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THE Saint Flannan’s College Space Settlement Design team are over the moon having once again proven themselves to be out of this world in an international NASA competition.
The team, made up of five students, have been awarded the highest honour in the NASA Ames Space Settlement Contest beating thousands of entries from around the world.
Fifth year physics students, Adam Downes, Cian Pyne, Naem Haq, Jack O’Connor and Garabhan Monahan now have the opportunity to present their idea at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Washington next month.
After more than a decade of winning major awards in the most senior category of the prestigious international contest they have built on their previous successes and been awarded the the much-coveted Grand Prize.
Their project was judged to be the overall winner from a field of 17,000 participating students who submitted over 3,000 entries. Entries came from 22 countries around the world.
The competition brief is to design an off-world space settlement that should be a great place to live, capable of sustaining a population of over 10,000 people whilst creating an Earth-like environment.
The St Flannan’s students titled their project ‘Mag Mell’, a name which means ‘delightful plain’ and comes from Irish mythology as one of the names of the Celtic Otherworld.
John Conneely, Physics teacher and mentor for the project, explained that the students chose to name their project ‘Mag Mell’ as this year’s entry concentrates on the quality of life aspect of the design brief.
“Their conceptual design places a half-cut rotating torus, in the orbit of the resource-rich dwarf planet Ceres, which is abundantly rich in essential nutrients, has a high rate of rotation and is itself situated in a region of almost unlimited resources – the asteroid belt.”
The interior of the settlement incorporates major design elements of Toyota’s ‘woven city’, a prototype “city” of the future to be built on a 175-acre site at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan by the car giant.
There is a major emphasis on transport within the settlement via powered vehicles, pedal bicycles, with pedestrian only paths.
The transport theme is also developed with a lift system and a central hub designed so that it can rotate at different rates to the main settlement areas.
The settlement even has a film studio and a zero gravity leisure and sports area.
The team are now in line to receive the Herman Rubin memorial scholarship of $5,000, which is contingent on them giving a talk/presentation of their project at this year’s keynote event at the ISDC on May 29.
Previous attendees at this event have included, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and the event is attended by Space Industry leaders and NASA scientists and Engineers.
Mr Conneely said the staff and students are delighted with the fantastic success of this team and fundraising now begins to allow attendance at the ISDC, conference in Washington DC.
“This is an incredible achievement.”
Student Adam Downes said that the students, “are grateful for this opportunity and are very excited. We can’t wait for the ISDC in May.”
Mr Conneely added the Science Department of St Flannan’s would like to voice their appreciation for the “vision and huge amount of work” done by Michael Horgan in initiating the college’s involvement in the NASA Ames competition, enjoying much success.
Mr Horgan retired last year, but maintains an active involvement in the contest.
Mr Conneely who took over the running of the project several years ago, particularly thanked him for “laying the foundations of this great win and to thank science teachers, Mr Ryan, Ms Noonan, Ms Scully and Ms Considine for assisting with projects over the years.”
