A team of seven undergraduate engineering and business students from the University of Colorado at Â鶹¹ÙÍø has been selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to help draft a business plan for the future human exploration of Mars.
The students wrote a proposal that was one of six selected in the NASA Means Business Student Competition to become part of the agency's strategic plan for Mars.
The students' plan addresses corporate investment and public outreach goals. Specific objectives include developing a framework for soliciting corporate investments through technology spin-offs; creating an approach for NASA to use corporate sponsorships to gain general public exposure; and providing recommendations on how NASA can build support among the next generation of taxpayers through the public schools and outreach to college students.
The team will receive a $1,000 cash award from NASA, a travel grant to Johnson Space Center in Houston to present their work to NASA and the general public on May 24-26, and international recognition for their contributions to NASA's Mars exploration planning effort.
Students making up the CU-Â鶹¹ÙÍø team are William Pratt, junior, aerospace engineering; Meredith Larson, sophomore, aerospace engineering; Wendi Pickett, sophomore, aerospace engineering; DeAnn Redlin, sophomore, aerospace engineering; Jason Heddings, junior, computer science and applied mathematics; Sheah Pirnack, junior, aerospace engineering; and Adam Thede, sophomore, applied math and business finance.
Officials from Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver have supported the students in developing the proposal, and Associate Professor Lee Peterson is the primary faculty adviser.
The students believe commercial and public support will be essential to financing the human exploration of Mars, a project that some experts predict could cost as much as $40 billion.
"There's a lot of technology that already has been developed to enable NASA to go to Mars," said team co-leader Meredith Larson. "But unless they can generate some excitement about it, it's not going to fly."
In addition to soliciting corporate investments to help pay for the mission, the students' plan involves stimulating public interest by publicizing the array of products that can be derived using space technology in medical applications, energy production, propulsion systems, communication and computation, and improved materials.
The students also see educating young people about the potential of Mars exploration as critical, noting in their proposal that, "The children of today are the taxpayers of tomorrow."
"The Apollo program inspired and motivated the generation of that time. Mars is Our Moon and sending humans to Mars will inspire and motivate our generation in the same way," the students wrote.
NASA also selected student teams from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Maryland to develop portions of the plan.