During the summer, and in conjunction with NASA, the Virginia Space Grant consortium ran a summer ‘Academy’ for students. During the week long course students used Krucible to understand the physics behind getting to Mars and back. They then used Krucible to present their plans to NASA scientists.

Each year the Virginia Space Grant Consortium (see vasts.spacegrant.org) run an online course for students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The students study STEM through modules designed with NASA and covering space technology. The best of the students are invited to a summer Academy based at NASA’s enigmatic and highly secure Langley Research Center (sic).

During the weeklong Academy students work in teams under the scrutiny of NASA scientists to plan a manned trip to Mars. As well as figuring out how to get them and their equipment there and back safely, they have to plan how to live and work there for a period along with what experiments to carry out.

The students used Krucible to understand the physics behind getting a vehicle from earth to Mars, looking at the equations of motion, how forces interact and the effects of varying gravitational fields. The open-ended nature of Krucible allowed students to vary the parameters involved and to experiment in the safety of a virtual laboratory. They could then use that information to plan the trip, safe in the knowledge that what they saw in the lab would be repeated in space.

The week culminates in the teams presenting their plans to a panel of NASA scientist who pull no punches when it comes to analysing their plans. With Krucible in their armoury they were ready for the task.

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