2/4/2000
AU STUDENTS TO FLY ON NASA'S KC-135 TO TEST EQUIPMENT DESIGN
AUBURN -- While most Auburn University students will be attending classes on the Plains next week, four senior industrial design students will be high above the clouds in a NASA jet testing an AU design for use on the international space station.
The four students will fly Feb. 8-11 on the space agency's infamous "Vomit Comet" at Johnson Space Center in Houston to videotape and test a belly pack, designed by AU student Chris Barrs of Tampa, Fla.
The belly pack is a wearable, hands-free storage device that holds a laptop computer and other tools and equipment used by astronauts.
Barrs, along with Alison Whitehead of Dalton, Ga., Hans Nutz of Greenville, S.C. and Nathan Preg of Ballwin, Mo., will fly aboard the KC-135, which simulates zero gravity, in groups of two to test the belly pack and videotape how it will be used on the space station.
The AU students, along with National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel, will be the only people on the plane.
Once refinements are made after determining how the belly pack works in a space-like environment, NASA expects to have individual packs for each space station crew member ready by the end of the year.
The AU project for NASA started last year as a class project of junior-level industrial design students. They were asked by officials at Marshall Space Flight Center to design a temporary storage system for astronauts so they can have a place to keep equipment close at hand while working on experiments aboard the international space station.
From an initial 300 design concepts, NASA and AU officials narrowed down the designs to 72, then to 12 and finally to Barrs' belly pack.
Officials at Marshall Space Flight Center were so impressed with Barrs' design that he spent this past summer interning at the Huntsville- based center refining his design and developing the first prototype. In the past few months, he constructed another belly pack from input he received from NASA.
Barrs says the experience -- both in the classroom and at NASA - - has been a dream.
"I could not be more excited about flying in the KC-139," says Barrs. "I grew up watching the space program and I could see the shuttle lift off from my house, so to have the opportunity to have put a little piece of my effort onto the space station is phenomenal. I wouldn't have thought this would ever happen."
Bret Smith, a professor of industrial design in AU's College of Architecture, Design and Construction, has overseen the project from its conception. He and Laura Prange, an associate professor of industrial design, will accompany the students to Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston.
Smith says once the students return to Auburn, Whitehead, Nutz and Preg will develop a multi-media CD to give to NASA officials and astronauts to show them exactly how to use the belly pack.
"The students will design an interactive multi-media training CD to show how the belly pack works as well as show the collaboration between our industrial design program and NASA," he said.
David Reynolds, a visual information specialist with the Payload Operations Engineering Team in the Operations Development Group at Marshall Space Flight Center, says the belly pack will allow space station crew members "to move hands free, which is important when in a micro- gravity environment."
He says crew members of the space station have viewed Barrs' design and were impressed. "They've seen the concept and equipment and they are thrilled to see that it will be available on board."
Reynolds, a graduate of AU, says NASA's association with AU has been great. "What we get from Auburn is an enormous number of ideas and concepts. We are thrilled and think Auburn is too."
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CONTACT: Reynolds, 256/544-4579. Smith, Prange and the students will be staying at the Wesley Inn and Suites near Johnson Space Flight Center, at 281/338-7711.
(NOTE TO EDITORS: The Auburn group will return to campus Feb. 14)