The project designed by them was completely different from the topic suggested by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for this year's competition on designs for future space settlements
When they started working on the project few months ago, little did these students know what their unconventional idea would entail. The project designed by them was completely different from the topic suggested by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for this year's competition on designs for future space settlements.
Their project, Anastasi, which is an underwater settlement, got two students, Ankita Phulia and Shashwat Goel. of Delhi Public School(DPS) RK Puram, won them the prestigious Grand Prize for the Space Settlement Contest by NASA Ames. Anastasi, which was laboriously conceptualised by the team along with their mentor, and senior, is about resurrecting life in the Dead Sea on the lines of space satellites that aim at inhabiting the outer world. "Dead sea does not have any life because of high salt content in water there. Anastasi would give us an insight into conditions of ocean and how the environment can be simulated into colonising,"shared Phulia, who is a class XI student of medical stream. She added that the low-cost orbital will identify regions in the sea that will be desalinated and marine life would be introduced there afterwards.
The victory, however, did not come easy to the students who are also members of the school's aerospace society which promotes budding talent in the field of science. Anil K Verma, physics teacher and project coordinator shared that the team was jittery while submitting the innovation as NASA had sought entries for space settlement designs. "They had already been researching and working hard on this innovation. Abandoning it and starting afresh was not feasible,"he said. So encouraged by Verma and the mentor, Aditya Sengupta, an old member of the society, the team took their chances and submitted Anastasi, which was accepted by NASA, as according to the teacher, it was a new idea for them as well.
Goel is currently visiting NASA to showcase Anastasi on behalf of the school. He will then represent his team, among hundreds of other winners from across the world, at the National Space Society's 36th annual International Space Development Conference.
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