The University of Arizona is one of the top space research schools in the world. It has led projects like OSIRIS-REx and built rovers and satellites. But this is just the start of Tucson’s role in space exploration.

The Center for Human Space Exploration or, CHaSE, program started in 2022 under the direction of founder Trent Tresch. Tresch began his work at Biosphere 2 and now leads CHaSE in new projects, such as spacesuit operations and developing a vacuum chamber in the newly built research center on campus. The program consists of Tresch, NASA intern Sean Young and a few other faculty members.

CHaSE is currently focusing on a competition facilitated by NASA called Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams or Micro-g NExT. According to Young, NASA submits a problem that needs to be fixed and teams from colleges nationwide submit their solutions to this problem. NASA then picks a few teams to test their ideas at the Johnson Space Center in NASA’s mutual buoyancy lab.

This year, NASA submitted three problems for teams to try to fix. The problem that CHaSE is focusing on is a contact sampling device for future Artemis missions.

“NASA is looking at taking humans back to the moon, the first woman and the first person of color, right? They’re calling these missions the Artemis missions,” Tresch said. The Artemis missions are also meant to follow past Apollo missions that occurred in the 1960s. According to NASA, Artemis is meant to be a stepping stone to getting humans back into space and to gather more information before making advancements to eventually travel to Mars. The Artemis missions will send people to the Moon in the spirit of scientific discovery and plans to test innovative technology on these missions when it comes to space travel.

The contact sampling device is a continuation of the ones used on the Apollo 16 mission, which was meant to bring parts of the Moon back to Earth for scientists to study. According to Young, the previously used contact sampling devices have been pretty bad and very simple, and they are looking for ways to improve the technology.

“We designed, we worked with another visiting researcher at U of A, and we developed a tool, and we submitted the proposal in late October, and so we’re waiting to hear back on that in early December, so fingers crossed,” Tresch said.

If they hear back, the next step is to do preliminary test designs with NASA, and they would likely use Biosphere 2 for this.

CHaSE has also been involved in interdisciplinary work across campus. The UA School of Medicine has been working with CHaSE through the Aerospace Medicine and Surgery Fellowship Program, APEX.

The idea of the APEX program is to train doctors to work in the aerospace field who may be able to provide medical duties when needed. In collaboration with CHaSE, doctors can now receive spacesuit training. At the end of the APEX program, doctors can work for SpaceX.

CHaSE has also been partnering with the UA School of Dance, a connection created during a four-week-long habitation sequence. The habitation sequences take place in the test module of Biosphere 2, and it is meant to replicate what it may be like for people to travel and stay on the Moon or Mars. One of these sequences included UA dance professor Elizabeth George, who later suggested allowing dance students to test out space suits for the program.

As the program develops, Tresch hopes to do more outreach to bridge the gaps between science and other fields. He is working on getting a connection with the School of Engineering. However, he is also open to more humanities and art departments.

“There’s kind of this missing gap in the middle […] where do we bring together the engineering and the human side? And that’s what I’ve been hoping CHaSE would be for,” Tresch said.

Tresch added that the program offers a single-day spacesuit training program open to all students interested and has no prerequisites.

“Maybe there will be more interdisciplinary opportunities through that […] Since it is open to everybody, it doesn’t matter if you’re in music or accounting or engineering, right?” Tresch said.

Tresch also described the students’ excitement when they discover a human space exploration program on campus and even more when they realize they don’t have to take hard math or science to participate.

Tresch mentioned how billionaires are willing to send artists and musicians to space to get the story of space through not just numbers but also art. He loves seeing students’ faces light up with joy when they enter a spacesuit and the laughter and giggles that follow when students see their peers inflated in the spacesuit.

“[We] get them to offer their feedback on the design and what they think could be better, because it’s just a different background, a different perspective,” Tresch said.

An example of this in the program is working on figuring out how to make space travel and spacesuits accessible to people with disabilities, as well as people who are deaf. Making a spacesuit where someone can sign through a space glove is very important, he said.

The total end goal of CHaSE is developing some sort of spacecraft, or what Young calls a “near spacecraft” that can exist in a vacuum chamber and can sustain human life in a craft without a spacesuit. This seems to be the new frontier of space exploration, and CHaSE hopes to be one of, if not the first, university program to develop such a craft. The capsule would be big enough to fit two people and require no spacesuits, as it would be completely pressurized.

“You’ve got people, humans and suits. Now we get humans and crafts as well. That’s kind of [the] two components of space exploration. And that is probably more than enough work to last us for the next half a decade,” Tresch said.

The CHaSE program is still developing, and while some of the plans and developments may take time, a bigger team and more funding, the future of space travel and research remains bright at UA.

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