Misty Bentz has an interesting schedule. On a given morning you might find her considering stage props for third grade science classes where she teaches astronomy fundamentals—the phases of the moon, seasonal changes and the names of the planets in our solar system. And later that same day, you might find her working at the University of Washington with a research team whose goal is to build a spacecraft powered by solar winds.

The disjunction isn’t as great as it might seem at first.

Teaching astronomy to kids is part of Project ARTS, sponsored in part by NASA and intended to draw young people into a science education track. The spacecraft research at the UW also is sponsored by NASA, and might one day provide a tool today’s grade school kids use to investigate the planets they’re just now learning about.

“It’s an exciting research program,” Misty says. “The formal name is the Mini Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion system—M2P2 for short.” In the most simplistic terms, the idea is that a large bubble with ionized plasma walls held by a magnetic field would act as a kind of sail when acted on by the charged particles in solar winds. The bubble would be quite large—about 30 kilometers in diameter. The solar winds travel at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and since there’s no friction in the vacuum of space, the spacecraft could travel at very high speeds.

“My involvement is a lot more down-to-earth. I build circuit boards, clean the vacuum chamber, and calibrate equipment. Still it’s exciting to have an opportunity to learn from leaders in this research. Besides, my long-term goal is to be an astronaut. Who knows, I might someday fly in a spacecraft powered by solar winds.”

isty is part of a research team that includes two other undergraduates, Luke Winstrom and Ben Warrick, and one graduate student, Tim Ziemba. All of them are taking classes and working toward degrees as well as participating in this front-line research. In her description of her contributions to the program, Misty is being modest, and under-represents her role. These students are making important contributions and providing fresh eyes and enthusiasm. They add to the vitality of the research program. As in most complex efforts, there’s always a certain amount of grunt work to do. And everybody pitches in. It’s good for the soul as well as the successful completion of the work. But everyone also participates in conducting experiments. Two members of the team already have had the opportunity to travel to Huntsville, Alabama, for key tests at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center facilities there. Our goal, and NASA’s, is to build a prototype M2P2 and confirm the practicality of a spacecraft that could travel at about 400 kilometers a second. That’s fairly rapid in terms of what we’re accustomed to on earth. For example, something moving at that speed could cover the distance between Seattle and Washington DC in about 10 seconds. An M2P2 craft launched in the next few years could actually pass other space probes launched years ago, giving scientists more data, faster, about the outer reaches of our solar system.

Dr. Robert Winglee
Professor, Geophysics Program

Dr. John Slough
Research Professor, Aeronautics & Astronautics