganisms are unculturable on normal nutrient media because they prefer alternative chirality substrates?

Join the NASA Team!

NASA, the world's leader in space and aeronautics is always seeking outstanding scientists, engineers, and other talented professionals to carry forward the great discovery process that its mission demands. Creativity. Ambition. Teamwork. A sense of daring. And a probing mind. That's what it takes to join NASA, one of the best places to work in the Federal Government.

For links to some fantastic NASA opportunities click here.

Experience NASA

The Ames Education Associates Program is a unique experiential learning program that provides university students and faculty the opportunity to "experience NASA." As an Educational Associate, you will have the opportunity to participate in a project related to one or more of NASA's missions:

* Space Shuttle and International Space Station
* Looking at the Earth
* Exploring our Solar System
* Space Science & Technology
* Deep Space Missions
* Research Aircraft
For more information about this program and who can participate, click here.

Click here to view the list of current positions.