Research
09/15/24:
Prelim Payload Goals/Purpose:
Purpose:
Using the acceleration of the rocket to simulate a high gravity environment to complete an experiment in a unique setting that is hard to achieve under other circumstances
Yeast
- Paper: Microbial growth at hyperaccelerations up to 403,627 × g
- Baker’s yeast: Saccharomyces cerevisiae
- Super high acceleration (lowest in this study was 100 g)
- Less growth under high acceleration
- Some kind of sedimentation effect and concentration gradient in the cells
- Time scale of hours
- Paper: Effects of Low-Shear Modeled Microgravity on Cell Function, Gene Expression, and Phenotype in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
- We have more microgravity than high gravity, microgravity effects might be easier to measure
- Time scale of hours
Yeast is affected by changes in acceleration, but it seems that the time scale required is not realistic for our purposes (rocket launch to touchdown is on the order of 1 minute, the above papers study 10s and 100s of minutes)
Coffee
Materials of Experiment:
- Vessel
- Grounds
- Water
- Testing Equipment
Design Concerns and Considerations:
- Containment:
- Keep grounds + water in container
- Coffee says isolated
- Rocket Orientation/Descent
- Can we continue to contain the experiment-
- Descent rate
- Orientation (upside down, sideways)
- Impact
- Evaluation of Success:
- Semi-immediate results/data
- Heating/Water temp-