Astrocamp 2014

Astrocamp 2014

with-The Chicks

Another challenge would be getting there. We will have to have enough fuel, food, people to get us there, and water. To solve these challenges we could...

- figure out a fuel and water recycling system

-have many generations of people

-have some sort of biosphere to provide oxygen and enough food for so many generations

Some of the greatest challenges we will face while in space, and preparing for space are...

finding a suitable planet

-it must have an atmosphere(with oxygen)

-it can't be to hot, or too cold

-it needs gravity

-it must have a light source

WHY ARE WE EXPLORING SPACE?

We're Exploring Space Because....

We are naturally curious, space is one of the last frontiers that has not been explored, space is always changing and expanding, and we also want to find a new planet before Earth becomes inhabitable.

"Astrocamp 2014"

Paige James

Katherine Reisig

Nutritional Change

Hi, my name is Paige. I am from Wheat land, WY. I represent our medical personel on our fight. I have an interest in the medical field. I also have very good problem solving skills.

Hi, I'm Katherine, I like to play softball, do artistic things, and read as much as I can. My favorite subject is math because things have solid answers and are either right or wrong-no debate.

We have made many nutritional changes in the last 10 days. For example when "The Chicks" first started we had a little less then a pound of food waste, but now "The Chicks " have no food waste. This will help us in space because in space there can be no waste.

Misty and Katey

"our counselors"

Austyn Tuttle

Samantha Espinoza

Who is going?

Hi my name is Austyn. I come from Hanna, WY. I enjoy playing basketball and many other sports. I love swimming as well. I also enjoy playing my flute. When I grow up I want to be a veterinarian. If I am ever on a space shuttle I would be the pilot.

Hi my name is Samantha and I enjoy playing basketball and running. During my free time I also enjoy working with art. During a spaceship mission I would be the scientist and do all the testing to see if there is life on that planet.

This year, the astrocamp's "mission" or theme was brainstorming and discovering ways to find and travel to a habitable planet for humans. Our group consists of Markie Whitney,12, Austyn Tuttle,12, Paige James, 11, Katherine Reisig, 12, Samantha Espinoza, 13, and Sydney Brown, 13, and our camp counselors, Misty O' Lexey and Katey Van Hooser.

Sydney Brown

Markie Whitney

Water Purification System

Hi I'm Markie Whitney I enjoy astronomy and I love to swim. I also like playing baseball. I'm from Newcastle, WY. On a space shuttle I would be an engineer

Hi, my name is Sydney. I am from Chadron, NE. I have an interest in algebra and biological science. I would represent the data collector and reseacher of our mission.

We, as humans, require water. On a new planet, we would have test and purify water to make sure it is safe to drink. During camp, we got to create our own water purification systems. Our materials included:

• hot plate
• coffee filters
• iodine
• activated carbon
• cotton balls
• sand
• rocks (pebbles)
• acid (vinegar)
• base (baking soda)
• paper cup
• plastic cups

We first tested dirty water, then we sent the dirty water through our filtration systems. The tests we used were

• pH
• turbidity
• view under microscope

Our goal was to make the water drinkable.

Hiking on a New Planet

We took a hike to a very rocky and different environment right outside of Laramie, WY. This crazy area is known as Vedauwoo. We used this out-of-the-ordinary place to represent our alien planet. Our goals were to find out if the area was habitable for human life, how many humans could live there and for how long. Our results were: little water, small amounts of food. However, there was a lot of shelter. Whether humans could live there or not is debatable, due to the opinions of people. There was plenty of space, a lot of air and few other people, again, very con traversal.

A night at the observatory

Paige and Sydney

Rocket Launches

One night, we traveled to a place not-so-far-away to explore the universe. We went to Red Buttes Observatory. Campers were able to take a photo of a star that they picked out with the observatory's telescope. Then we took pictures (seen at right) of our stars. These stars must be ideal for visiting.

Katherine and Austin

Sammy and Markie

We were able to make rockets and launch them during one of the first days of camp. We talked about areodynamics and variables in flight. Our variables were the following:

• weather
• animals (birds)
• weight of the rocket
• shape
• length
• trees
• amount of times that we pumped the air compressor

We were also able to make adjustments and re-launch

How much oxygen would we need for our space flight?

Testing for signs of life

On Earth we have several ways of testing for life. The ones we used were...

For this question we have no definate answer, as it depends on how far you need to go, how much oxygen you will use. For example if it we're just the six of us on the space ship and our space flight was 73,000 years long(which isn't even close to reaching the nearest star!) we would use over 1,183,739,340,000 liters of oxygen. There is no plausible way to carry this much oxygen which is why we would need to find a way to recycle oxygen.

Ninhydrin

we used this to test for protein in the soil.

A microscope.

We used this to search for small organisms in soil samples we collected.

Iodine.

We used this to test for starch(plant life)

A petri dish

We used this to see if our soil had bacteria

These are several methods we would use to see if our new planet had life

Mars Lander Challenge

Team: Paige, Markie, and Sydney

Team: A.S.K (Amazing, Scientific, Knowledge)

A sustainable Biosphere

Final Score: 154.3

Money Spent: $38

Time of Descent: .72 sec.

Target: Inside Target

Final Score: 102.95

Money Spent: $78

Time of decent: 1.13 sec.

Target: 64 cm. off.

.

A sustainable biosphere is a place where organisms are able to support theirselves without any outside help.

Two teams in our group took the challenge of building a spacecraft that would be able to land perfectly and help reduce acceleration of drop-off. However both teams only had 35 minutes to build and test with only $100 worth of supplies.

After 6 days all the aquatic organisms survived and grew. How ever at the same time all the red worms died and only 7 mustard seeds survived and grew.

When we started our biosphere consisted of:

- 3 Ghost shrimp

- 1 Snail

- 1 Chara

- 1 Cabomba

- 7 Red worms

- 12 Mustard plant seeds

Choosing A Star

We have to find a star that is suitable for human life. It can't be to bright or to dim. We need to find a "G" star because the sun is a "G" star. We can find the star by its wave length (angstroms). A "G" star's life time in years is 13,000,000,000. It's surface temperature is 4900-6000 Kelvin.