PISCES 2008 Design Competition Seeks Teams

The Pacific International Space Center for Explorations Systems (PISCES) announces its second annual Student Design Competition and invites team from universities to participate.  Design Competition contributions from student teams are invited in the following areas:

• Overall habitat design (architecture). Teams considering submissions should review last year’s reports, which can be found on the PISCES web site http://pisces.hilo.hawaii.edu/ . (up to two awards will be given)
• Lunar resource utilization. This could include work in finding, extracting and utilizing lunar materials for support of a lunar outpost or for commercial purposes. This is of particular interest to NASA, who is supporting up to three awards in this area. NASA has requested that design studies in this area focus on the problems/solutions for extracting water from deposits in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles.
• Supporting subsystems (life support systems, communications, robotics, energy conversion and power, surface transportation, etc.) that may be simulated in the PISCES environment. (up to two awards)
• Issues of operations in space and on planetary surfaces, such as the conduct of field geology, remote exploration from a planetary base, or problems of human performance and health.(up to two awards)
• Business students are invited to participate by submitting business plans detailing concepts for developing commercial goods or services aligned with a lunar outpost, or with the PISCES simulation facility (up to two awards)

A total of up to six awards will be offered this year. Each award will consist of travel funds to bring two students and a faculty advisor to the PISCES annual conference to be held on the Big Island of Hawaii, November 10-11, 2008. At this conference, the university studies will be presented to the PISCES team and the student teams will be able to observe and participate in further planning of the PISCES program.

A brief indication of interest is requested from university teams by January 31, 2008. This letter should include: team name; university; composition of team (number of graduate and undergraduate members, names, if available), contact information for faculty advisor, and topical area chosen for study. This indication of interest will be used by PISCES to provide technical help to the university team and to coordinate interaction with Japanese teams. No selection of teams will be made at this time; everyone can participate and will receive recognition from PISCES for their participation.  Communication between each team and PISCES at approximately bi-monthly intervals is recommended as the study proceeds.

Learn more about the PISCES program and the 2008 Design competition here:
http://pisces.uhh.hawaii.edu/competitions.php