An INTERVIEW with ASTRONAUT MICHAEL BARRATT

ISSUE 9 • 2010 www.nanooze.org

RIDING AN ELEVATOR INTO SPACE SMALLER AND SMALLER: NANOSATELLITES AND NANOGELLANTS NEW WAYS TO SEARCH FOR LIFE CHECK IT OUT! THE BIOSUIT TM ALL ABOUT THE THINGS TOO SMALL TO SEE

nanotechnology. Things like computer Web at www.nanooze.org, or just Welcome to Nanooze! chips, the latest trends in fashion, and Google “Nanooze”—you’ll find inter- What is a Nanooze? (Sounds like nah- even important stuff like bicycles and views with real scientists, the latest in sci- news.) Nanooze is not a thing, Nanooze tennis rackets. Nanooze was created ence news, games and more! is a place to hear about the latest ex- for kids, so inside you’ll find citing stuff in science and technology. interesting articles about What kind of stuff? Mostly discoveries what nanotechnology is and HOW CAN I GET NANOOZE IN MY CLASSROOM? about the part of our world that is too what it might mean to your small to see and making tiny things using future. Nanooze is on the Copies of Nanooze are free for classroom teachers. Please visit www.nanooze.org for more information or email a request for copies to [email protected].

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SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER. It’s kind So nanotechnology can help by making into space but is a medical doctor of an interesting place. Really huge, but things smaller and lighter. as well. So get ready to take off and also lots of open space. A big vacuum, spend some time learning about which means not a lot of molecules. Nanotechnology is also being used by nanotechnology and space. Maybe about a few hundred molecules scientists to develop better rocket fuels in a cubic meter. Compare that with 1025 that have more energy. But the big idea in the air at sea level on Earth. is to build a space elevator that will lift NANOTECHNOLOGYthings AND into orbit, includingOUTER people. To SPACE We Earthlings have always been do that we are going to need a really interested in space, since our beginning. strong, lightweight cable and that’s The night sky, the stars, constellations, where nanotechnology will also help. NANOTECHNOLOGY HELPS US EXPLORE all that stuff up there. After sending up Carbon nanotubes, which are stronger a few monkeys and dogs to make sure than steel and pretty lightweight, may WHAT’S OUT THERE. it was safe, man first went into space help solve some of the problems. over 60 years ago. Then, we sent people to the moon, and now, space travel is a This issue of Nanooze is devoted to relatively routine thing. nanotechnology in space. Not just the NANOTECHNOLOGY science itself, but some of the really neat CAN MAKE VISITING SPACE Nanotechnology can make visiting people who are involved in the science. A BIT EASIER. space a bit easier. It’s pretty expensive to launch things into space—it costs We even got to interview an astronaut, $10,000 a pound to get things up there! Michael Barratt, who not only went

Learning about nano stuff is fun but it can be can’t see them move? It’s hard to imagine that one thousand atoms! Scientists can map out the complex, so it helps to keep these four important each atom vibrates, but they are so tiny that it’s shapes of different molecules and can even build facts in mind: impossible to see them move with our eyes. most types of molecules in the lab. 1. All things are made of atoms. 3. Molecules have size and shape. 4. Molecules in their It’s true! Most stuff, like you, your dog, your tooth- Atoms bond together to form molecules that have nanometer-scale environment brush, your computer, is made entirely of atoms. different sizes and shapes. For instance, water have unexpected properties. Things like light, sound and electricity aren’t made is a small molecule made up of two hydrogen The rules at the nanometer scale are different of atoms, but the sun, the earth and the moon atoms and one oxygen atom, so it is called H2O. than what we usually encounter in our human- are all made of atoms. That’s a lot of atoms! And All water molecules have the same shape because sized environment. For instance, gravity doesn’t they’re incredibly small. In fact, you could lay one the bonds between the hydrogen atoms and the count because other forces are more powerful at million atoms across the head of a pin. oxygen atom are more or less the same angle. the molecular level. Static and surface tension become really important. What is cool about 2. At the nanometer scale, atoms Single molecules can be made up of thousands nanotechnology is that we can make things that are in constant motion. and thousands of atoms. Insulin is a molecule in don’t behave like we expect. Things are really Even when water is frozen into ice, the water our bodies that helps to control the amount of different down there!!

