Thesis Proposal Presentation by Brittany Zimmerman
Space Studies master’s student, Brittany Zimmerman, will give her thesis proposal presentation as follows. All Space Studies students, faculty and staff are encouraged to attend.
When: Friday, January 15th at 3:30 PM
Where: Ryan Hall, Room 111
Title: Development of Optimized Life Support Structure (Plant Biomass Production Module) for Long-Duration Planetary Exploratory Habitation in Space
About the topic: Regeneration of life support commodities (breathable air, drinking water and food) is the most critical element of any long-duration manned space mission architecture. In this topic proposal presentation basic configurations for ‘plant biomass conveyor’ will be considered in terms of metabolic sustenance for human subjects in an ecologically closed life support environment. Preliminary analysis will be provided for autonomous manned missions based on integration between “re-supply”, “physical-chemical regeneration”, “bio-regenerative”, and “In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU)” approaches in order to achieve minimum payload mass, minimum use of costly re-supply missions, maximum possible efficiency for recycling of primary life support commodities, and maximum possible reliability and self-sufficiency to crewmembers on remote outposts. Important limitations will be identified for missions of different durations and levels of technological progress needed for maintenance of man-made life support environments.
About the presenter: Brittany Zimmerman received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) in 2011. During her time at MSOE she was also involved in numerous extracurricular club and sport related activities, tutored students in mathematics, sciences, and reading skills in the inner-city school and neighboring college.
Following graduation, she took a position as an Aerospace Systems Engineer with Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Brittany was part of the Systems and Integration Team for Proline Fusion avionics packages working on integration of fully-functioning replicas of Bombardier cockpits. During her time at Rockwell, Brittany continued her very active outreach, international teams training and community related work volunteering in STEM educational outreach and being an activist in numerous local space and science related enterprises and events.
Brittany is currently finalizing her MS Thesis project through literature review in ecology of closed environments and bio-spherics, development of formal descriptions for ‘plant conveyor’ structures and configurations, and analyzing number of tests for preliminary estimates of critical plant photosynthesis as well as growth characteristics. On campus she serves as VP of the Dakota Space Studies student group through which she engages students and members of the community in science and space. Brittany is also the Technical Team Lead for the NASA Student Launch Competition for which she helps design and build a rocket to be launched in April 2016 in Huntsville, Alabama. Additionally, she works as a research assistant for Dr. Pablo de León and Dr. Vadim Rygalov helping to develop the greenhouse module for the Inflatable Lunar/Martian Habitat.
This presentation will not be available as a webcast.