"Coming out of high school, I never would have guessed that within four years I would be invited to a NASA research facility," said Tim Swets.
But Tim and six fellow mechanical engineering students at MSOE met with engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., after their group project caught the space agency's attention.
"When I was in high school, I would have laughed at somebody who said that would be me in three or four years," said Tim, who is from Walworth, Wis.
Beyond the excitement of having met NASA engineers, team member Chris Edwards, from Mercer, Wis., saw the practical side of the trip as well. "It gave us a chance to get our names into the engineering community on a rather large scale project."
Their project, a thermal power plant that could help humans live on the moon, was not without its share of challenges due to its uniqueness.
"No one has ever done this before. There is no base on the moon. There is no power plant. You have to get yourself away from thinking about things that would work here on earth ... we're thinking about the conditions on the moon from the vacuum, to lower temperature and gravity. It's always thinking outside the box," Tim added.
A self-sustaining power plant is necessary for a continuously inhabited lunar base to exist. Because a moon base would likely be located at one of the lunar poles, the group explored using a heat engine to generate electrical power. This technology would make the most of the huge temperature variation between the deep, perpetually shaded craters such as Peary near the North Pole or Shackleton in the south, and the rims which receive direct sunlight.
"With solar power you collect sunlight and use an electrode reaction to generate electricity," explained MSOE team member Jeff Reiter, a native of Austin, Texas. "Basically, what we're doing, is we're collecting and focusing the thermal energy from the sun to heat up a pipe filled with liquid to boil it."
The main benefit is the efficiency; solar yields only about 10-15 percent while the thermal power system could yield more than 40 percent.
The team and their professor collaborated throughout their senior year, taking what they learned in the classroom and labs and putting it into practice. The final project included the prototype, along with various descriptions of next steps and benefits of different liquids to heat, such as carbon monoxide and dioxide or propane.
Tim summed up the experience: "Five or 10 years from now, if they're putting this thing up there, we can all say, ‘I worked on that my senior year of college.'"