NANO KNOW-HOW molecules are still moving. So how come we sugar in our blood. It is made up of more than

2 nanooze • ISSUE 9 • 2010 & A Michael Barratt and crewmates with QAstronaut Michael Barratt aboard the ISS in 2009

You have a background in medicine Are you a SCUBA diver? I am! Aside from necessarily smell yourself. But things don’t and zoology? Yes, I have a degree in the mouse in the kite, I also built an get that dirty up there either because marine zoology from the University of underwater habitat for mice. I made a you don’t have that heavy contact with Washington, and then I went the medical cylindrical container out of plexiglas and your clothing like you do here, it’s just route. Now I’m a space medical doctor. would dive them down to 15 feet, and kind of loosely around you. At the same bring them up again. I couldn’t keep them time, you are exercising, you’re sweating, Did you like to do experiments when you down there very long though, because I and periodically we would ask each were young? Oh yeah. Once when I was couldn’t get the CO2 out, I didn’t get the other, “Hey, do I stink?”, “Am I OK to be about 9, I made a small gondola for a whole idea of applying pressure from the around?” And I can tell you that Koichi mouse, attached to a kite. I flew him up surface. didn’t stink. for about a half hour to see how he did. The gondola was made out of plastic What first comes to mind when you think What was the coolest thing about being bags with holes in it. I wanted to make of nanotechnology? What I envision is up at the International Space Station? It’s sure there were enough holes so he could the ability to have a really, really smart really hard to say. I rank three things breathe. In retrospect, he could have little machine that can get to a place of as almost equal. One of them is looking wriggled through them, he didn’t. disease or a tumor or a blood clot and take at the Earth, which is just astounding. it out slowly, early, carefully in a really Second, floating, flying from place to Did he come back? Oh yeah, he did fine! controlled fashion so you don’t do a big place. And the third thing is being at surgery and cause more damage in the the galley table with my shipmates. We Have you always been interested in science? process of curing the person. If a micro just had a blast sitting around the table, Yes. We lived on a farm, but my dad was a machine can destroy a tumor or impair playing with our food, which you can’t not chemical engineer. We had a big old barn its growth, that is going to be incredible do at zero gravity. where we rode horses, where I also had a medicine. small chemistry lab. We were breaking a You guys work pretty hard up there. few flammability codes there! Will we all get to ride in space elevator some We do. You definitely do, but you have to day? I hope so! If we do have a space have some together time. We’d eat for an What kind of chemistry experiments did you elevator, I will be near the front of the hour and a half and then we’d all go back like to do? I liked to throw lumps of sodium line to get on it. to work. But that time was just incredible. into water and watch them explode. I used to have tremendous fun with that! Probably be less stressful than going up in a rocket? Well, yes, rocket rides are very You have five kids. Are any of your kids exciting, there’s no question about that, going into science? They are all over but we need a more reliable and routine the map. One of them wants to be a way to get people and things to orbit. I librarian, she loves being around books think the technology is definitely possible, and information and stories. One is at and it is going to take materials science university doing computer science and advances way beyond what we have now. minoring in music. One wants to be a But they are within our grasp. And do we lawyer, and the other two are undecided. need it? Absolutely! My youngest has expressed interest in flying into space. We heard about Koichi Wakata’s nanotechnology-infused underwear that If you weren’t an astronaut, what do you he wore for an entire month. Oh yeah, imagine you would be doing instead? I get a lot of questions about that. The beauty of being an astronaut is it combines many things. I love Is it really true that it didn’t smell? oceanography, biology and medicine, so In space, we are always mindful of probably some kind of wilderness medicine our hygiene. You get kind of used to or diving medicine, something like that. the smells around you, and you can’t

