Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 16, 2015)
Economic Research Laboratory Play Games! Earn Money! Help Science! Participate in our Research! Sign up at: ERL.tamu.edu Questions? erl@tamu.edu Over $65,000 in weekly cash prizes ! (km Food as Greas Prm s? BfSlIS Cftf fifill ElNfOLOSlEO Security - UnHmited Pull Tai>s & Event Tate HO US MOKING SECTION!! Every Thursday is AGGIE NIGHT! Hiw ftee * 2 FR® A«feA Svwraaes! $10.00 - 3/2 mm Fortune* Etectronics TsmUay. Thawesjr, S»lufasy S Sunday 1805 Briarcrest Drive in Bryan Across from Bryan High Doors Open At 5:00 pm, 7 Days A Week (979)776-0999 www.brazosbingo.com Brazos Bingo supports the following charities: Brazos Valley Council on Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Bubba Moore Memorial Group, Inc. College Station Professional Firefighters Association Texas Local 4511, St. Joseph Catholic Church, St. Joseph Catholic School and Scottys House Brazos Valley Child Advocacy Center, Inc. Benefitting the Cephal Ante Pood Bank KINC YmtOWMAN VtE SCRATCH PfTRRY ALIKA BLACK SLATE NEW KINGSTON THE SKATALITES THE SLACKERS _ AUSXMWltCCAlflSt.COM <&«4e tor mere info A ticket^ Advance tkieta now evaStdaie at all Manet K location*. ^ r / Tickets at austinreggaefest.com DONATE PLASMA TODAY* NEW DONORS EARN IN YOUR FIRST 2 DONATIONS TWO LOCATIONS TO DONATE AT! rTcv^fi^ <979)315-4101 I <979) 314-3672 ) Of 4223 Wellborn Rd 700 University Dr E„ Ste 111 Bryan, TX 77801 | College Station, TX 77840 4tJLit3£>ii5Talj^p Online Parking Permit Registration Now - July 7 transport.tamu.edu Just Points Click. Permit. msm I i! II m^rnr TRANSPORTATION SERVICES TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY SCIENCE The Battalion 4.16.15 VIEWS 2 Apollo 13, 45 years later PROVIDED Astronauts and flight controllers deliberate in Mission Control on how best to bring Apollo 13 back home. The lessons from NASA's most trying mission can serve as an example for future spaceflight John Rangel I @johnrangel16 ouston, we have a prob lem...” Every kid on my child hood playground knew the phrase, and it’s one of the most uttered sentences you’ll ever hear when NASA comes up in a conversation. Jim Lovell’s words, however, kicked off one of the scariest, daring and most successful failures modem engineering has witnessed. Apollo 13 failed — at least in its original mission. Fifty-six hours after liftoff on April 11, while Lovell, Haise and Swigert hurtled through the empti ness that separates the Earth and the moon, an oxygen tank exploded on the spacecraft. Warning lights flashed, alarms beeped and the craft rocked. Although it was not immediately appar ent to the three men and to the ground team at Mission Control that supported them, the crew’s supply of breathable air and electrical power was suddenly in danger. The next four days were the most trying times in NASA’s history. They were also among its proudest. Engineering challenges never before encountered had to be solved within a matter of hours. Materials and machines had to be repurposed for uses their original designers never intended. And in a strange twist of fate, one of the most urgent challenges NASA engi neers had to solve was the classic grade- school question of how to fit a square peg into a round hole — to keep the astronauts breathing clean air, a system to fit square air purifiers into a round slot had to be designed on the fly. The answer: duct tape. The failure and success of Apollo 13 unfolded before the world’s eyes 45 years ago, but the example of grace un der pressure that Mission Control and the astronauts exhibited will forever stand as the most inspiring engineering I’ve ever heard of. Three men could have easily died any number of ways — an impact against the moon, a fiery death on re-entry or simply lost to the void of space. The fact that a group of men and women could safely repurpose a spacecraft when they were separated by hundreds of thousands of miles is as inspiring as it gets. It’s been a few decades, but America and the world at large are again peering past low Earth orbit toward our celestial neighbors. Rockets, spacecraft and daring missions are again on drawing boards across NASA, Europe, Russia and China. Men and women will soon venture into the unknown once more, and while success is anticipated, there will always be failure. Hopefully those future failures prove to be as successful as Apollo 13. John Rangel is an aerospace engineering junior and SciTech editor for The Battalion. Astronaut muscle loss leads to student research Kevin Shimkus, doctoral candidate for the Space and Life Sciences Fellowship, researches with a NASA grant the musculoskeletal effects of multiple space- flight missions on astronauts. The Battalion news reporter Cassidy Hudson spoke with Shimkus about his research and work at Texas A&M. Shelby Knowles — THE BATTALION Kevin Shimkus said NASA muscle research could help the elderly as well as AIDs patients. THE BATTALION: What led you to Texas A&M? SHIMKUS: I went to the Rochester Institute of Technology, which is in Rochester, New York. I became more and more excited by physiology. I was pre-med and realized I didn't want to go to med school. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I really started to take an interest in research. I was really fascinated by how muscle works with the tissue. There's a rhyme and a reason why people can put on muscle in the weight room and why it goes away when they stop. It all kind of clicked and made sense for me. I knew I wanted to do muscle work for a grad- program. I knew I wanted to be able to work with space flight. There are not a lot of programs in the country that do muscle- space research, but I found A&M. A&M has a very unique program here. When I graduate, I will have a certificate in space life sciences. THE BATTALION: How did you become involved in research? SHIMKUS: Dr. [Harry] Hogan, [associate professor of engineering], has a large $1 million grant from NASA that looks at the effects of multiple missions of space flight on the bone. We know that when you go to space you are going to lose muscle and lose bone, and it seems that with enough recovery back on Earth, most of those come back. But NASA wanted to know, 'Can you send a veteran back into space or can you send a rookie?' No one was doing anything with the muscles really, so I asked if I could potentially study that and see what would maybe happen with the study. That turned into my dissertation. I have had quite a bit of recognition with some of the work. I have been very fortunate to do a study that would have cost $1 million to do myself, but I was able to get the muscles essentially for free to study. THE BATTALION: What does your research entail? SHIMKUS: I study how we build muscles. One of the techniques that we do is we measure how much muscle a person, or a rat, or mouse, or even a muscle cell in a petri dish grows in a day. We use some very creative science. My lab studies muscle protein synthesis. We are a lab that is dedicated to figuring out what makes muscles grow more or not grow. The NASA research is exciting and it's fun, and it's definitely different, but the thing that is important to say is that the NASA research carries back down to the Earth population. Research that can help maintain muscle for astronauts will also work with aging populations, people with broken legs or people with spinal injuries and are seeing massive losses of muscle mass. Things like cancer and AIDS lead to severe loss of muscle mass, which affect mobility and a person's quality of life. So the NASA research is great, but my long-term goal isn't necessarily space research, but how can we maintain muscle mass in clinical populations or athletes? OPEN HOUSE The Office of the President and the Division of Student Affairs invite you and your family to visit the Campus Homes Saturday April 18, 2015 10 a.m. - 12 noon Light refreshments will be served at both homes
