Inside Science, the publication of the American Institute of Physics, and ABC News published an article describing the efforts of a student-led, interdisciplinary collaboration at Drake to design radiation shielding and artificial gravity systems for interplanetary travel.
According to the article, a spaceship bound for Mars carrying passengers would need to provide some kind of radiation shielding in order to protect the people aboard.
That’s where Drake comes in. An undergraduate team of researchers from Drake, with the project name of Magneto-Ionization Spacecraft Shield for Interplanetary Travel, or MISSFIT, is working to calculate the tradeoffs among different engineering solutions for radiation shielding and artificial gravity.
The project team is led by Athanasios Petridis, professor of physics and astronomy. Petridis said the project gives undergraduate physics students valuable experience conducting original research.
The team of students shared their progress on the project the April 2021 meeting of the American Physical Society.
— Julianna Dubin, College of Arts & Sciences