www.nanooze.org 3 4 nanooze nanooze easier andlessexpensive. make thetripintospacealot A spaceelevatorcouldhelp A spaceelevator can already build very strong strong very build already can of Scientists pounds. thousands lift could it that strong so cable, strong avery, very take also would It long. 100 miles about very avery, take?it take would It impossible?Sound would What a button. press is have todo would you all orbit, into something put or space into up togo wanted you Then when someplace on Earth. other end would be anchored the and toasatellite attached be would elevator the of end elevator. aspace One about arescientists currently thinking Some elevator? an about How to space? to get way another there is But common. be might of trip sort that day Some prize. a$20 won million and of space reaches closest the to a plane flew of people agroup year this hour. Just an than more alittle in that cover could you air, the into up straight a car drive could If you Earth. of the surface the from 70 miles about only gins be away. Space far that not really is space But frontier. final the Space, AN ELEVATORTOSPACE? long •

ISSUE 9 ISSUE cable, probably

• 2010 counterweight

carbon nanotubecable nanotubes were only a few afew only were nanotubes carbon them, saw first Iijima nanometers wide. Back when afew only atube to form together linked atoms carbon Carbon nanotubes are just ahair. than thinner times that were strings a thousand skinny long, saw he microscope, powerful avery with crud the at looked he When crud. black some found and a furnace of inside looked who Iijima, Sumio scientist by Japanese 15 ago about years discovered nanotubeswere Carbon nanotubes. carbon by using is that todo way one and cables elevator

your car up the space elevator? space the up car your drive you could is, question next The not… Maybe impossible? other end Sound to the Earth. the and toasatellite end one hook and long 100 miles is that cable with nanotubes carbon tomake a is elevator space a making in step first the So steel. than stronger times 100 about strong, really are than they are wide. And they longer times of millions, not if nanotubes that are thousands, make carbon can we Now hundred nanometerslong. 200nm carbon nanotube Could carbonnanotubes of carbon nanotubes. carbon of microscope picture electron A scanning possible? Theoretically, make aspaceelevator cable tospacewould a carbonnanotube need tobeatleast A verylong - 100 mileslong.

Carbon nanotube SEM image courtesy of M. Zhang, University of Texas at Dallas Carbon nanotube SEM image courtesy of M. Zhang, University of Texas at Dallas COST TOLAUNCH:$20,000,000 WEIGHT: 2000lbs GPS Satellite cheap— isn’t space into things Getting where youare, weighabout ones thatare usedtotellyou example, aGPSsatellite,the scientists are tryingtodo.For That isexactlywhatsome things? So whynotmakereally small it coststosendintospace. The smallerthething,less you $100,000. pounds intospaceanditcosts $22,000 perkilogram).Send10 around $10,000apound(that’s space isn’t cheap—itcosts money. Gettingthingsinto why somethingscostalotof There are lotsofreasons again. go would he $35,000,000, said he space, in and days Twelve spacecraft. Soyuz Russian the and Station Space International the in out to He hang got space. visit and $35,000,000 arocket on about to ride paid show) cool way circus (that Soleil de Cirque started who guy the recently, Just LAUNCHING NANOSATELLITES BLAST OFF! COST TOLAUNCH:$6.25 WEIGHT: .01oz Bumblebee tcssaon 1,0 on . $10,000 apound around costs it to measure pollutioninthe pounds). Itcarriedinstruments weighed only3.5kg(about8 they namedCanX-2that Canada builtananosatellite the UniversityofToronto in A group ofstudentsfrom your hair—theyare pretty small. about 1/100,000thewidthof in one-billionthofameteror aren’t technically“nano”—as into space.Whiletheyreally ”nanosatellites” builtandshot There havebeenlotsof used tobuilditweighalot. of themachineryandmaterials 2,000 lbs.Why?Becausemost COST TOLAUNCH:$1,800,000 WEIGHT: 180lbs Clown COST TOLAUNCH:$80,000 WEIGHT: 8lbs CanX-2 are alotmore tobackitup. there, ifonedoesn’t workthere satellite. Withlotsofthemup formation actinglikeonebig one ideaistohavethemflyin to besentupintospaceand nanosatellites thatare going There are alotofother some nanometer-sized parts. greenhouse gasesalsohave the instrumentstomeasure nanometer-sized parts,and a lotoftheelectronics, have Parts ofthecomputers,and So where isthe“nano”? greenhouse gases. upper atmosphere, including COST TOLAUNCH:$600,000 COST TOLAUNCH:$1,000,000 WEIGHT: 100lbs You www.nanooze.org WEIGHT: 60lbs Your dog 5 Scanning electron microscope pictures of nanometer-sized nanogellants, a new kind of rocket fuel.

