Two UNL professors receive grants through NASA

Hearing "NASA" immediately conjures up images of rockets blasting off into space or the first lunar landing. But that one small step for man, although considered a giant leap, is still only a single step down the path of space exploration. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration still has a long way to go before it achieves those sci-fi dreams of being able to support life on other planets and traveling to other galaxies.

However, two UNL professors have been awarded grants to help NASA along on its journey.  Shane Farritor, who teaches mechanical engineering, and Erick Jones, who works in the department of industrial and management systems engineering, were both chosen to receive funding for projects that NASA believes have great potential.

NASA's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) awarded only 27 grants. Because two went to UNL professors, Nebraska has the honor of being one of six states to have received two of the three-year grants this year. Each one is $750,000. Before this, Nebraska universities already had four EPSCoR-funded research projects in the works.

As for these projects, they look to be promising.

Farritor and his students will be working hand-in-hand with Dmitry Oleynikov of the University of Nebraska Medical Center to utilize Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery and develop robots that will be able to perform surgery in space. For long missions where astronauts do not have the option of returning to Earth for a medical procedure, this is a vital development.

Farritor is very excited about the project and will be using the money to build prototypes.

Meanwhile, Jones and his students will be pursuing a more efficient way for astronauts to find what they are looking for.

"It costs an astronaut a million dollars a day, I think that's the estimate, so the best use of their day is to do experiments, to do testing in space," Jones said, "Not searching for things like food and clothes."

The plan is to use radio frequency identification, instead of old fashioned barcode scanners, to create a real-time location system.

"We are working on a way for them to do inventory without actually doing inventory," Jones said. "We want them to be able to hit a button and have the inventory be done automatically.

"The technology itself is actually an enhanced version of the chip in the NCard."

This will also help astronauts stay organized, which is more important than most people think.

"In 2005, they didn't know how much food they had and if they had enough to sustain the space station," Jones said. That's why he decided to work on this project.

All in all, Farritor, Jones and their students now have funding for the opportunity of a lifetime, the opportunity to make yet another leap forward for mankind.

And it's "not just for engineering students," as Jones said. Anyone with an interest and commitment is welcome to apply.

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