I am counting down the hours until I will be taking to the skies. Unfortunately, I will not be aboard a space shuttle, but a Southwest airplane (not that there's anything wrong with Southwest). I've actually never been on an airplane, nor have I been further west than Pittsburgh or further away from home than Boston, so this is sure to be an adventure. Nonetheless, I am very excited and honored to have been granted such an amazing opportunity, and I cannot wait to begin.
I am a rising junior chemistry major with a lifelong fascination of space and an interest in the field of astrochemistry. Last year, my good friend Nick, an engineering major at Penn State, told me about a friend who interned for NASA and encouraged me to apply. (Thanks Nick!) So last winter I began the application at http://www.epo.usra.edu/usrp/, and I submitted it in late January. The application is simple enough; it involves basic information about the applicant, a résumé, an unofficial transcript, a letter of recommendation (thank you Dr. Marsh!), and a few short questions. NASA scientists and engineers (mentors) submit their project plans for approval by the NASA coordinator. Once approved, the mentors select the student or students to whom they would like to extend an internship offer, and the student(s) have one week to accept or decline the offer.
After two pain-stakingly long months of waiting to hear anything related to my application, on the evening of March 17, I received an internship offer. Words can't properly describe the emotions I felt or do justice to the way I reacted, but when my friends had calmed me down enough to call my parents, I was still crying so hysterically that they thought something terrible had happened. I can only hope to not act the same way seven hours from now when I say goodbye to my family and begin this adventure on my own.
Below is the project plan that I received in my offer (I must of course thank my NASA mentor, Dr. Paul Johnson, for choosing to extend this offer to me and granting me the experience of a lifetime).
| Project Title: |
Cryogenic Chemistry Studies of Water Ice Mixtures Germane to Outer Planet Satellites |
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| Description: |
The Voyager, Galileo and Cassini missions of Solar System exploration at the outer planets has provided an amazing yield of scientific results. Among those sets are new, strange and even bizarre observations of the icy bodies that exist there. Global sub-ice oceans, geysers that eject water and carbon-bearing compounds into space, surfaces stained by sulfur and its chemical reaction products and nitrogen materials that may be distributed between Titan and Rhea at Saturn. We are examining photochemical reaction processes with step-wise variable control in order to understand and unravel the nature of the processes active on these bodies and to understand the physical aspects of the water ice surfaces that respond to solar photons and thermal cycling. These very precise, definitive laboratory data will be used to compare laboratory signatures and controlled-variable experiments with spacecraft observations - hopefully elucidating materials present and processes responsible for their existence. Student opportunities exist to work in the laboratory with unique, state-of-the-art investigative equipment that prepares and follows the physical processes and chemical reactions in highly characterized doped water ice layers by utilizing optical and mass spectroscopy. The work environment will be with three scientists whose backgrounds cover cryo-physics and chemistry, UV photochemistry (monoenergetic) and data analysis. The student will be expected to be part of a very active experimental team, designing experiments, acquiring data and working with those data for scientific interpretation. |
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I will specifically be doing research on the possible photolytic formation and destruction of N2O in the N2-rich ices of Neptune's moon Triton and Kuiper Belt Objects using ultra-high vacuum techniques and infrared spectroscopy. I owe my gratitude to Dr. Marsh of the LVC Chemistry Department for asking me to join his research group on a project that has undoubtedly helped me to land this internship. The research that I have done at LVC is similar to that which I will be doing for NASA, and the UHV techniques that I have learned are vital for this new project as well. I'd also like to thank the entire LVC Chemistry Department for preparing me in so many ways for this opportunity. LVC may be a small, private school in rural Pennsylvania, but the quality of the education offered and the opportunities it provides are outstanding.
I'd also like to thank Khevna and Whitney for providing emotional support on March 17 and for being nearly as excited as I was about my internship offer. I'd like to thank all of my friends and my family for encouraging me to do this and for sharing in my excitement. I'd specifically like to thank Chuck for throwing me an awesome going-away party, and Kim for helping, as well as everyone else who was involved. To Rich: A special shout-out and thank you for the idea of doing shout-outs! I also owe my gratitude to Tom Hanrahan, Jasmine Bucher, and Dave Shapiro for helping me to set up this blog.
With that said, I must go and finish packing and try to get some sleep. The next time you hear from me I will be in sunny southern California and I will tell you all about my trip across the country, moving into my room at the California Institute of Technology, and maybe even about my first day at the Jet Propulsion Lab! Thank you for reading and good night!