Spacex Falcon 9 Essay

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roars into space on a CRS-12 mission, with our experiment on board, destined for NASA's International Space Station on August 14, 2017. My heart pounded harder than the ground shook below me as the rocket fire tail pierced through the blue sky above me. The experiment is designed to examine the efficacy of different radiation-shielding materials on E. coli bacteria, and I aspire to use the results from this study make astronautics safer in a cost-effective way for future space expeditions. Prolonged exposure to ionizing radiation puts astronauts in hazardous carcinogenic conditions.
Watching the needle weave in and out of the cotton clouds my memory faded and my world flashed back before my eyes. I drifted from NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in sultry Florida to the middle

It was a scene from a science-fiction horror film. Notes were flying in every direction. Perpetuating ideas from different backgrounds of science, from simple design models to the physics calculations for the Geiger counter, every detail contributed to the ever-growing mountain in the trash bin. My teammates and I encountered logistical hurdles, financial roadblocks, and feasibility snags as our study progressed. We kept reminding ourselves of the following quote by Paul Brandt: "Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon." Each one of us had distinct expertise yet shared the same zeal for problem-solving. The impetus of this scientific challenge brought on collaboration and commonality. Our experiment survived the elimination rounds after it was judged on concept, design, precision, and reliability while being feasible and cost-effective. Encouraged and invigorated, we persisted to iron out the tiniest of kinks of what in four months would be the award-winning science experiment to the International Space