Though they haven’t had to resort to bake sales yet to make up for the money they’re not getting from the Bush Administration, the folks at NASA have come up with a program they’ve entitled “Centennial Challenges” to open up the design of space-going technology to people outside of the aerospace industry.
Some of the challenges are BIG, like designing a new moon lander for the Ares Program that will take us back to the Moon by 2020. Some of the challenges are a little more modest, but critical to missions, such as spacewalk tethers and moon rock excavation.
So far, the only challenge that has produced a winning design is the Astronaut Glove challenge. The winner is an engineer who lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine, and the glove he came up with offers improved flexibility and requires less hand strength for the astronaut to manipulate. Best of all, he designed it using all off-the-shelves materials, including a pair of surgical gloves he picked up from eBay. Mainers are nothing if not frugal.
Comments:
Maybe Marden’s would be willing to provide corporate sponsorship.
Posted by Tony [URL] on 05/16/07
