Five Carthage College students participated in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Systems Engineering Opportunity program this spring. The Carthage students were one of 10 teams of students chosen from nearly 100 applicant teams to go to Houston.

The five Carthage students chosen were Isa Fritz, Kenosha; Brad Frye, Spring Grove, Ill.; Erin Martin, Lemont, Ill.; Caitlin Pennington, Caledonia, Ill.; and Emily Sorensen, Kenosha. Fritz and Frye are sophomores, the other students are juniors.

“It was certainly a very interesting experience,” says Brad. “It was really cool to see where NASA works, and we were treated like VIPs, so we got to see places most people don’t go.”

Brad says he was able to take special behind the scenes tours at the Johnson Space Center, including visits to mission control centers for the Apollo and space station missions.

“I found it to be an awe-inspiring, amazing experience,” says Isa. “It was amazing to work with NASA. You hear about how intelligent they are, and never think you’ll be able to join them.”

The five Carthage physics majors’ assignment was to assess the efficiency of a device used to filter out lunar dust.

“I never had to design and build something before,” says Emily. “There are bumps along the way, to me it was fun fixing those problems and finding something that would work. I’m going into engineering and this whole program made me realize this is what I want to do.”

Lunar dust “causes health problems and messes up machinery,” says Kevin Crosby, associate professor of physics at Carthage. “This lunar dust is very fine, it’s everywhere, and Apollo astronauts had a real problem with it. The particles are so small, they can get right into lung tissues.”

But, Prof. Crosby explains, traditional filters won’t work on the lunar surface, and it would be impossible to build structures there without solving the problem.

Prof. Crosby designed a filtration device, and the five students built it.

Emily says the five students would “brainstorm as a team, come up with ideas and pick the best one.”

Brad says he and his colleagues “had a lot to do, and worked hours each day building the rig. I’d say it was worth it, I learned a lot.”

Students spent 10 days at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“We had to tell them all about our project, any safety issues, and what we’d do to prevent anything bad from happening” Erin recalls. “It was pretty intense. Every day, we had to be prepared for the worst, and hope for the best.”

The highlight of the trip was two flights to an altitude of 39,000 feet, aboard a plane that provides a reduced-gravity environment, similar to that found in space. Describing parabolic maneuvers on the flights, Prof. Crosby says that “the plane just sort of drops out of the sky for three miles. It’s indescribable, the first time you experience weightlessness.”

Isa says she “asked one of the flight crew if they could spin me around at zero gravity. I’d seen astronauts spinning and twirling, and I always wondered what it would feel like.”

Erin recalls that “we only had about 30 seconds of lunar gravity to test our experiment. It was the strangest feeling. I almost hit the ceiling, and you felt so much strength in your body.“ But she cautions that “if you turn your head too much, you’ll get sick.”

At zero gravity, the Carthage junior adds, “you have no control. You feel like you’re swimming, but there’s no friction. You get disoriented, because you’re not used to being able to walk on the ceiling.”

While in Houston, Erin also met an astronaut, and undertook a test of her ability to function in a low-oxygen environment.

“I was breathing really heavily,” she says, and found herself unable to answer simple questions.

At Houston, most of the other teams were engineering students from much larger schools. Prof. Crosby feels Carthage’s presence was a tribute to the College’s physics program.

“We have probably one of the most vibrant physics departments in the country for schools of our size,” he says.

Emily, who is completing her third year at Carthage, is participating in a special five-year program for engineering students. Starting this fall she will attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison for two years. After two years, she will receive a bachelor of arts degree from Carthage, and a bachelor of science in engineering from UW-Madison.

She says she will miss Carthage.

“When I came I knew the school had a good physics program,” she said. “I see professors on a daily basis, whether I have a class with them or not.”

Caitlin says she plans to pursue a graduate degree in engineering. She says she is glad she chose Carthage because attending a smaller school gave her more options for studies.

“I’ve always wanted to work for NASA,” Caitlin adds. “If I can’t be an astronaut, I’d like to support them in their mission. I was really impressed by how enthusiastic everyone was about their jobs.”