This free badged open course, Microgravity: living on the International Space Station, will help you to consider microgravity environments in more detail than before! You will make direct ...
Overview
Syllabus
- Introduction and guidance
- Introduction and guidance
- What is a badged course?
- How to get a badge
- Acknowledgements
- Week1Week 1 Microgravity and the International Space Station
- Introduction
- 1 Microgravity and the ‘vomit comet’
- 2 The International Space Station
- 3 How astronauts get up there
- 3.1 How to launch a rocket
- 3.2 Location of launch sites
- 4 How the ISS stays up there
- 4.1 Practical experiment 1
- 5 Is there any gravity on the ISS?
- 6 This week’s quiz
- 7 Summary
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week2Week 2 Ageing and microgravity environments
- Introduction
- 1 An introduction to ageing
- 2 Ageing forecasts by country
- 3 Bed rest and ageing
- 4 Reducing the effects of ageing in a microgravity environment
- 5 Research on astronauts and the ageing process
- 6 Measuring your heart and respiration rates
- 6.1 Practical experiment 2
- 7 Comparing the heart rates of animals and human beings
- 8 Preparing for the bread mold experiment
- 9 This week’s quiz
- 10 Summary
- Acknowledgements
- Week3Week 3 The quantum world
- Introduction
- 1 Research areas and orders of magnitude
- 2 An introduction to quantum science
- 3 Diffraction of waves
- 4 Sodium D-lines and the hydrogen atom
- 5 Quantum energy levels
- 6 The double-slit experiment
- 7 LASER cooling: researching quantum effects
- 8 Gravity, timing and metrology
- 9 Communication and security
- 10 This week’s quiz
- 11 Summary
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week4Week 4 Researching online sources
- Introduction
- 1 Do weird physics effects also occur in nature?
- 2 Microgravity research and its impact
- 2.1 Disciplines in space research
- 2.2 PROMPT criteria
- 3 Travelling to Mars
- 4 This week’s quiz
- 5 Summary
- Acknowledgements
- Week5Week 5 Bacteria and fungi
- Introduction
- 1 Microbes, bacteria and fungi
- 2 Your bread mold experiment and yeast
- 3 ‘Space bugs’
- 4 Random positioning machines
- 5 Can microbes survive elsewhere in the Universe?
- 6 The habitability of planets
- 7 This week’s quiz
- 8 Summary
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week6Week 6 Microgravity environments on Earth
- Introduction
- 1 Felix Baumgartner’s record freefall jump
- 2 Using drop towers to simulate microgravity
- 3 Practical experiment 3
- 4 Forming planets: an introduction
- 5 Forming planets: using models
- 6 This week’s quiz
- 7 Summary
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week7Week 7 Space exploration and science
- Introduction
- 1 How much does the ISS cost?
- 2 How much does space exploration cost NASA?
- 3 How much does space exploration cost the USA?
- 4 How much do space missions cost the world?
- 5 Space research and its impact on social issues and problems
- 6 Is there a difference between ‘good science’ and ‘bad science’?
- 7 This week’s quiz
- 8 Summary
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week8Week 8 To the ISS, Moon and Mars!
- Introduction
- 1 The astronaut challenge
- 2 Astronauts: do you have what it takes?
- 3 Human exploration
- 4 Current and future microgravity research
- 5 This week’s quiz
- 6 Summary
- Take the next step
- Tell us what you think
- References
- Acknowledgements
