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Article: Deep Space Deep Freeze
- Article from:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Article date:
- August 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright American Society of Mechanical Engineers Aug 2005. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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The vacuum of space is unfathomably cold; in the shade, temperatures are as cold as minus 250°F. So keeping material samples aboard the International Space Station at a mere minus 300 ought to be not much more complicated than sitting them on the windowsill to cool.
But it's not that simple, says engineer David Ray of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering. "You need to have crew interaction with the samples in the freezer," Ray said. "It's got to be part of a human-friendly environment."
NASA recently selected a design created by the UAB team for a high-tech freezer for the space station and the shuttle, which would be used for storing ...