Since January 2021 SAM has been designed and built by a dedicated, talented team of volunteers and staff who have lived and worked together at Biosphere 2, from a few days to a year or more at a time. It is their tireless dedication to quality fabrication that has made SAM possible with a limited budget and demanding time frame.
FABRICATION
Matthias Beach — Electrical, metal, wood and everything in between!
Sean Gellenbeck — Hydroponics and CO2 scrubber design lead
Bindhu Oommen — Operations knowledge capture, Med Bay design, IRB lead
Luna Powell — Hydroponics, Systems Trainer, Chaos Wrangler
Kai Staats — Director of Research, Project Lead
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
Tasha Coelho, Planetary Geologist student, Arizona State University
Leonardo Buono, Filmmaker and 3D modeler
Jason Francios, Architect and 3D modeler
James Knox, Aerospace Engineer, formerly with NASA
Bryan Versteeg, Space Architect
Prior team members (in alphabetical order):
Colleen Cooley
Robert David
Angus G.
Grant Hawkins
Trenton Kenney
Natasha Loving
Amin Mody
Natasha Nichols
Mason Robbins
Greg Ross
Nathan Schmit
KC Shasteen
Anastasia Stepanova
Trent Tresch
Rob Ronci and Jolene Varga
John Zelenky
Aaron, John, Tim, Terry, and the Biosphere 2 staff.
UA Engineering 498, 2020-21
University of Arizona Engineering 498 Capstone team members designed and built a working, scaled prototype of an Automated Pressure Regulation System for SAM. A full-scale system will be built on the foundation of their design to work in conjunction with the Test Module’s lung. Students: Ahmed Alraeesi, James Marlar, Meghan Marlowe, Nathan Moeller, Coby Scheidemantel, Gustavo Velez, Arfan Wibisono
UA Engineering 498, 2021-22
University of Arizona Engineering 498 Capstone team members are designing and building a working, scaled prototype of a solid-state, swing bed CO2 scrubber. This Mars X-Hab project is funded by NASA, and guided by experts at NASA in CO2 scrubbing research and applications. Students: Brianna Otero, Grace Halferty, Joaquin Pesqueira, Kenneth Werrell, William Fowler