1997-98
NEW MEXICO
HIGH SCHOOL
SUPERCOMPUTING CHALLENGE

TEAM ABSTRACT

Team Number:

084

School Name:

Navajo Preparatory School

Area of Science:

Engineering

Project Title:

Efficient Space Travel

Many scientists have studied the field of space travel for hundreds of years. Advancements have been made for our scientists to travel to space and visit our neighboring planets. In order to get where they want, they have been using spacecraft that rely on liquid fueled rockets to propel themselves through space.

This is a major impediment to space travel since the rocket must carry both cargo and it's own fuel: a huge amount of the fuel is needed to go short distances. Now engineers in the aerospace propulsion field are trying to come up with new ideas and developments in order to go beyond the current boundaries of the current propulsion fuels and systems.

After taking this into consideration, our team has devised a possible idea of how it could be done. Our idea is to compare and contrast different forms of nuclear energy, and other forms as well to the greatly inefficient liquid propelled rockets. The ways that we wish to compare the efficiency of the fuels is the thrust produced by the amount of energy it produces, and the amount needed to run the ships' systems.

With the ideas that the team has, we would like to use the super computer to data crunch information to see if it is possible to do such a thing. We also would like to learn more on these topics. The model we hope to program will enable us to move to another level in space travel efficiency.

Team Members:

• Terry Nelson
• Lisa Jones
• Sheryl Begaye
• Angelita Darwin
• Ephraim Anderson

Sponsoring Teacher(s):

• Suzanne Conrad
• Shane Gallagher

Project Advisor(s):

• Dr. Westphal