Lucy PhD Eleonore Poli on her lifelong passion for space and aerospace engineering
Eleonore Poli is a PhD student from Lucy Cavendish College in Materials and Metallurgy. She has had a lifelong passion for space and aerospace engineering, which is why she pursues research in harsh environmental damage of coatings at the University of Cambridge. For her undergraduate studies, she researched materials for aerospace applications, and in 2019 was selected as an analogue astronaut and commander for the Asclepios I Genesis crew. Asclepios is a student-led organisation that recreates Moon environments for the simulation of space missions. The project had over a 100 students involved and a 250 000 Swiss francs budget. The analogue astronauts such as Eleonore were selected on a similar scheme as the astronauts for the European Space Agency, and trained in a similar fashion, with extreme environment training camps, space history, public speaking, health and safety, crew psychology. As part of 6 astronauts, they spent 8 days in the analogue moon base installed in an isolated area at Grimsel Test Site (GTS), without seeing direct sunlight or going out without a spacesuit. They followed a strict flight plan, and performed experiments, such as creating bioplastics, filtrating soil for future farming on Martian soil as well as performing geological mapping for unknown terrain exploration. The experiments will all serve on future space settlements as on the Moon and Mars, and had to be tested during the mission to observe the feasibility of such experiments with limited equipment and reduced conditions unlike the conditioned laboratories of Universities.
As an engineer and material scientist, Eleonore was fascinated by the environment of the base. The mission took place about 1730 m asl, 450 m under a mountain, at 1.5 km away from the exterior to the tunnel system, close to the Grimselpass in the Bernese Alps. The Grimsel Test Site is far from being isolated: scientists from around the world come to this place in the mountains to perform research for many decades and the site is in the vicinity of dams and KWO facilities, an important hydro power plant in the region. Surrounded by mountains, lakes and waterfalls, the place is dreamlike and yet hides an unanticipated research paradise…
NAGRA head Dr. Ingo Blechschmidt comments: ‘Numerous international research projects from all geoscientific and engineering fields provide information about the crystalline rock as a possible host formation for future deep geological repositories for radioactive waste, about the function of the engineered safety barriers and about the transport behaviour of contaminants in the barriers and in the rock. In addition, research projects, for example on geothermal energy or other basic research, are also carried out at the site with partners from universities or private companies. The Grimsel Test Site is an internationally recognised research, development and demonstration platform where know-how is generated and exchanged.’
After spending 8 days in the base inside the tunnel, going out only while wearing a spacesuit and following a strict flight-plan, Eleonore is still (or even more so!) in love with the site, and recommends it as a place for research and engineering.
Find more about Asclepios : https://asclepios.ch/
Find more about GTS : https://www.grimsel.com/