Getting into space is expensive, a lot faster and generate a lot more and it all depends on weight. The energy when they are made into heavier something is, the more it small particles. Rockets also use costs to get it up there. One of the liquid oxygen to help make these heaviest things on a rocket is the fuels burn. fuel, and that gets burned up just getting to space. Scientists are experimenting with nanoparticles and things called Sometimes the fuel nanogellants. Nanogellants are fuels that are cooled down to very is 98% of the total low temperatures, so low that weightSLIMMING of the rocket! fuelsDOWN that are gases at normal temperatures are liquids at these The amount of energy that you very low temperatures. get out of each particular fuel is different. Think about it, if you had Nanogellant fuels have very large 2% EVERYTHING ELSE to power a train from wood, that surface areas (the amount of surface would be a lot different than using for a certain weight), about 1000 maybe coal or diesel fuel. Wood has square meters per gram. A piece of about one-quarter of the energy wood has a surface area of around per pound compared with coal, and 0.001 square meters per gram. That diesel is about the same as coal. means that these nanogellants have So if you had a rocket that was about a million times greater surface powered by wood (crazy…) it would area than wood! take four times the amount of fuel. More surface area Rockets aren’t powered by wood (or coal or diesel fuel), but means more energy nanotechnology can help make generated. rocket fuel more powerful. Materials More energy from a fuel means you at the nanoscale have unexpected

can shoot more stuff into space. 98% FUEL! properties. As you make things smaller they sometimes behave differently. Fuels (like gasoline or something called hydrazine) burn

FUEL PROPORTION BY WEIGHT

Will nanogellant fuels help us send heavy things into space more easily?

6 nanooze • ISSUE 9 • 2010 We are not alone. There are billions of stars The big problem is that most PCR involves Scientists are using and lots of planets that are orbiting those a whole lot of complicated steps and stars, so there is some probability that pipetting tiny amounts of solutions. That’s nanotechnology to there is life somewhere else besides Earth. fine if you’re on Earth, but now we are on build an instrument And we aren’t even talking about people, Mars. Nanotechnology to the rescue! like your friends or family, just something that will look for life that might be living. Scientists working on the Search for on Mars. Extraterrestrial Genomes (SETG) project Scientists looking for evidence of life are using nanotechnology to build an aren’t even going that far, maybe just instrument that will look for life on Mars. to Mars, a mere 36 million miles away. So how do they do it? Well, they are using LOOKINGThey are searching for different kinds FORnanotechnology LIFE to create tiny chambers of molecules—like water and organic for conducting PCR that are so small that molecules—that are found in living they hold only a nanoliter. There are a things. And that is exactly what they billion nanoliters in a liter and a drop from did on Mars using the rovers Spirit and your faucet is like 50,000 nanoliters. Since Opportunity. the chambers are so small, you can fit a few thousand on a “chip” that’s less than Looking for more the size of a postage stamp. complicated molecules So what kind of life might we find on like DNA is a lot harder. Mars? Well, about 4 billion years ago, a lot of meteors passed between Mars and the One way to look for DNA is to use the Earth. Ancient microbes may have hitched

polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a cool a ride on one of them and smacked onto courtesy of NASA technique invented in the 1980s to Mars. Anything on the surface of the A Scanning Electron Microscope image duplicate DNA. PCR has been used for a meteorite would have been singed to a of the Allen Hills Meteorite, which came lot of different things, from detecting crisp on the way through space, but a from Mars, shows possible signs of fossilized microbial activity. diseases to recovering dinosaur DNA from large enough meteorite could still have ancient samples of amber. So why not use had some “bugs” living inside of it. it to find life on another planet?

