SMC Student to Fly with NASA

By Jason Islas
Special to the Lookout

June 15, 2011 – Santa Monica College student Avital Levi is on her way to NASA's Johnson's Space Center in Houston this week, where she'll get to study methods of fueling nano satellites in a zero gravity environment.

Avital Levi ready to take off as a scientist. (Photo courtesy of Santa Monica College)

Levi and a team of other students from around the country will fly in a plane that simulates zero gravity by flying in parabolic pattern; the plane climbs to a high altitude and then dives for approximately 30 seconds, during which time the passengers experience weightlessness.

“Not many students have these kinds of opportunities,” Levi told The Lookout.

“We're looking to see how the lack of gravity changes how water moves through membranes,” Levi said.

She explained that this has implications for fueling “nano satellites,” which, she said, is just a fancy way of saying a small satellite.

Levi and her fellow team members will observe how, under the zero gravity conditions, water passes through the membranes of their model satellite, a ten-by-ten centimeter “box you can hold in both your hands.”

University students from around the country who submitted project proposals were invited to participate, but Levi and her team are the only community college students going.

Levi said she was grateful for the chance to have such a hands-on experience, adding that “it's important for someone in science to actually do science and not just study,” she said.

She is no stranger to hands-on experiences, either.

Last fall, Levi and a team of students from around the country, designed and built a prototype Mars rover which they tested over three days at the Johnson Space Center.

They found that their design had some kinks that needed to be worked out, Levi said, but that it was a great learning experience.

When Levi, the 20 year-old daughter of Iranian immigrants who settled in Beverly Hills, started at SMC in 2008, she had intended either to study math or physics, but after she took a course on electricity and magnetism last year, she decided that she wanted to major in electrical engineering.

Now, she will be transferring to the University of Southern California in the fall where she will continue her studies.

Though Levi is uncertain where the future will take her, she is certain that she will go on to study at the graduate level.