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Space Junkie QUality And SAfety in Radiation Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering services ranging from: Clinical Quality Assurance support for Therapeutic, Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine centres Q U A S Development of Radiation Protection policies and procedures when utilizing Ionizing Radiation A R Medical Technology Consultations Audit Services Medical Surveillance Dose Registry and lots more! #3 Eastern Main Road, Tunapuna Trinidad, W.I. | P: (868) 782 1585 | E: quasar@gmail.com the-intellectual-magazine.com Dr. William (“Bill”) Schonberg is a professor of engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri. He received his B.S. degree from Princeton University and his M.S. and PhD degrees from Northwestern University. Dr. Schonberg has been active in teaching and research for over 30 years. The majority of his research endeavors have been directed at studying the phenomena associated with high speed impact of space debris particles and designing protective systems for spacecraft operating in low earth orbit. 8 Image courtesy NASA via Wikimedia Commons intellectual-magazine-issue5Final.indd 8 10/2/2016 2:23:12 PM
Q: A: Did you always know you wanted to be a space junk specialist or is it something that happened by chance? Well, I have always been a space junkie, that’s for sure. I remember watching the Gemini, Apollo launches and moon landings. And then my first university position was at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, just 6 miles away from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center – it was like being a kid in a candy store! All the cool stuff they had going on there – I wanted to see it all! As I met the scientists and engineers who work there, the gentleman in charge of the high speed impact testing facility gave me a chance to work at the facility for a few summers collecting and analyzing the data that they had generated. And the rest is history – I’ve been working with space junk ever since then! Q: A: How much junk do you estimate is up there? The simple answer is, A LOT. But, not all of it is the same size. Or poses the same threat. There are a few hundred REALLY BIG pieces, but we are keeping good track of them so we can avoid them if we ever see them coming at us. Then there are about 15,000- 20,000 pieces the size of a cricket ball or so. Those are pretty dangerous – if one of them were to hit the space station, that would be a really bad day for our astronauts. Finally, there are several hundred million pieces the size of a sand grain or smaller. It would be easy to dismiss those, but NASA has shown that something the size of a sand grain can put a hole in a spacesuit … or break a telescope mirror. So depending on what gets hit, even something the size of a piece of sand can ruin it, if not completely destroy it, or worse. Q: What is it that you specifically work on? A: Q: A: I’ve been lucky to work on lots of different problems and programs for NASA, ranging from the Space Station to the Space Shuttle to the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and even some satellites that NASA is currently working on. The underlying theme in all my work has been how to increase the safety of human (as well as robotic) spacecraft and space operations. After all, we have to remember that those astronauts are our children, spouses, partners, friends, colleagues – we need to do everything we can to make it as safe as possible up there for them. Right now I’m working on a couple of projects that will hopefully give NASA better design equations for fuel tanks on spacecraft so that they won’t necessarily explode if they are hit by a piece of space junk, even if they are still full of fuel – it’s a pretty complicated problem, that’s for sure! How serious is this problem as we continue to expand our space programme? It continues to be a very serious problem, and if we don’t do something about it, or if we’re not smarter about how we build and fly our spacecraft, it might begin to keep us from going into space as much as we want to. Films like Wall-e and Gravity, and even some computer games have recently shown us some very scary possible futures. And while some of the physics may not be exactly right, the message is spot-on: we must be smart about how we build our spacecraft, and we must clean up after ourselves! Q: A: Simulation of space debris in low earth orbit By NASA Has the International Space Station (ISS) been hit by space junk? Yes. All the time, even. But, it’s usually by teeny-tiny pieces so we probably may have not even noticed it. There have been some close calls, though, when the ISS astronauts have had to hunker down in the Soyuz escape vehicle with a finger on the escape button because of a sizeable piece of debris that was predicted to come pretty close to the ISS. Luckily for everyone one up there and down here it passed by without incident. But these close calls are becoming more and more frequent, unfortunately. Before the Shuttle retired, it, too, had to maneuver several times out of the way of some fairly large debris that was thought to possibly end up a little too close for comfort. ARTS INCLUSIVE LEARNING CENTER Corner Busche Street and Mc Donell Street Curepe Tel: 755-7197 arislearning@gmail.com www.wix.com/ari2009/school NOW ENROLLING STUDENTS OF ALL AGES from 4yrs FULL TIME: Mon-Fri 8:30AM...2:30PM Specialized Staff Individual Attention Given ALSO EVENING CLASSES LEVELS: Infants to SEA (Std 1-Std5) & Form 1 SUBJECTS: Mathematics, English, Reading/ Comprehension, Creative Writing, SEA Preparation, Reading WE OFFER SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AND INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION TO ALL OUR STUDENTS FROM PRE-SCHOOL TO SECONDARY LEVEL...WE CATER FOR STUDENTS WITH LEARNING/READING DIFFICULTIES, AUTISM AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL DELAYS. Adult literacy classes Educational assessment Educational consultancy and councelling SMALL CLASSES QUALIFIED TEACHERS EXTRA CURRICULA ACTIVITES REGISTER NOW.........LIMITED SPACE 9 the-intellectual-magazine.com intellectual-magazine-issue5Final.indd 9 10/2/2016 2:23:32 PM
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