To test their prototype PCR device, the SETG team traveled to the volcanic, Mars-like terrain of South America.

Regular PCR tubes are about an inch tall. The SETG team is making them much, much smaller.

This 0.8 inch by 0.8 inch microfluidic chip is part of the SETG instrument that performs PCR. The blue light illuminates the fluorescent dyes that help identify and At the foot of the volcano Copahue, on the analyze DNA. border between Argentina and Chile. Left to right: Clarissa Lui; Nicolas, our local guide; and Field testing in the lower Rio Cyrus Vafadari. Agrio Valley, Argentina, against a backdrop of giant araucaria trees, a species that has been relatively unchanged since the Jurassic era. www.nanooze.org 7 Building a Better Space Suit Professor Dava Newman testing out her invention.

Dava Newman, professor and aerospace engineer at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has invented a new TM space suit, called the BioSuit™, that could revolutionize human space travel. How does it work, and why are giraffes important? Read on to find out!

What kind of properties are important for BioSuits? The BioSuit design relies on mechanical counter pressure (MCP) to “squeeze” the astronaut and apply sufficient pressure to keep him/her alive. The material properties of the spacesuit need to be quite elastic, robust and easy to put on and take off. The fabric suit provides tension in order to apply constant pressure over your body and keep you alive.

Are there special types of materials that you see in nature that might be useful for this kind of application? The materials that we incorporate into the BioSuit THEinclude passive elastics, BIOSUITkind of like a nylon-spandex my early BioSuit designs. Have you ever thought to suit for athletes, and then we use active materials to yourself, “Why don’t giraffes pass out when they raise provide additional pressure. Active materials are not their heads almost four meters, from eating off the found in nature, but need to be produced in our research ground to stretching as high as they can reach to the laboratories. One of my favorite active materials is “muscle tops of the trees?” If we jump out of bed in the morning, wire” or shape memory alloys. A typical muscle wire is sometimes we feel faint. This is because when we jump made from a combination of nickel and titanium, which are out of bed quickly our hearts have to pump blood up each natural elements, but we need to combine them into to our heads instantaneously. How do giraffes do that an active material, sometimes called NiTi, to use them in when they have such long, skinny necks? I believe the our designs. answer lies in giraffes’ strong neck muscles that squeeze blood, a lot of blood, up their necks to their heads almost You mentioned about being interested in giraffes? Professor Dava Newman, Inventor, MIT: Science and Engineering / Guillermo Trotti, A.I.A., Trotti and Associates, Inc. (Cambridge, MA): Design / Dainese (Vicenza, Italy): Fabrication / Dougas Sonders: Photography instantaneously as the giraffes are raising their heads. This What kind of things interest you? natural design is like the giraffes having their own G-suit. As an aerospace engineer, I’m always inspired by nature and nature’s design. For example, I studied giraffes and How do you test your suits? especially their neck muscles when I was formulating I test our prototype suits on human subjects and on a robotic spacesuit tester. We measure the actual pressure that we can create on the person’s skin with paper-thin pressure sensors. Then we also test our prototypes on a life-sized robot that I have in the lab.

Tiny bundles of spandex fibers make clothing stretchy. The passive elastic material used to make the BioSuit is a

spandex-like material. © BASF © Volker Steger © Volker Graduate student Kristen Bethke, working on a BioSuit prototype. 1000nm

8 nanooze • ISSUE 9 • 2010