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<\/a>A group of students at Duke began the project after attending last year\u2019s Humans 2 Mars Summit, where they noticed a common thread: \u201cA lot of the presentations were focused on [getting to Mars] first, rather than advancing mankind,\u201d says Emily Briere, a Duke student who is serving as \u201cmission director\u201d on the project.<\/p>\nSo the group decided to build a \u201ctime capsule of humanity,\u201d and encourage other students to participate. \u201cWe wanted to get students involved, get the world really excited, and test out some new technologies,\u201d Briere says.<\/p>\n
Since then, the project has gained a high profile: it is officially a project of Explore Mars Inc., a nonprofit organization that aims to help send humans to Mars within two decades, and advisors include Edwin \u201cBuzz\u201d Aldrin, the retired NASA astronaut who was the second person to set foot on the moon.<\/p>\n
The students plan to raise $25 million through crowdfunding, charging as little as 99 cents to send a message on the time capsule, which they hope to launch in 2017. The project could be the largest crowdfunding effort in history, according to Briere.<\/p>\n
Each student group will take the lead on a different aspect of the project. UConn students are tasked with figuring out what materials to use.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of challenges with getting this to Mars,\u201d notes Professor Daniel Burkey, associate dean for undergraduate education & diversity in the School of Engineering. \u201cWhat do they build this craft out of? How do they get it to survive the surface?\u201d<\/p>\n
UConn\u2019s expertise in the field \u2013 including the Institute of Materials Science \u2013 should serve the students well in this venture, Burkey says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s our job to design something, or come up with a material, that\u2019s going to withstand the atmosphere of Mars, withstand the trip, and that\u2019s not going to corrode or break down easily,\u201d says Alexandra Merkouriou \u201915 (ENG), president of the Material Advantage student chapter. \u201cIt\u2019ll be a fun challenge to find something that meets all the requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
The time capsule, a small sphere, could contain millions of digitally encoded messages, pictures, and videos. It will be sent on a CubeSat \u2013 a type of nano-satellite that is inexpensive and easy to build, making it a popular platform for student space experiments. The satellites are about 4 inches in diameter and weigh about two pounds, and several can be attached to a spacecraft at a time.<\/p>\n
The time capsule will be built on the CubeSat platform. The spacecraft will be propelled using a method called ion electrospray, and the time capsule will essentially be thrown at Mars once it gets close to the planet, according to Burkey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re just going to hope gravity catches it and sucks it in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
If successful, the Time Capsule would be the first CubeSat flown to another planet.<\/p>\n
Although many of the details are still in the early planning stages, the UConn students and professors who are involved are thrilled to participate.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless of whether it\u2019s successful or not, it\u2019s an incredible experience for the students. I think it generates excitement about engineering; it\u2019s a positive use of science, math, and engineering,\u201d Burkey says. \u201cIt\u2019s very collaborative \u2026 It really is sort of a microcosm of how they\u2019re going to work as engineers in the real world. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it works, they get to say, \u2018Hey, I designed something that went to Mars,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cEven if it never goes anywhere, it\u2019s still pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Learn more about the Time Capsule to Mars at www.timecapsuletomars.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UConn students majoring in materials science and engineering work on Mars time capsule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":224450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[63],"class_list":["post-18722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 20:22:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18722"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224453,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18722\/revisions\/224453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/224450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18722"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=18722"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>A group of students at Duke began the project after attending last year\u2019s Humans 2 Mars Summit, where they noticed a common thread: \u201cA lot of the presentations were focused on [getting to Mars] first, rather than advancing mankind,\u201d says Emily Briere, a Duke student who is serving as \u201cmission director\u201d on the project.<\/p>\n