NASA and the Colonization of Mars
The sun occasionally emits a large piece of its surface at very high velocities into the interplanetary region. These events, call Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs, then sweep out into space. Depending on a variety of initial conditions, the CME might encounter, for example, the Earth. The Earth and its lifeforms have two protective shields against this harmful radiation (called a solar storm) - it has a strong magentic field, and it has a relatively thick atmosphere. Whe the high velocity charged particles encounter the Earth's magnetic field, they experience the Lorenz force, and spiral around the poles. This causes them to collide with molecules in the ionosphere. This in turn causes a cascade of all sorts of other elementary particles. The shower creates a dancing set of lights, called the Aurora Borealis. Unfortunately, these storms also change the properties of the ionosphere, and this in turn alters the path of many types of radio communications. In a worst case scenario, large ground currents can be induced that cause fluctuations in the power grid. Since the grid usually works close to capacity, it can easily be thrown over its limit by such ground current, and the grid can actually turn off or even worse, melt some of its lines. Today we only have about 1 hour of advanced warning before the arrival of such a storm - our research is developing ways to get advance warnings of 2 or more days.
Things are much worse for the moon and Mars - neither of those bodies have magnetic fields of any significance, and little or no atmosphere, so the two protective layers that we have here do not apply there. This means that colonists or visiting astronauts will be directly exposde to potentially lethal doses of radiation. By developing techniques to obtaion early warning, colonists would hopefully have time to take cover in a "safe house" before such a storm arrives at the colony.
There are often research positions for undergrads and grad students on this project - contact me by email at dube@cis.rit.edu.
Optical Catalysis of Methane
Methane is an abundant hydrocarbon whose components could be used as 1) a source for hydrogen needed in fuel cells, 2) as the building block for methanol (a liquid fuel) or 3) as a building block from which longer chain hydrocarbons can be synthesized. According to the EPA, methane gas in the atmosphere has a lifetime anywhere from 9 to 15 years, and is 20 times more potent in trapping heat than CO2. High gain techniques to achieve the conversion of methane to liquid fuels could yield significant benefit by producing clean, low cost fuels and by capturing methane before it is released into the atmosphere. This would have the effect of carbon sequestration (preventing carbon from entering the earth's atmosphere) and would capture a dangerous greenhouse gas by making it non-volatile. This project is based on a concept to use finely tuned light of specific wavelengths to excite the chaining of methane into longer chains without the use of heat or a conventional catalytic surface.
There are often research positions for undergrads and grad students on this project - contact me by email at dube@cis.rit.edu.
Physics-based Computer Security
Computer security is most often based on the use of strong cryptographic algorithms and keys for the encryption and decryption of information. This effort, in conjunction with Digital Authentication Tecnologies, Inc., a partner of RIT's, introduces random processes based in physical phenomena to create keys that are unpredictable and non-repeating. The effort involves a variety of tasks, including work in the radio frequency, statistical analysis, weak signal detection, and programming.
There are often research positions for undergrads and grad students on this project - contact me by email at dube@cis.rit.edu.